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Gardening By Cuisine with Patti Moreno the Garden girl
Well, my sun porch is really starting to take shape and the next product I have to do is to put together my vermiculture bin. Why would you want to start breeding worms? Well, there are a couple of good reasons.
Number one, what we are doing with this system is we are going to be using all of our kitchen waste and all of those kitchen scraps are now no longer in your land fill. So it is reducing your total household waste. That waste is then being turned into compost with these worms and that compost is really going to enrich any of your container plants or you can use them in the garden outside.
You are going to need a couple of things to put together your own vermiculture bin that you probably have at home already. You probably are not going to need to spend a dime. I got a rubber bin here. Just a storage bin, regular. It does not have to be too large. I am just using an 18 gallon one right here. I also have shredded up newspaper I also got another cover to put underneath my bin. I also have this piece of cardboard here and I also have a drill with a quarter inch drill bit. And I also have a water bottle here. Of course, I have got my worms that I am going to add into this project. And also a little bit of soil and just some kitchen scraps. Alright, let us get started. First thing I need to do is take this and put some holes in it. [Demonstration]
Oh that was so easy. You are definitely going to be able to do this. [Demonstration]
Alright! I am done drilling all of the holes here. So I am going to take my cardboard and puff that along the bottom. And the next thing I have to do is I have to fill this with the newspaper for our worms. I also want to moisten it. Now you want to make sure that their bedding is fully moist you do not like it to be dry, but you do not want it to be soaking either. Worms are very particular about their environment. So if it is too wet or too dry they are definitely want to try and get out. And it is your job to make sure that they have the ideal conditions to give you that great compost and all also to breed.
Alright! Now it is time now to add my worms. And I got a bunch of worms here; check out this big one right here. Look at that. He is huge. Now, if you are going to be purchasing worms, you want to definitely purchase red wigglers. Those are the ones that you want to use in this type of system and here I got a bunch of red wigglers right here in my hand. There are little babies too.
Alright! So I am going to grab a bunch of worms here and flap them in. Alright! I am going to grab some of these guys here. Wow! Look at them. It is a lot of worms. They feel cool and slimy. I am also adding soil here to my vermiculture bin. Soil is really important. It contains a bunch of microbes that are going to help in the composting process. We have also just taken the worms out of their home which is the soil so you do want to add some soil as well. And I am just using about a quart part pot worth of soil.
Alright! So they got a layer of soil and now I am going to add a bunch of green material, basically a bunch of the clippings that I clipped yesterday from my container garden here are going in to feed my worms.
Alright! My vermiculture bin is done. I am just going to cover it up now. And I am going to make sure that my bin is on top of another lid. And voila! My vermiculture bin is done and very soon I am going to have some fresh compost that I can use in my containers here on my sun porch. I hope you are going to try this at home. You know, you are just going to do so much for the environment by keeping those kitchen scraps out of those landfills and it is a great project to do with kids, too.
I am Patti Moreno, the garden girl. Thanks for watching.
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