Worm Bins
Can-O-Worms Worm Bin
Designed for indoor or outdoor use, the Can-O-Worms worm bin is made from 100% recycled plastic and will fit almost anywhere. It is 20 inches in diameter and only 29 inches tall when all three trays are in place. There are five air vents in the legs and air holes in the lid, along with mesh bottoms in each of the three trays. The trays are filled up to three inches deep, allowing for continuous air flow to encourage the proper aerobic conditions for rapid, odor-free vermicompost processing.
The stacking tray system allows you to use food trays as needed. When one tray fills with vermicompost and castings, you add the next tray and put your scraps into it. Once the third tray is full, the bottom tray is removed and emptied and becomes the top tray again.
The holes in the bottom of the trays allow the worms to "eat their way up" leaving the valuable castings behind to be easily removed for use on plants. In nature, the worms want to be on the top six inches of soil, so when the bottom tray is finished and the top tray is full, the worms move up, out of the finished castings.
Vent holes on the top and bottom allow for aerobic conditions without allowing insects in.
A tap on the system allows you to collect the liquid produced (worm tea) to use as a liquid fertilizer for all your plants.
Your Can-O-Worm home worm farm can hold 12,000 to 15,000 worms (12 to 15 lbs). We recommend starting with 2 to 3 lbs of redworms.
Redworms can consume and convert into castings their weight a week in organic materials. Getting this kind of production from your worm bin requires management of moisture, temperature, and amount fed to the worms. Controlling temperatures to around 75 degrees will improve the overall performance of your system.
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What to Feed your Redworms?
As a guide, redworms will eat anything that was once living. This includes:
• Left over vegetable scraps, fruit and vegetable peelings
• Tea leaves and coffee grounds
• Torn up newspapers, egg or pizza cartons (soaked in water first)
• Crushed egg shells (these will help the ph balance of your worm farm)
• Worms will also eat more if kitchen scraps are mashed, blended, or food processed.
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Worm Wigwam Flow-Through Worm Bin
Flow-through bins are the least labor intensive way to make vermicompost. Kitchen scraps and other organic matter go in the top, and vermicompost comes out the bottom. Because compost type earthworms stay near the top of the bedding, and cocoons hatch before the material they were laid in reaches the bottom, very few worms will be lost.
Because this bin is insulated, the thermostatically controlled heater keeps the bedding at an ideal 74 degree temperature during winter months using a maximum of 84 watts. Using the proper species of compost worms, they will double in population every two months when kept at this ideal temperature.
After the worm population reaches the maximum capacity of the bin, you will be able to remove half of the worms every other month, or 1/4 of the worms every month. By developing a local market for your worms, the bin could pay for itself in a year while supplying you with the absolute best known fertilizer for your houseplants and garden.
Overall dimensions are 3 feet wide by 3 feet tall. Ventilation holes are located at both the top and bottom. The grate and crank assembly are galvanized, and then coated with a durable baked-on finish. Stock with 5 to 10 pounds of worms (preferrably Eisenia fetida) The bin will easily support a population of 20 lbs of worms by the time it fills up and you start cranking out castings.
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