The Worm Bin.

         I've been talking about writing this blog forever, but I wanted to make sure that my worm bin was successful before writing it. I created my worm bin soon after I moved into my apartment, so I think it was around April. A couple months have passed the worms have multiplied and a good amount of food has been composed in there. 

        This worm bin is probably the hippiest thing that I do and I absolutely love it. I love my nearly 1,000 little worm babies. I found a video on YouTube about how to make a worm bin. The first thing I needed was a bin, and I had an extra one from moving so I just used that. There is some criteria that you need to meet for the bin itself. You don't want a clear or transparent because the worms like the dark so you want a solid color to keep the sunlight out. Then you drill holes along the top edge of it to let air in. Some tutorials include drilling holes in the bottom for drainage I didn't do that because I did watch tutorials that said you don't really have to as long as you don't put overly wet food in there and you have a good ratio between nitrogen sources and carbon sources. Also I live on a second floor apartment with someone living under me and I didn't really want rotting food juices to leak onto his patio. 

Here's a list of everything you will need. 

• A bin
• Worms
• Coco core
• Soil 
• A type of carbon we used newspaper and a phonebook
• A drill
• Food scraps 

        Here is a link to where I got the worms. I ordered them online because I couldn't find the right kind of worms in a large enough quantity at the stores. A lot of stores have them but they are small quantities and used for food for other creatures. The coco core from a local plant nursery and for the soil, I just used potting soil that I already had in the shed. 

        I think the worms have now double in population since I made the worm bin, they're supposed to double every six months. I got a bag of 500 to start so there is probably about a thousand worms in bin right now, and they can eat a decent amount of food let me tell you. They love artichokes which is great because I love artichokes so they just eat the leftovers and scraps. It works out really nicely. 

        It's really easy once you have the worm bin setup all you have to do is feed them and to feed them all you got to do is eat and have scraps so it's really simple. Since I am in an apartment I make sure that my bin doesn't smell by adding more papers. As long as you do it correctly and neutralize odors by adding nitrogen sources equivalent to the carbon sources you're putting in there then you're bin doesn't smell bad, it just smells earthy and you don't really notice it. I had to bring mine in because it's getting cold now and they don't like extreme heat or extreme cold. So they're fine in the spring in the fall months but Washington had a massive heat wave this summer so I brought them in for that and then its freezing out there now so it's too cold for them. They like temperatures between 55 and 80 degrees F. We brought them in when it started to get colder and we don't want their activity to slow down or for them to die. You don't even notice it just sits in the corner it doesn't smell it's not super aesthetically pleasing because it's just a blue bin, but I don't really mind. 

        I'm not going to give step by step instruction because I would just be regurgitating everything that the gal in the video says. I literally just followed what she did. There are a few things that you should not put on your compost bin though. Meat, dairy, too much citrus, onions, anything that has an abundance of moisture because you don't want too much soggy stuff in there or it will smell. 

        If you're living in an apartment this is a really easy and discreet way to do composting. Plus it's fun, if you don't mind getting your hands dirty. You get to see little babies worms all the time and if you put certain scraps in there sometimes they sprout. I've had carrots, cilantro, avocado, and so many little sprouts from something else I think they might be from bell pepper seeds but I'm not 100% sure.

        If you're interested in doing this at all I highly recommend it and encourage you to tell me all about how it goes from you. I would have gone into more detail about how but I straight up followed that lady's videos to a tee. She was very helpful for me in the process, but if you have any questions I'll try to answer them the best I can. 

    Thanks for reading and happy composting!

-Courtney