A few months ago, I moved. Rather than try to move my previous worm bin, I decided to try a different type of worm container–a 55 gallon drum. A quick google search found someone who sold 55 gallon drums, and I bought a couple. I wanted plastic, but he didn’t have any, so I bought 2 steel 55 gallon drums previously used for holding orange juice. (It’s amazing what you can fit into a tiny sedan.)
Basic setup: I filled the bin with a couple of bags of leaves I had retrieved from curbside last fall. I put in some water. I also drilled five drainage holes in the bottom of the barrel. The barrel came with a steel top–I put that on top to protect the worms and retain moisture, but I leave a crack so that some air can get in and out. And then I put in about 10 gallons of worms and vermicompost. You can see the lid on the lower right–I put a rock on it to deter critters.
Barrel o worms
While it was chilly but not freezing this spring, the barrel seemed to work fine, as you can see from this photo:
Worms in a barrel
However, as we head toward summer, I’m a bit worried. The drum is black, so any sun really heats it up. And the worms can’t easily retreat into the earth, as they could with my previous worm bin. I recently moved it to a shadier area–I hope that helps the worms a bit.
Last I checked, the worms were doing alright, and I even found a cocoon:
worm cocoon
The reason I wanted to try this is that 55 gallon drums are pretty cheap ($20 each, I think) and readily available, and I thought these would be a fun container to use when vermicomposting large amounts of atypical feedstock. That is, things like dog and cat poop, or human hair. I want to play around with them, and yet be able to use some of my worm castings on food plants. These containers seemed like a great way to segregate such feedstocks. I still think there is promise in these, but do want to see how the worms survive the winter months.
However, the downsides of the 55 gallon drums are many:
- Unless I cut a hole in the bottom, I will have a hard time incrementally removing worm castings.
- They are hard to move around–even 30 gallons of worms and vermicompost weigh a lot
- They don’t drain well–although I could have helped this by drilling more holes
- Worms can’t retreat out of them–again, more holes and placement on dirt would help.
- As mentioned above, they heat up.
After a few months of worm keeping in a 55 gallon drum, I noticed the local recycling center was selling soil savers for half price, so I bought two. More on that later.
July 10th, 2010
Michael, a classmate of mine, and I recently sat down at his place to talk about his adventures in worm keeping. He also works at sustainablevillage.com, which has, among other things, worms and worm bins. The transcript follows these images. Michael’s experiences with worm keeping are different than Forest’s. He lives on a semi rural property (a couple of acres) with four adults and one child. They grow a lot of their own food and use an outside worm bin solely for food scraps. We talk about the permaculture properties of worms, how he ignored his worms for 3 weeks post purchase, how he uses his worm bin currently, including what types of scraps, and how he built his worm bin.
Dan: Hi. I’m here with Michael who is a classmate of mine and he keeps worms and he’s going to talk to me about his worm keeping. So, how’d you get started?
Michael: I got started from permaculture class.
D: Ok. So you bought some from John.
M: I bought uh a 5 gallon pail from John Anderson and brought em home.
D: You took the whole pail?
M: Took the whole pail, yeah and when was that, May? I think it was our May class.
D: Yeah.
M: So in the 2nd weekend in May and it probably sat outside–it stopped freezing at this point–it sat outside for about 3 weeks just in the pail.
D: Because you just didn’t have time to deal with it.
M: Yeah, exactly, I didn’t have time to deal with it. But I did get a worm bin together. What I did was I saw a posting on Craigslist for a bunch of old wooden crates out in the back of a warehouse and I went over there and picked up a big wooden box that I found and I cut that down and retrofitted that into a worm box so it came out to be about 2 feet x 4 feet by 18 inches high. And drilled a whole bunch of holes in it and I painted it.
D: Holes in the bottom?
M: I did a whole bunch of holes in the bottom, like quarter inch holes, and in the sides and a few in the top.
D: Ok.
M: Mostly I left the top sealed. Actually, I left the entire top sealed, in the sides and the bottoms I put a ton of holes. I just took my cordless drill and I put a whole bunch of holes in it. I painted the box because it was just pressed board material. I painted it with an oil based paint on the outside to make it more weatherized and I put some hinges on it and a handle. It kind of looks like a chest
D: We got those pictures, and it looks, you know, that’s nothing you wouldn’t expect around a house, you know it doesn’t look grungy at all. You put it on the south facing side of the house.
Open worm box
M: The south facing side of our house is pretty shady in the summer time but in the winter time but in the winter it’ll get pretty direct sun, we turn it against the big stone wall.
D: Very nice.
M: So it’ll hopefully you know have good solar positioning.
D: Are you planning to do anything else in terms of temperature?
M: I mean I thought about throwing some straw bales up against the side of it just to give it a little insulation
D: Sure.
M: We’ll see if I get around to doing that. And we’ll see what it looks like on the inside. I mean, now it looks pretty good on the inside. It’s been cold lately but nonetheless there’s still a lot of activity in there it seems like.
D: It’s also in contact with the ground too right?
M: It actually about 2 inches above the ground, so there is airflow underneath.
D: Gotcha, ok.
M: So what I did is I took the worms and I just, when we moved in this house, there was a whole bunch of sawdust out in the yard, in the barn, so I piled all that up and dumped the worms in, dumped the sawdust on top of the worms. I had a bunch of newspapers around, a big stack of them–I kinda just ripped them all up, threw them in, got some shredded paper from work, threw that in, leaves I had around. There’s a lot of leaves on the property so I just put a big wheelbarrow load full of leaves, threw them in, that’s what I used for bedding, pretty much.
D: Ok.
M: And then I sort of followed some instructions I found somewhere, I don’t know if it was from John Anderson, or if it was from some handout we got in class, whatnot. And we have about a 3 gallon pail we keep under the sink at our house. And that is our compost bucket. So when that fills up I take that down to the bin and kind of remove some of the bedding, throw it on the ground, on part of the worm bin and cover it back up with the bedding a little bit.
Food scrap bucket
D: Do you cover the thing you have in your kitchen or?
M: No it’s open.
D: And how often does it get emptied, I mean you guys make pizza dough and whatnot? Does it get flies? How often do you fill it up?
M: I think it fills about every 2-3 days.
D: Ok. So there’s not really enough time for flies.
M: No and it’s actually much more organic material than the worm bin can handle. So we have a compost pile in addition.
D: How do you know, did you overload the worm bin at some point, or you just, based on the number of worms, and just your feeling?
M: Well, it’s sort of an intuitive thing, but I filled up, you know as the summer was going, as it was starting I put a pile of it [food scraps] in then I would sort of wait until the worms ate it, then I put another one in…
D: Oh, interesting, ok.
M: And I would kind of go like that, and then right about kind of the end of August, I just filled it all up, with just 4 of our bucketfuls in a row. And just filled the whole layer up with raw, organic material, food scraps. And then mulched it really heavy with big flakes of straw bale.
D: And that’s what was still there.
M: That’s what’s there now [October]. So it’s taken them 2 months and they haven’t fully eaten that whole thing. So I haven’t harvested any castings yet. My idea was just to build up the population um as big as I could for now. And just let ‘em do their thing, and be worms in the box. And hopefully they’ll multiply next spring. I want ‘em to be healthy enough to live through the winter, basically.
D: Sure.
M: So, next spring we can maybe start doing some different things with them, maybe take some worms out, put ‘em somewhere else, or get another box going… I don’t know.
D: Ok.
M: We’ll see. Sorry to disappoint anybody here!
D: Sure, sure. So what kind of like stuff do you put in there, in the 3 gallon bucket, everything that you guys eat that’s organic that isn’t meat or dairy?
M: Yeah.
D: Ok.
M: Yeah so, Liz has only put paper stuff in there like tea bags or paper towels.
D: Junk mail?
M: No. No, none of that sort of thing, that stuff we just recycle.
D: Ok.
M: We just have so much organic waste, we don’t really need to bulk it up. Let’s see, I was estimating I think we produce probably about 50 lbs a week of organic waste.
D: This is just the 3 of you, not counting any of the people downstairs?
M: No, I guess it’d be the whole household–4 adults and 1 baby. So the baby doesn’t really eat anything yet.
D: [laughs]
M: Um, but really like I haven’t put anything in there in the last 6 weeks.
D: Interesting.
Liz: We eat enough vegetables for about six people.
D: Yeah I mean my guess is that since you guys have a vegetable garden in the back, you probably eat a lot more vegetables than the common person.
M: Yeah cause of our backyard garden plus Liz works on the farm, she brings home a lot of produce.
D: Sure.
M: And you know like the last 2 months have been like the hardest time.
D: Sure.
M: That’s when things are most abundant and we’ve been doing a lot of canning and processing so you know if we have tomatoes, we’ll cut a bunch of rotten parts out of tomatoes, we’ll have a whole bucket of tomatoes or something.
D: Sure, sure.
M: And I could fill up the worm bin easily.
D: So those have all gone to the secondary compost pile.
M: Right.
D: You haven’t done any worms with that stuff. Ok.
M: Yeah, pretty much, we put a lot of corn husk into that bin just because corn was really in season.
D: That was the corn time.
M: Yeah. And we threw corn cobs in there too just to see how they’d do. Kind of curious if they’ll eat the corn cobs.
D: Yeah, the corn cobs I’ve got, I put in the worm bins, it was like they come out and they’re like somebody got every last kernel. The cob is still there for sure. You guys planning to put food in there over the winter then?
M: Yeah maybe. Probably. Like I said, what I did was when it was starting to get cold, starting to get to the end of August, you can feel the weather changing, so really I just wanted to pack it full and and then…
D: Get em healthy…
M: And just really do a heavy layer of straw and that’s what we did. No one told me to do that; I just sort of thought that might be a good idea.
D: I mean the one thing that kind of jumps to my mind is, when worms are in their own waste, just like any other animal they have a harder time and I don’t know what the situation is down there but it looked like underneath the straw was pretty rich, pretty, you know, dark and not a lot of bedding, so I don’t know whether that’s good or bad for them.
Redworm closeup
M: Well, I don’t know either. My hope was that they would eat some of the straw for bedding but I don’t know if that works very well.
D: I think so. It’s pretty good as long as you dig it in.
M: You have to kind of mix it in a little.
D: Or you put the food in the straw, so you could split the straw.
M: Maybe I’ll just start dumping raw waste on top of the straw and then put another layer.
…
More on earthworms in the garden and how Michael got his worms in the next segment
February 27th, 2009
I recently interviewed Tracy, a classmate of mine. She’s kept worms for a number of years, but the most interesting thing she has done, from my perspective, is vermicomposted dog and cat waste, both hair and fecal matter.
However, she has much to say about all things vermi, from selling worms to making worm bins. Currently, she’s getting back into wormkeeping, and her next venture is “to compost dog waste at the dog ranch” at which she currently works. (Only small edits for obvious typos were made.)
Dan: You used worms to vermicompost dog and cat hair. Anything else (dog feces, etc)?
Tracy: I did vermicompost dog feces, at the time I had a 180 lb Rottweiler and a 80 lb Pittbull living at the house. (Large waste producing doggies!) I had a separate container (made of pallets about 4ft by 4ft), I combined this with old soil and yard debris, it took quite a while for this to break down and I really only spread it around the grasses or large non food trees.
Dan: How long did you do this for?
Tracy: 3 years total at this location.
Dan: What safety measures did you take, if any?
Tracy: It is important to maintain an optimum temperature–especially if you are dealing with feces. The ideal temperature for composting with dog waste is about 145F, this will kill off any pathogens that may cause adverse bacteria. The sun hit this containment a little more, and the manure itself heats up really rapidly. I stirred this when the temperature rose, about once a week or two. I kept this one bin away from the household bin. The household bin was usually kept at 60F to 80F degrees. Of course in the colder months–which was mild in Oregon–the worms will slow down.
Dan: How did you hot compost and vermicompost feces at the same time? I thought hot temps killed worms.
Tracy: I think what I did was let the sawdust and dog feces get a head start in one bin, let it heat up, and then move it on down the bin row. I was using a thermometer just sticking it the middle. Again I was just starting and using trial and error. When I started combining the worms, it would have been after I combined the partially broken down feces with yard debris and soil. The worms don’t tolerate excessive high temperatures, but it really only gets that hot in the very center, and that was initially when you start with a lot. They did have enough room to move away from the hottest spot. Some people have had their piles catch fire due to the heat, I never experienced that.
(I just want to mention that people have had very mixed reviews with the dog feces compost and it is important to note temperatures. The household worm bin is a fantastic idea. But I would not want to give the incorrect information when dealing with possible spread of bacteria when dealing with animal waste. So this is what worked for me to rid myself of dog waste and avoid putting this into a landfill. It is important to be careful and keep it away from food growing sources.)
Dan: What did you do with the worm castings?
Tracy: I harvested worm castings about every 2-3 months. I did make tea out of the casting, just by adding water, letting sit and pouring over my gardens. At this time I did not filter or use aeration to make my tea. To harvest, I would pile up my compost in pyramid shaped piles on a work bench, let them sit for a few hours and then all the worms would travel to the base of the pile and I would scrape off the top, I believe there are more efficient ways to harvest. In my fresh garden beds I would apply this directly. I also would transfer this compost to a large bin that had soil in it. I would continue to mix this and use it for potting and had a ready made blend for new gardens.
Dan: In making the tea, what was the ratio of water to vermicompost–any references or did you just wing it?
Tracy: I was definitely winging it. I used 5 gallon buckets, put about 1/4 of compost and filled with water. Sometimes I would dilute it further. Now there are better references online for an accurate formula.
Dan: What kind of worms did you use? (Eisenia foetida?)
Tracy: Yes I used the good old red worm wigglers
Dan: What volumes were you dealing with?
Tracy: I started out with 1000 red worms, I had the main bin that was about 4ft and 4ft and at the time I was living in a household of four. We were vegetarian and had a lot of veggie and fruit scraps. The worms can eat about their own weight in food a day, I probably was feeding them 2lbs a day, more at times. Of course the worms quickly multiplied so I was removing some and expanding bin by bin to avoid over population. Moving them to the bins that held yard debris, the dog waste, the ready made soil; other spaces where for example a bunch of blackberry bushes had been cut back and piled. I even sold a few to fisherman, sorry worms! At the time more people were interested in purchasing the tea from the farmers market and gardening store more than they wanted to have their own worm bin and do the work–which it really is no work at all! Now when I think of it I should have been selling the tea instead of the worms!
Dan: How did you find the fishermen to sell the worms to?
Tracy: Neighborhood, coffee shop and bar conversations! I am not sure what kind of fish and if they were catching any fish at all!
Dan: How long did the materials take to break down?
Tracy: Like I stated previously I think I was harvesting the castings about every 2 months during the warmer months. Some things were really quick to break down–a few weeks for green scraps or peelings. Some things took longer–a whole corn cob, citrus peels. I did it more often on a smaller scale, but if I wanted to get a lot of compost I would wait a little longer.
Dan: What did you use for bedding?
Tracy: I used A LOT of shredded newspaper, leaves, eggshells, coffee grounds, shredded cardboard, sweepings from the kitchen floor–pet hair, junk mail. Nothing with a lot of dyes like the glossy adds from the paper.
Dan: With the junk mail, what happened to the plastic envelope windows? Did you end up fishing those out of the bins?
Tracy: I would always tear those out. I made sure to always shred any paper product going into the bin. Nothing went in as a whole envelope or a whole newspaper.
Dan: Any tips for someone who wants to do this themselves?
Tracy: The biggest thing is the moisture content. The bedding should feel like a wrung out sponge. They do need moisture but there should not be standing liquid in the bed. This will eliminate any smell coming out of it–you should be able to keep a small unit in your home with no odor. This will also keep out flies, etc. Having a good balance of coffee grounds and egg shells will balance the ph of the compost. Don’t over do the citrus, it is not their favorite food. Don’t use meatscraps or dairy. Don’t use new materials to build a bin, you can use so many things you already have. I am about to change an old bathtub into a new bin!
Dan: What did you build the boxes out of?
Tracy: The boxes were made of pallets that I had. I just screwed them together with a drill. The main worm bin was made of a rubbermaid container with holes drilled all the way around it for oxygen to circulate. This was inside the pallet frame with four straw bales lined around the bin, to ensure warmth for the wormies. The worm bin had a lid on it and then the pallet closed around the straw bales to keep out animals. Four other pallet bins were lined up next to this along my fence for expansion.
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Worm bin made of pallets
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Worms and bedding in a rubbermaid bin
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Rubbermaid tubs make great worm bins
Were the boxes inside or outside?
Tracy: The bins were outside. I did have a mini bin–a five gallon bucket with a handful of worms I kept in my back room during the really rainy and cold months. I would just transfer that to the main bin on a nice day.
My gardens in Oregon were the best they have ever been in my life, using all those worm castings. Also the recycling program was really great in Oregon, so every week for a household of 4-5, two dogs, and a cat, I only had a small plastic grocery bag of garbage every week. Things are a little more challenging here at 9200ft, having to deal with colder weather and taking in all of my own garbage and recycling is one more step, but I am striving to again have zero to little waste.
Just talking about this makes me really excited to continue my vermicompost. I have been living in a tent or small cabin the years before I moved to Colorado, so it has been a few years. I guess I should have experimented with campicomposting!
September 25th, 2008
