What is worm composting/vermicomposting?

Vermicomposting is utilizing specific breeds of worms to more quickly compost organic materials such as fruit and veggie scraps, coffee grounds, cardboard, leaves, woodchips, and manure and create incredible worm castings (worm poop) that GREATLY enhance the life in your soil.

What are the benefits of composting with worms?

Vermicomposting has a wide variety of benefits.  It diverts material from the landfill.  It creates one of the absolute best soil amendments that exists.  It’s fun and easy! It provides great learning for kids and adults. Worm castings have a special microbe, called mycobacterium vaccae, that trigger the release of serotonin in the human brain and serve as a natural anti-depressant.

What are worm castings?

“Worm castings” is a polite way to say worm poop!  It may sound gross, but it’s not at all!  Worm castings have a fresh, earthy smell and just look like rich, dark, fluffy soil. ​

What are the benefits of worm castings?

Worm castings are booming with life!  They have billions of microorganisms that greatly benefit your soil and make the nutrients available for your plants to easily absorb.  Plants grown with worm castings are significantly healthier, produce more food or flowers, and are much more pest and disease resistant. Worm castings also increase water retention in your soil and improve soil structure.

What are the little specks I see in my worm castings?

At Ro’s Wigglers, we value diverting waste from the landfill.  Through this process, we have several sustainability partnerships, where we take their “waste product” and feed it to our worms.  One of those partnerships includes a local microgreens grower.  We take their spent microgreens soil with all the leftover microgreens and root systems, and our worms absolutely love it!  This soil is essentially a seed starting mix, which includes things like perlite for aeration that the worms cannot break down.  These little bits of material in our worm castings will also help benefit your soil structure by adding drainage and aeration capabilities.

How can I make the most of my worm castings?

To make your castings stretch, there are a few things you can do.  Rather than mixing the castings with ALL of your soil (which is also a great option) you can add 1-3 tablespoons of castings directly to your planting hole or scratch it into the surface directly around your plant.  You can also make “worm tea” by putting your castings into a mesh bag or directly into a 5 gallon bucket of rainwater (or tap water that has been allowed to sit uncovered for 24 hours to allow the chlorine to evaporate out).  Then either use an air pump or stir briskly for an extended amount of time to aerate your tea.  You can then use the tea to water your plants at the base, or put it into a spray bottle or pump sprayer and spray the leaves of your plants as a foliar feeding.

What can I feed my worms?

Worms LOVE fruit and veggie scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags (not the plastic ones), and ground up eggshells.  We highly recommend freezing your scraps before feeding, as it will kill off any potential fruit fly eggs and also make it easier for the worms to consume. 

We recommend NOT feeding citrus, garlic, onions, anything with oils or salts, meat, dairy, or spicy foods.

How wet should my worm bin be?

The goal is to keep your moisture level moist like a damp wrung out sponge. Worms need moisture, but also need air. If the bedding is too wet, they will not be able to access the air that they need. If your bin gets too wet, simply mix in more dry bedding material such as shredded cardboard, leaves, or torn up egg cartons to help balance out the moisture level.