Harvesting Vermicompost (Worm Castings)

Back in March, we began raising red worms in our kitchen with our new worm factory.

By April they were already having many little worm babies. We kept feeding them all summer and adding trays for them to expand into. We started with 1000 worms and by now I estimate that we have over 5000! They are hard to take pictures of because they don't like the light, but here is my best shot:

The best thing about raising worms inside is that they give you an easy way to recycle your kitchen vegetable scraps. They break down the veggies and create the best plant fertilizer on Earth - vermicompost!

Once again, this is not an easy thing to photograph. Here is a closer look at a smaller amount:

They look like coffee grounds but have no oder at all.  I was able to get quite a bit of these plant nutritious worm castings from the bottom tray which I will add to our new greenhouse growing beds.

After harvesting this compost, I created a new bedding environment for the worms to move into just like I detailed at the bottom of this previous post.

We really like having these worms. Have you ever raised worms or considered it? I recommend keeping worms to any avid gardener!

Comments

[Daharja]

Any idea how worms cope with frosts and cold weather in worm farms?

I'm keen to start a worm farm, but we do get very hard frosts where we live. I don't want to invest in a worm farm and worms, only to kill them all off!

[molly]

I love the compost they make, and the worm tea we get does amazing things for our plants, wouldn't be without them :)

Daharja, we get some heavy frosts here too, we just keep the worm farm on the patio under cover, no smell and the worms do fine.

[Marc]

You're right molly, the worm tea is amazingly potent.

Daharja, worms do okay in cold soil but they can't take frozen soil. If you keep worms in a container worm bin, you might need to re-locate the bin to a garage or basememt in the winter. It sounds like a covered patio works well for molly. My next step in worm farming will be with the use of outdoor pits. The worms do okay there because they can burrow deeper if need be and you are supposed to cover the pit with a heavy mulch of straw or leaves during colder weather. Hopefully I'll do this next year.