Troubleshooting Your Worm Bin

If you come across issues with your worm bin, it can be frustrating if you don't know what went wrong - especially if the issue is ongoing and takes time to fix. Here are some common issues faced while vermicomposting and how to remedy them.

Worms are escaping the bin (finding dried up worms on the floor outside your worm bin): When your worms leave your worm bin, they're fleeing an unsuitable environment in search of a more hospitable home. There could be numerous reasons why the worms are unhappy, including inappropriate temperature, pH, moisture, lack of food, or inappropriate food. 

Red Wigglers thrive in an ideal temperature between 55°F-77°F, though they can tolerate a temperature range between 40°F-90°F. (Composting earthworms thrive between 55°F-80°F.) Avoid placing their home in direct sunlight. In the wintertime, keep your bin protected from the cold if kept outdoors. It's much easier to maintain an ideal temperature for bins kept indoors, so under the kitchen sink is considered a valid option.

A neutral pH, between 6-7, is considered ideal for Red Wigglers. Check the smell of your worm bin to help indicate a problem. Your worm bin should have a pleasant, earthy smell. If you're noticing a moldy, sour, or rotting smell, there could be something wrong. (Though I will say, my worm bin has developed mold and the worms did not seem bothered by this. Eventually, the food material decomposes, the mold dies down, and everything returns to normal.) If you're concerned your pH is off, you can use a pH meter to measure the pH of your bin, though this is not a mandatory tool for most small-scale worm bins.

Worms need moisture to survive - they're mostly made up of water. If your bedding material feels like a wrung-out sponge, it's in a good spot. If it feels dry or there are large areas of dry bedding material, it needs more moisture. Spray water on the bedding or soak the bedding material and squeeze it out before adding it to your bin. If it's damp, but still slightly dry, you can add ice cubes or frozen fruit, which will add moisture when melted. 

If there is a lot of liquid draining from the bottom, the worm bin has too much water in it. Get rid of the liquid (called worm leachate, which should not be confused with worm tea), as leachate is not usually beneficial for the garden, and if it has an odor, is likely teaming with anaerobic bacteria (the kind of bacteria we don't like to associate with because they make us sick). Ensure there is no extra liquid sitting in the bottom of your worm bin (if there is, drain it), then add dry bedding material to your bin (you can place it on the bottom, top, or layer it throughout, depending on how soaked the worm bin is). To prevent this from happening again, don't add any extra water to the bin when you feed it, and maybe consider adding a handful of dry bedding to the top, especially if you're feeding foods with high moisture content. 

Worms do eat their bedding material, however, they also need food (nice, nutritious moldy strawberries or squishy, blackened bananas will do just fine). This is one of the main reasons people like to keep a vermicompost bin, to compost their food scraps and turn them into something their plants will thrive on. Feeding your worms regularly, about once a week, tends to be a healthy start. If you forget, just check on them when you remember, to ensure they are still happy and to add more food. Bury the food under a layer of bedding to help prevent pests like fruit flies. It is also recommended you freeze the food before you give it to your worms to kill off any pest eggs that may already be in the skin of the fruit. Freezing the food serves a few purposes aside from killing pests. It will also burst the cell walls of the food item, allowing it to break down faster, and it will add some moisture to your bin. Worms are great, but they can't eat everything from our kitchen. For more information on what to feed your worm bin, see Vermicomposting Basics.

Pests: the unwanted critters invading your home and worm bin, flying in your face and causing a nuisance. Fungus gnats and fruit flies are very common pests in worm bins. The dark, moist environment is ideal for these critters as well, so it's very difficult to eradicate them once they've infiltrated your worm bin. Prevention, as always, is best. If your worm bin is small, you can store your worm bin inside an extra plastic tote, to reduce the chances of them finding your bin, which may help a little (though keep in mind, you may have to rescue the occasional wormie wanderer that explores the dark bin and gets lost). 

If you have fungus gnats in your houseplants, however, you can be sure they'll find your worm bin eventually. To treat your houseplants, when the top two inches of your plant soil is dry, you can mix 1:4 hydrogen peroxide to water and water your plants with this solution once a week until your fungus gnats are gone. Avoid using this method on your worm bin, as it may harm your worms. You can add dry bedding material or sprinkle some diatomaceous earth on the top layer of your worm bin to make the top layer inhospitable to fungus gnats and hopefully deter them. If you have fruit flies, you can try a trap of apple cider vinegar and cover it with plastic wrap, then poke little holes through the top and place it near your worm bin or wherever you see the fruit flies. Starving the fruit flies out can also be effective. Stop feeding your worm bin for a few weeks, and when you start feeding them again, avoid sweet foods like fruits, for a few weeks. A vacuum to collect the flying pests can help reduce their numbers, if you do this regularly, though this will only eliminate the adults that you catch. I'll go in to more detail about eliminating pests in the worm bin in a later post (see Eliminating Pests in the Worm Bin).

If your worms are fleeing en masse and you can't figure out what's going on or the issue is too involved to fix, you can always start over with fresh, moistened bedding and transfer your worms to their new home. Follow the guidelines and give them their desired foods, a little bit at a time, to keep them happy and safe. They'll reward your care with nutritious and microbial-rich black gold for your plants.

If you have specific questions or more suggestions, I'd love to hear from you!

Keeping our Chickens Happy

 With the egg shortage going on, we're very lucky to have our chickens continue producing eggs, even through the winter. We currently have a mixed flock of about 75 mature laying hens, and we receive about 30-36 eggs daily just from feeding our hens and allowing them to do their natural thing. We are not giving them any supplemental lighting to force them to lay through the colder months. 

We provide them with fresh food (currently we're using a commercial laying feed), water (I go out there at least twice a day to refill their heated waterers), two heat lamps, and fresh hay for bedding/nesting material. Any cracked eggs we find (we find more on those freezing days), we boil, mash (shell and all), and feed them back to the hens - and they love it. With the eggs we eat, we save the eggshells, crush them, and give them back to the hens to continue giving them the calcium they need to produce eggs with strong shells. 

At least once a month, we treat our hens to a nice snack of live Superworms - it's fun watching them snatch them and run around with their treasure. Once I have my black soldier fly farm going, we'll be giving them these larvae as well. 

Our hens are considered free range, meaning they have access to the great outdoors during the daytime (except for those extremely cold and blizzard-y days, where it would do them more harm than good to allow the cold and snow in, since we use a garage door). We do close everyone up at night to protect them from the cold nights and from predators. The chickens have full access to our property (and beyond, since there's no real barrier set up to keep them in), but they have aptly learned to stay close to home, and our pup reminds them which side of the fence is safe.

As far as I can tell, we have one rooster, who diligently watches over his flock. He also does what roosters do, and we have noticed many of our eggs are fertile, so we've had a few people ask for our eggs specifically so they can raise some barnyard mix chickens. We're considering breeding our chickens, if we get males of certain breeds that we like, but for now we're just raising them.

Obviously not all of our chickens are laying to their full potential right now (otherwise, we'd have at least double the amount of eggs we're currently getting), but we anticipate a reduced rate in the winter. This is the time for chickens to rest and recover, so we don't want to push them to lay with artificial lighting. I know they'll thank us with a bounty of eggs in the springtime. This is also their first year laying, so they're young and spry, which likely has an impact on their willingness and ability to lay eggs through winter. 

If you're struggling with getting your hens to lay eggs through the winter, there may be a few things you can do to encourage egg laying (aside from forcing them to lay with artificial lighting). You can try giving them a heat lamp so they're warm and comfortable, using clay eggs to encourage laying, and ensure they always have a supply of food and water (heated waterers are a necessity to ensure it doesn't freeze). Though what may make the biggest impact on our farm is the sheer number of chickens we have. They keep each other warm, and I honestly couldn't tell you if one chicken is laying daily or if one chicken lays only once a week. I do see familiar hens laying on top of eggs in their favorite spots, but they have a mixed batch of eggs under them, so I couldn't say who laid what. 

Whether your hens lay for you throughout the winter, or they take the time to rest and recover, keep them happy with good food, water, and heaters, and they will thank you with eggs when their bodies are ready to expend the effort. 

Happy Farming!

Vermicomposting Basics

Vermicomposting is the process of composting with worms, in my case Red Wigglers. I have a homemade three-tier stacked worm bin that I use mostly as a nutrient supplement for my houseplants and avocado saplings, since it's a small scale. I put leftover food scraps in the bin, though not everything can be composted by worms. 

Worms lack teeth, so they need to have grit available in their bedding at all times (you can add dirt, sand, crushed/powdered eggshells, and some people say used coffee grounds make for good grit material though I haven't confirmed this. Worms still like used coffee grounds, so you can definitely add them to your worm bin). Every time you harvest your worm bin, you should add more grit into the new bedding material.

Good bedding material for your worms can include shredded newspaper, shredded cardboard, leaf litter, coconut coir, wood chips, aged horse or cow manure, and straw/hay. You can also add aged grass and weeds that are unseeded and untreated (aged so they don't create heat while in the bin), just be sure there were no chemicals used on these and they haven't gone to seed (vermicomposting is a cold compost process, so it will not kill any unwanted seeds or pathogens). Keep in mind, the smaller the pieces of bedding material, the faster the worms (and helpers) will be able to break them down.

Of course, the worms will need food to help keep them going. This is the exciting part where you get to turn your moldy old food into nutritious black gold for your plants. But of course, you can't feed them just anything. They have a specific diet you have to follow in order to keep them and the environment they live in happy and healthy. Good food choices include: expired fruits and vegetables (with some limitations, listed below), including banana peels, squashes, and pumpkins, used coffee grounds, eggshells, bread, plain pasta, and aged lawn clippings. You can freeze the food before placing them in the worm bin, which can have the benefits of breaking down the cellular structure of the food item, adding moisture into the worm bin, and killing off any fruit fly eggs that may be in the fruit. Burying the food under the bedding material can also help prevent pests, such as fruit flies, from finding your bin.

You always want to be conscientious of the amount of food you're adding at once. Worms can only work through so much at one time, so if you overwhelm them with a large amount of food at once, it may cause a smell and can create an environment your worms don't want to live in. If you notice your worms are crawling out of your bin, they are not happy with their living conditions and they're trying to find a more hospitable environment. See Troubleshooting your Worm Bin for tips on how to make your worms happy if you come across any issues.

What NOT to feed Worms: A good rule of thumb is to avoid spicy, acidic, salty, oily, processed foods, and non-degradable materials like plastics, metals, and glass. This list also includes onions, garlic, meat, dairy, citrus and pineapple (though in a large bin, small amounts of citrus and pineapple may be alright), starchy foods like rice and potatoes (again, large bins can tolerate a small amount), and you may avoid adding hard materials like fruit pits, corn cobs, and sticks or woody material for the simple fact that these will take a very long time to break down. I honestly don't mind if a piece of material doesn't break down quickly, since you can use this as a sort of inoculation for your new bedding material when you harvest your bin (you can achieve the same thing if you keep a handful of finished vermicompost and place it in the new bedding). The inoculation process ensures that the microorganisms in your worm bin remain present, since these are the primary helpers that allow the worms to break down the material.

One thing I love about vermicomposting is that the worms self regulate very well. If they have plenty of food and space, they will reproduce to fulfil that capacity. If they are running low on food or space, they will stop reproducing until their resources become more available to sustain a larger population. You still want to be consistent with your feedings, as you don't want them to expect a meal every week and then die off because they didn't receive a meal for a month. 

Weekly feedings are generally a good idea. Depending on your bin, you may feed them more or less often. Check the status of your last feeding before adding more food, so you will know if they still need more time or if you need to make adjustments for future feedings. Mold can be visible in your worm bin, but unless the worms are fleeing the area and avoiding the source, you shouldn't have to worry about the formation of mold - it's just helping to break down the material.

If you have any questions, please let me know :)

Crop Rotation Made Simple

Crop rotation is helpful to ensure the soil is never depleted of a particular nutrient, as different vegetable types require more of different nutrients. It also prevents the buildup of pathogens or harmful critters, as the host plant won’t be there to munch on year after year.

Legumes are nitrogen fixing. They put nitrogen back into the soil with the help of rhizobium bacteria. They also prefer looser soil, which root crops naturally help break up the soil.

Leafy Plants require lots of nitrogen, since nitrogen encourages the growth of leaves. Just cut back the legume vines when clearing them, leaving the roots (recommended when clearing all plants) and the nitrogen will become available in the soil.

Fruiting Plants don’t need as much nitrogen, as too much will cause a lot of leafy growth, but no fruit. They will certainly need a helping of phosphorus and potassium as they grow.

Rooting Plants need less nitrogen than fruiting plants, and the previous crops would have consumed most of the nitrogen given by the legumes by now. They will need some phosphorus and potassium as they grow.  They help break up the soil and pave the way for legumes to grow.

Cover Crops can be used at any time when not growing your primary vegetables. Just as the name suggests, they cover the soil and prevent erosion, moisture and nutrient loss, soil compaction, and weed growth. The plants can be cut down and turned into the soil or used as mulch, before they set any seeds, to add nutrients back into the soil.

Flowers can always be used to encourage pollinators and other beneficials into the garden. Large-seeded flowers can attract songbirds which will do their part in consuming pesky insects.

Fallow the plot, or let it rest unsown, to help replenish the soil. You can do this at any time.

Macronutrients' Main Purpose:

Nitrogen - leafy growth (too much late in the season can cause leaf bloom, but no fruit)

Phosphorus - root growth and fruiting, as well as cell development

Potassium - supports disease resistance and hardiness, as well as water transport and crop yield

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog :) I'm Lauren and I'm excited to be here. I'm currently working on some fun ways to share some knowledge, get involved in an online community, and learn from others with more experience. I'll share what I know and learn, ask for suggestions and input, and hopefully we can build a neat little community here. 

I love gardening, so I'll be focusing on that a lot, as you may come to realize. I like The Lion King, so the Circle of Life is one of my favorite things ;) I love how nature recycles materials and turn them into nutrients to feed the next generation of critters and plants.

I'm also raising Nubian goats, chickens, and quail with my boyfriend, so we'll be talking about my experience with this farming endeavor. I'm learning a lot, and our neighbors are fantastic!

If you're interested in seeing and learning more about our family farm, you can visit our other pages:

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You're always welcome to share your knowledge and make requests for videos or more information.

Thank you for joining me!

- Lauren

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