Table of Contents

What is a Worm Factory anyway?

Why do I want to make Vermicompost?

What is the difference between compost from a composter and vermicompost?

Why compost with worms?

What kind of worms are used in worm composters?

Step by step worm bedding.

Getting Started

What is a Worm Factory anyway? It sounds like a place to make worms out of parts.

The Worm Factory is a composter that is designed to meet the needs of worms to enable them to convert waste material into worm castings in a way that is simple and easy to harvest the worm castings. The Worm Factory is made up of recycled plastic trays that are interchangable. The moving around of the trays greatly speeds up the process of being able to harvest the worm castings and enable the worms to move on to another tray to begin to convert the fresh contents in it into more castings. The castings are called worm castings, or vermicompost. The process of keeping a worm factory working and making worm castings is called vermiculture.

Terracota Three Tray Worm Composter

There are different ways to keep worms, but after experiencing most of them, I find The Worm Factory, pictured here and sold at 4seasongreenhouse.com is, by far, the easiest (translate that 'smartest') way to harvest vermicompost. It is ten times more efficient and easier to get castings from that do not have a bunch of worms in it. You don't want to 'harvest' worms with the castings because you want them to stay behind and keep on working for you, making more castings.

Removing worms from the castings in other types of worm beds is very time consuming. In The Worm Factory, the worms automatically move from one tray to another as soon as they finish eating everything, leaving behind a tray of worm castings. You then simply remove that tray and empty the contents into a container, refill it with fresh worm bedding and place it on top of the other working trays.

If you see a few worms left in the bottom tray, all you have to do is place it on the upper tray, leave the lid off and stir it a few times a day. The worms will migrate downward into the tray below, as they do not appreciate light and move away from it. When you stir it and see no more worms, it's ready to be removed from the tray and used.

Why do I want to make vermicompost?

Because vermicompost is what will save the earth from the damage mankind has done to it. This may sound like an overly broad-sweeping statement, but if you examine the subject thoroughly, you will see why. The soil in which we grow our food and other plants affects the quality of those plants. The micro-organisms (all those tiny creatures you cannot see without a microscope) and larger living creatures that reside in the soil all impact their environment. They feed on each other as well as other things present in the soil and leave behind castings that are chemically broken down.

The roots of growing plants search for and suck up these chemical compounds with the aid of water present. The water is like the straw humans use to get food inside. The chemicals are the vitamins inside the liquid. Both moisture and the chemicals need to be present to enable the plant to survive. The type of compounds your plant is able to suck up and feed on is determined by what is present in the soil. If we want healthy and vigorous plants we must feed them the best food. And that is vermicompost.

What is the difference between vermicompost and compost from a composter?

Composters convert leaves, grass, kitchen waste and other organic natural materials into a nutrient-rich, loamy soil amendment that will feed your plants and change the texture of the soil so it will hold enough water and allow excess water to perculate out. The nutrients that are in compost may or may not be immediately available to the plant roots. It takes further breaking down of the material to make them available.

That is where the micro-organisms and worms come into the picture. They eat the compost and convert it to vermicompost, which is then available for the plant roots to use. Vermicompost is the final phase of the composting process. When we make vermicompost, we are creating a product that is going to feed the plants instantly; boosting their growing ability, health and production quicker. Plants respond quickly to the availablity of nutrients on the chemical compound level and it shows up in their growth and color.

Why Compost with Worms?

A composting worm bin system is an incredibly efficient and effective way to quickly convert your kitchen waste, cardboard, newspaper, junk mail, dried leaves and most other organic materials into the most nutrient rich compost for your plants, planters, flower beds and garden.

In nature, once-living material is slowly broken down into the nutrients that plants use. It is an ongoing process in nature's food chain. You will see it happening if you leave the grass clippings on your lawn; they dry up and then sink down between the blades of the uncut grass. This is now called thatch. If you leave the thatch alone, the layer that is on the bottom, touching the soil will begin to compost, the micro-organisms in the soil will begin to work on it, eating it and converting it.

Those micro-organisms and larger creatures like worms, will only be able to work on the portion of thatch they can reach, which is why the bottom layer is what is composted first. As that layer is slowly process, the upper layers sink lower into contact with the soil and provide food for those micro-organisms, worms, etc. This entire process can take up to two years to complete. If you continue to cut the lawn and leave more clippings on it, the process will never be entirely finished, as it has new fresh material to work on.

We greatly speed up this natural process when we use a worm compost bin system to recycle the natural materials. We gather the material up, and place it where the worms can get to it much quicker and with many worms present, they go to work on it and quickly convert it in as little as one month, as compared to 2 years or more.

In full operation, a worm composter, which is called a vermicomposter, can house 10,000 to 12,000 worms. That is a lot of eating power. They can process up to 5 pounds of material every week. That would probably be all the junk mail and kitchen waste a household creates each week.

If every household in America maintained a vermicomposter just for junk mail, newspapers and kitchen waste, the impact on our waste disposal systems (dumps) would be phenomenal in scope. For decades, the way mankind exists on earth (on average), has moved so far away from allowing nature to take it's natural course of recycling and replenishing the soil, we now have to make an effort to assist Mother Nature to bring back the balance needed to sustain her and us.

We also desire to live in areas that in the natural state do not provide for good gardening, like the desert states. Since people like to eat and garden, no matter where they live, we help nature along by providing the best materials needed to make it happen. Composting with worms is the most effective way to do that.

What kind of worms are used in worm composters?

Different worm species have different behavioral patterns. There are worms that live six feet underground, and worms that live in the ocean. The best worm to use in a worm composter is the red wriggler, or Eisenia fetida. Using worms that are going to be happy where you want to put them just makes good sense. The behavior of red wrigglers is perfect for the job we want them to do. They are very ferocious feeders, they reproduce quickly, and they move readily between the upper and lower layers, staying mostly at a certain level below the surface. Most of us have turned over a log or board and found worms on the surface. Once we move the board, the worms go underground because they do not like light. We are utilizing the natural behavior patterns of the red wriggler to our advantage in the worm factory bins. This is less stressful on the worms and makes it super easy to harvest the finished vermicompost.

The Red Wriggler

Where do I get red wrigglers (Eisenia fetida)?

When you purchase your worms, make sure you are getting the right kind of red worm, as the different species are difficult to tell apart. They are sometimes available at bait shops, or you can find them on the web. Try to buy them locally, as they won't be as stressed by a long shipping trip. You can start with just 1/2 pound of worms, about 500, as they will multiply. You can go to FindWorms.com on the web to find the closest dealers. You may want to look around to compare prices, shipping fees and guarantees.

Step by Step Worm Bedding

Your Worm Factory arrives with a brick of coir and bag of shredded paper to make the worm bedding with. Once that is put into the worm factory, you should begin to think about gathering the materials needed for future bedding, which will come in as little as one month, depending on how many worms are in your factory. Paper is easy to come by. Any paper you use should be shredded first. Substitutes can be made for the paper and coir, but the end results will look different and not be as easy to harvest. Therefore, I recommend you shred scrap paper without the plastic windows in envelopes, but glue is fine, and that you purchase a case of coir to mix with the paper to get the right texture and ventilation the worms like.

I mixed my first batch in the dining room, but it is a little messy and works better as an outdoor activity. You will need a bucket of water to soak the coir. It really soaks it up, so put a lot of water in a bucket and let the coir soak it up, it may take up to 30 minutes.	Recycled paper

If you check the brick after 10-20 minutes, and it has absorbed all or most of the water, add some more to the bucket. Any excess water will be absorbed by the paper when you add it.	This is what the damp coir and paper look like mixed together.

Any clumps of coir that are present should be broken apart so none of it stays dry and it makes a nice 'fluffy' bedding. Now you are ready to add the shredded paper that has been accumulating all over the house. You will have to put your hands or a stick into the bucket to really mix it up well. The paper has a tendency to stick together, so mixing with the hands makes it easier to seperate clumps of paper and get a feel for how wet everything it. You can let it soak for a while and in the meantime, you can empty any finished trays the worms have completely processed. Start with the bottom tray. If worms are still present, place it on the top, leave the lid off and stir it with a stick gently and let it set for a while (about 30 minutes). This will give the worms time to move away from the light and into the lower bin. It won't hurt the new bedding to soak for awhile, so let the worms take their time to do what they do naturally.

We're sorry, In 4. above it mentions page 11, that information is provided here:

Why do you want to feed worms if they eat their bedding?

If your vermicomposter is the only composter you have, you can use it to recycle your kitchen waste and feed the worms at the same time. If you have other composters, your kitchen waste can be recycled in them. You may find that feeding your vermicompost worms food scraps to be an interesting experience. You can learn a lot about vermiculture when you add blended food scraps to the trays.

The first thing to do is seperate out the things worms will not eat. It's pretty much the same as for other composters, worms are vegetarians so you don't want to feed them cheese, meat, dairy, or fats of any kind. You can give those treats to the dogs, cats, chickens or pigs at your place. If you have scraps from preparing salad or vegetables from dinner, put them into a blender with enough water to get it moving, and blend til smooth and add about 1/4 cup of it to one of the trays, under the newspaper covering.

Some of the things that are excellent for worm food: Tea leaves and thier bags, coffee grounds, lettuces, all veggies, they'll eat any kind if it's ground up finely. The secret to feeding worms is to make the particles small enough that they can get it into their very tiny mouths. You can even grind up egg shells for them, just make sure they are very fine.

You can put coffee grounds directly into the feeder trays along with the filters. It will take them longer to eat the filter, but they will.

TIP: If you place about 1/4 cup of blended veggies in one corner of a tray under the paper, you can go back in a day or two and check to see if the worms are eating it. If they are ignoring it, they probably have plenty of other things to keep them busy eating. If they are diving over each other to get to it, they are probably on the verge of starving to death. If you see this behavior, you need to redo all the trays with fresh bedding for them to eat. If you have fresh bedding in the trays and still see this behavior, it may indicate the need to thin your worm colony, reducing the amount of worms in your vermicomposter. This is a nice problem to have. You can purchase another vermicomposter and have twice as much vermicompost to use, you can sell some of the worms to fishermen, or give them to someone who is just starting a worm factory.

TIP: If you live in the colder zones, putting your worms in the ground outdoors will kill them. Red wrigglers remain in the upper layers of the earth where frost can reach them. Also, they are not compatible with regular earthworms. They are more aggressive eaters and may attack other species. If you have a heated greenhouse, you can put them in there. In fact, a heated greenhouse is the perfect place for your vermicomposter during the cold months. It will be too hot for the worms in the summer, though.