Worms

As our last unemployed project, we built a worm/compost bin. Cedar planks from Craigslist, more cedar boards, hinges and screws from Ace & Home Depot, shredded newspaper, and three weeks' worth of saved-up kitchen scraps (sitting ever-so-innocently in a mixing bowl on our kitchen counter - little did I suspect the gooey, slippery, stinky mass of rotten veggie juice on the bottom when I tipped it into a temporary container outside... ugh). And lastly, worms!





I had a little trouble finding reliable advice on how to build a the actual bin but plenty of concise, agreed-upon advice on what to feed them. Basically:

Good for worms: cereal, fruit and veggie peelings, cardboard, paper (as long as it's not highly processed and dyed), tea bags, coffee grounds, and eggshells (see the video, above).

Bad for worms: dairy products, meat, fats/oils, citrus peels (too acidic).

I also found a nice site that helped us through the process of building our bin at allthingsorganic.com. (Interestingly, other sites advised not to use cedar, as it may be too aromatic/toxic for the worms. Too bad we found that out after spending $40 on nice wood; though on the plus side, the cedar bin won't rot along with our compost, and it smells great.) If anyone's thinking of starting a bin, I might suggest plastic, which we've since seen suggested on multiple sites. And we'll see how our worms take to the fancy cedar.

Now all we need is more time to cook dinners and make compost! Funny how that works.