When I was at the Buffalo ReUse office on Eaton Street the other day, I noticed a pail of kitchen garbage. I know everyone composts whatever’s compostable at BR, but sometimes in the winter it’s a bit more difficult because you have to go out in the cold and snow to dump the garbage on the pile. So I told Caesandra I’d set up a worm bin they can put in the basement.

And remembering her dictum “If you didn’t take a photo of it, it didn’t happen”, I set up the camera and took some snapshots of the process.

Worm composting is an easy way to make use of your household food waste. The end result is a wonderful natural fertilizer for all kinds of plants. Step by step, here’s how to make a home for your garbage-eating worms.

Inexpensive plastic crates make good worm bins. This is a Christmas ornament box I bought at a discount store after Christmas one year. $5 each, the largest expense of the entire project.

As is, liquid can collect in the bottom. This might make the worms soggy, or at least make them avoid the bottom. Best to put a few drainage holes in to make it easier to keep the worms’ environment moist, not wet. It will, however, cause your bin to leak worm juice. You can catch it and put it on your plants, or, dogs love to lick it up – yum!

I’ve drilled a few holes. I like to put a few sticks in the bottom to keep the lowest part of the bed a bit drier. These are just some scrap pieces of oak I had lying around the shop. Don’t use treated lumber, as worms would be poisoned.

Add the bedding. I use paper from my office shredder. I personally use all kinds of paper and light cardboard, printed or not. It’s a good way to get rid of junk mail. If you don’t have a shredder, you can tear strips by hand.

The worms need something that can hold moisture, provide some air pockets, block the light, avoid flies and decompose along with the garbage.

Put an inch or so of bedding at the bottom of the bin.

Now water it to make it moist. Sometimes you need to do this again later to get the overall environment moist enough. You don’t want it to be dry. Try to think like a worm – is this wet enough?

Here’s some garbage from my kitchen. I collect it in a small compost pail. It has a lid, but many worm farmers leave the lid off so they don’t get stinky anaerobic decomposition. If you empty it frequently, you won’t get odor or flies.

About the only thing I don’t put in the pail is meat, grease or anything obnoxious or stinky. My worms have eaten everything I’ve thrown at them – orange peels, coffee grounds, even small chicken bones (they don’t eat the bones, but pick them clean).

Dump the garbage. I usually don’t chop things up, only enough to get it in the pail. The worms will take care of the chopping up, with some help from their friends the fungi and bacteria.

I do crunch up eggshells in my hand before putting them in the pail. Eggshells have been the most frequently "non-digested" product of my bins.

Spread it around This is how you feed the worms as you go along, dumping and spreading a pail of garbage on a layer of bedding.

Here’s a forkful of worms from another bin, along with some worm castings. It doesn’t take much to get a bin started – once they have a nice environment and plenty of food, they reproduce rapidly.

If you’re starting with worms without castings or partially digested garbage, throwing a handful of garden soil into the mix helps them by providing a little grit for their gizzards. Worms are mostly gizzard, actually.

These are Red Wrigglers, Eisenia foetida. Their whole purpose in life is to eat garbage and reproduce.

At Buffalo ReUse, we plan soon to start a worm breeding program. Because of the challenges of our urban environment, we want to develop a tougher strain of worms than common, mild-mannered red wrigglers. If they can eat old car batteries, treated fence posts, lead paint and a bit of metal, that would be tough enough. Eisenia foetida urbanica.

Another layer of bedding, watered. This helps keep the fruit flies from breeding, as they need light with their fruit.

This is how you feed your worms – add a layer of garbage (or a smaller patch in a corner), cover with bedding (or move the existing bedding around), make sure it’s moist, you’re done.

Put on the lid. Make some holes in it so they can breathe easily, plus if you stack bins this lets the liquids run from top to bottom of the stack. Also, the worms like the dark (are in fact very averse to light, even a little bit of it).

Worms Live Here!

Worms don’t like extremes of temperature. They can take a fairly cold environment, above freezing, but their activity will slow down. Most basements are fine for worm farming, but if you design it right, you can put a bin under your kitchen sink.

A healthy worm bin will not smell bad, only a bit like moist, rich soil. If it smells bad, your worms are in trouble.

Harvesting the worm compost is a topic for a whole other set of photos. I’ll see what I can do – I have at least one bin ready to harvest.

I’m really no expert on vermicomposting, but if you have questions, comment here or email me at kevin {at} buffaloreuse(.)org.