A lot of people have an aversion to creeping or crawling things living in their house.
For the most part I guess I cannot blame them.
But to me I don't mind something that will make my garden better and also reduces the amount of stuff I send to the land fill.
I'm talking red wriggler worms here.
Yep worms that I am proposing live inside your house with you at least during the winter months.
These of course would be in a container known as a worm farm.
You could keep them in the kitchen or in a pantry.
A lot of people will set up the worm farm in the basement.
Okay I know this sounds bad but really it is not.
People keep cats inside with litter boxes and there is little or no odor and worm farms are no different they do not create a large odor problem like you might think.
The key to worm farming is do not get to ambitious and go overboard.
You can not drop 20 lbs of food in a box and then not expect it to rot.
Common kitchen scrapes are a good source of food for your worm farm.
Use vegetable scrapes, left over salad (as long as it does not have a bunch of salad dressing), crushed egg shells, coffee grounds including the filter, and even the cardboard packaging your food comes in can be used.
Setting Up Your Worm Farm The worm farm is nothing more than a plastic container that will hold your worms and their food while it is being turned into rich organic fertilizer know as worm casings.
You can get these containers in any size from 5 gallon on up to 50 gallon.
The most important factor is they are opaque and do not let light in.
You will also need a tray to set them in and piece of screen for the bottom.
Drill holes in the bottom of your container to allow moisture to drain out of the container place the screen in the bottom of the container to cover the holes so that the worms don't escape.
Next drill holes all the way around the top of the container maybe a half and inch apart to allow air circulation.
Now your farm is ready set it in the water proof tray on a couple of plastic jar lids like from peanut butter jars to keep it a half inch or so off the bottom of the tray to allow for a place for the moisture to run off too.
Now it is time to add the worm bedding.
Shred newspaper only black ink pages not colored or glossy and place about 3 to 4 inches in the bottom of your container and mist lightly with water the paper should be like a well rung out sponge when you are done not soggy just moist.
Next add a couple of quarts of moistened potting soil again not wet just slightly moist.
Now it is time to add the red wiggler worms.
A pond of worms will have 700 to 800 worms and can be purchased on line.
Put on the lid and let the worms have a day or so in there new home then place some vegetable scraps on top and replace the lid.
Some people add scraps every couple of days others once a week.
A Good rule of thumb is one pound of scraps for every square foot of surface area per week.
Keep an eye on the bottom tray as it starts to collect moisture empty it into a jar with a lid and mix it with water to use as a liquid fertilizer tea on your plants.
As the farm begins to fill with casings move all the food to one side and do not disturb it for three to four days.
The worms will move to the side with the food and you will be able to remove the casings on the other side to be used in your garden or as a mixture when potting new plants.