Apartment Composting 101: Vermicompost with Barb Finnin

UPDATE:

We have modified this original design to a shallower, more airy worm bin. Check out our new design here, http://ryanishungry.com/2007/09/14/vermicomposting-born-again-worm-bin/ Cheers! Good Luck!
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Barb Finnin is part of the amazing Freshtopia team. She's a certified master composter- her specialty is Vermicomposting with worms. We were super excited to learn that we could compost in our city apartment with a homemade worm bin even though we don't have a yard. Throwing food scraps away in the garbage is not something either of us enjoys, so having a green alternative has been more than satisfying for our sustainability goals. After 4 weeks, our worms are happy and thriving.

Find out more about Vermicomposting and other forms of composting on Wikipedia. Visit Barb at Freshtopia.net.

Runtime- 9:47

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• vermicomposting
• vermiculture
• worm
• compost
• apartment
• composting
• indoor
• diy
• barb
• finnin
• freshtopia
• sanfrancisco

[Elledoubleyou13]

I live in an apartment and made a worm bin a few days ago that I keep in the kitchen- but in the late afternoon and night time I always find worms sitting up in the lid. Is this normal? or am I doing something wrong?

[RyanIsHungry]

@Elledoubleyou13 worms on the lid is normal. ours is like that too. i think they just like to move around. if there are a lot of them on the lid or sneaking out, there might be too much liquid or it's too acidic.

[echicao]

if i put the newspapers in the shredder will it work too?

[RyanIsHungry]

@echicao we have a shredder too, and it's a great way to make the newspaper bedding.

[9aspengold5]

I noticed you used newspaper that had color print. I thought that you should only use the black and white pages and not the color print. Is that true???

[RyanIsHungry]

there are differing opinions on this. i have never had a problem with colored print paper and my worms.

[organicgardener66]

i love the vid thanks

[GreenCrusaders]

Good tips for apartment dwellers. The biggest prob most apartment people are that they have no space therefore they cannot do their part to reduce organic waste going to landfills. This video is great plus worm castings are fantastic for plants.

[sly2kusa]

Being a fishermen and gardener who lives in an apartment, I really loved this idea. I have been doing this now for a while, but I use to live in Southern CA where we used to have some bunnies atop our worm bin (bunny poo is worm caviar!). Great stuff and keep up the good work!

[LouMahoney]

@Hectorsgarden1

You want to be careful not to overfeed as the excess food may rot create a toxic environment for them. A worm will eat about half their weight in a day, so 2 lbs of worms will eat about a pound of food in a day.

Start slow. I would let the worms acclimate in their new bedding for about 24 hours before adding food..

When you do, add a little, then check back in a couple of days to see how fast they are eating and adjust.

As the population increases, you can add more.

[Hectorsgarden1]

I have been saving alot of my food scap for about a month now. I am waiting on my worms to arrive. Do i keep my scraps in the frigg or do i put it in a 5 gallon bucket till the worms get here? Thank you for any info.

[mushymcsquishy]

@9aspengold5 i think the issue is glossy, more magazine-like stuff, rather than newspaper with colored ink.

[paisleyyama]

Yuck, worms in the kitchen.

[renata161616]

Great video! Really was the final thing that pushed me to start apartment composting. I have one question, and it's really my biggest concern- how often do roaches get attracted to these bins? I live in NYC so it's a big concern of mine to wake up one morning with roaches everywhere...

[PonderaProject]

@Elledoubleyou13 That happens. Since you just started, there's nothing for the worms to eat yet. They eat the bacteria that breaks food down, not the actual food. I leave my scraps in a bucket for a couple weeks and drain the liquid before putting it into the bucket.

[ShandiGP]

@MorganBatChava some bait worms are acceptable, such as the European and African Nightcrawlers. However, other types of bait worms, such as Dew Worms, don't reproduce and live well in crowded bin conditions.