Decomposers are an important part of the circle of life, but a part that we don’t often like to talk about. Vermiculture opens the door to demystify the deconstruction process through the disposal of food waste and creates nutrient rich compost to plant in to begin the cycle again. The best part is that it is easy and cheap to set up and requires very little maintenance for a great reward!
What do you need?
- Not a lot of space. Worms are great at reproducing and expanding their numbers, but they will only reproduce to fit the size of the space you provide for them. For the first six months, my worms lived in a tiny bin I kept in a file cabinet at work!
- A container to hold them in. If you google “vermiculture diy” you can find a bunch of tutorials on how to cheaply make a worm home out of a couple of plastic tubs. Looking to deck your worms out in style? You can also search on Etsy and find hand made wooden homes!
- Bedding material. This is typically just paper or cardboard you tear up to add a big of bulk and retain moisture. I like to use brown paper bags from the grocery store.
- Some gloves. You’ll want to be able to get in the bin, so make sure you have some gloves around to keep your hands clean. I use my simple gardening gloves.
- Food scraps! The most important bit! What are your worms going to eat? Worms are not very picky eaters, but you should try to follow some guidelines. I primarily feed mine a diet of fruit/vegetable scraps, tea leaves and coffee grounds, but you can also through in bread products if you’d like. (We don’t have a lot of bread waste in this house!) There are some things you should avoid feeding your worms. They aren’t fans of citrus or onions, and you should avoid meat and dairy products as well.

