Today is my first day of truly vermicomposting! My husband and I purchased a Worm Factory 360 which arrived in our home one week ago. We ordered 1 pound of red wriggler composting worms (roughly 1,000 worms) from a worm farm in Pennsylvania and started saving up our produce scraps. Two days ago we filled the Worm Factory with our food scraps and plenty of moist bedding (mostly shredded newspaper). Then today our worms arrived. We placed them in our bin, and TADA, it's vermicomposting!
It will take a little while for the worms to get used to their new home. They were shipped in some dry moss, so they looked pretty dehydrated. When we placed them in the bin this morning, some were moving around more than others. We gave them a spritzing of water and I'm hoping that they can all perk up and start exploring the bin today.
Their first meal consists of a variety of goodies. There's some broccoli stalk, carrot peels, bell pepper stems, celery trimmings, orange peels, egg shells, used coffee grounds (with the filters), and used tea leaves (with the tea bags). That's all organic waste that would normally end up inside a plastic trash bag then dumped into a landfill. Landfills don't aerate, so the food takes longer to decompose, and the trash bag takes much longer to break down. Inside the compost bin, the worms should turn it into soil in just a few months.
In case you can't tell, I'm really excited about this project! I'll be sure to check in with more updates soon.
Ready for my closeup.
3 years ago
I'll admit, I was a little worried about them when I first saw them, but I'm sure they'll perk up by time we get back home to check on them. We'll have a healthy squirm in no time!
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