Red Worm Composting Advice: Using Red Wiggler Worms for Composting

Home composting is such a common practice these days–people are drawn to activities that benefit them, their families, their homes, and the environment.

But what about those of us who live in apartments, townhouses, condos, high rises, and cities? How do we get to participate when we don’t have the room outside to create our own compost?

The answer is simple: do it inside!

Using Red Wiggler Worms for Composting

This may sound like an unappealing alternative (far too messy and smelly), but the truth is that it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do and many people do it.

One of the reasons home composting is so easy and effortless is because you don’t just stuff your trash in a bucket and leave it. No, you use red worms to help you break it down faster and easier. And they’re even house broken!

Red worm composting is an incredibly easy, incredibly beneficial practice for you to take up.

If you are interested in learning more, read on. Below, we’ll go over the basics of how to maintain your red worms composting operation and, perhaps more importantly, what you’re allowed to feed them.

Using Red Worms for Composting: Best Red Worms Composting Advice

First, you must find or build a box for you worm.

How Deep? – Never more than 18″. Worms like to do their eating in the top layers, and if the box is too deep, the scraps will pack down in the bottom and not get the benefits of being broken down by the worms.
How Big? – This depends on the size of your family and the amount of food waste you produce. For a family of 4-6 a 1′ x 2′x 3′ box will work just fine. For smaller families (say two), a box measuring 1′ x 2′ x 2′ will be plenty big enough.
What Material? – Well, never a recycled container that has been used to house chemicals, that’s for sure! Try wooden pallets, old ammunition boxes, Rubbermaid containers, or you can simply buy a box from your local home and garden store.
What Bedding? – Try these fine materials: shredded corrugated cardboard, shredded newspaper, old leaves, peat moss, and a handful of soil.

For your next task, you have to pick your worms.

There are two kinds of red wiggler worms you can use, including:

Eisenia Foetida – The most common and best red worm for indoor composting.
Lumbricus Rebellus – Another great red worm that will adapt to a box environment, but is really a soil worm.

Before you add your red wiggler worms to the box, you need to make sure you wet the bed. Yes, this time it’s a good thing to do! Generally speaking, you should add three pounds of water for every one pound of bedding you have accumulated.

Now you are ready to add your worms. Just place them on the top of the bedding and they will disappear in almost no time flat.

They hate the light and want to be in the depths of the cozy, soggy bed you have made for them.

Now it’s time to maintain your red worm composting system by adding food scraps and other organic waste as you use it. Below, we’ll cover a short list of acceptable and unacceptable materials that you can add to your red worm composting box to be broken down.

Red Worms For Sale: What Do They Eat?

So, you have the box, the bedding, and the wigglers, but what are you allowed to put in there with them?

OK – Veggies, rinds, peels, spoiled food from fridge, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells and most other kitchen waste or table scraps.
Not OK – Never put meat or dairy products in your red worm composting bin. These attract rats and mice! Also, refrain from adding kitty litter to your box. The smell drives red worms nuts and it may kill them and make you sick.

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