With a little bit of added effort you can turn your daily food scraps into nutrients for your garden. One great way to do this is by composting with worms, also known as vermi-composting. Most people assume worms are dirty and smell gross, which is far from the truth. Maintaining a healthy worm bin is not challenging, does not smell bad, and will not invite large bugs such as cockroaches.
Healthy and happy worms eat at least half of their body weight every single day. That means if you are farming two pounds of worms, they can easily consume one pound of dinner scraps a day! After just 3-4 months you will have a whole container full of vermiculite (worm manure) and your worm population will double. Vermi-composting is really simple and everyone can do it; even if you live on the 7th floor without a balcony.
A friend of mine, Lanette, from the Fertile Earth Foundation, sold me five pounds of worms (not including the weight of the bedding material) that were harvested right here in Florida.
I made the mistake of not having a worm bin made by the time I had received the worms, which was risky on my part. However, in barely no time I was able to make this extremely convenient worm bin out of a bath tub that my worms really do love now. To top it off, this worm farm cost less than $50 and it can hold 8 pounds of worms comfortably.
If you had extra time to spend, and wanted to be a lot more frugal, you could build this worm bin for free!
Check out my 12 EASY Steps to Building a Bathtub Worm Farm!
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