Worms love lettuce, kale, Swiss chard, to name a few of these vegetables. Be sure to cut these scraps down into small pieces or even food process them. Remember to thoroughly rinse off all hot spices, sauces, oils, dressings, and cheeses because they can harm your vermicomposting project.
Foods you should not feed your worms:
Bread and pasta. Cooked or processed food. Citrus or acidic foods (though small amounts are OK) Oils and liquids such as soup.
Bananas are a great and inexpensive snack for both us and our worms. Those peels are desirable to compost worms no matter what shape they're in. They'll make short work of what otherwise would have taken up space in your trash.
Worms like red wigglers need a damp, but not wet, environment to thrive. The ideal amount of water in a worm bin is just enough to produce 1-2 drops of water when you squeeze a handful of bedding. Think about your yard or a local park, if you dig down a few inches the ground is usually moist but not dripping wet.
Worms need moisture in order to breathe oxygen through their skin. If a worms skin dries out, they will suffocate. Likewise, if the moisture level of worm bin bedding is too high, they will drown. And when conditions are too wet, it deprives oxygen that is needed to support the breakdown of foods.
Worms hate: meat or fish, cheese, butter, greasy food, animal waste, spicy and salty foods, citrus.” The food-to-worm ratio is not precise, nor is the amount of castings they will produce. The rule of thumb is that a pound of worms will eat one to two pounds of food in a week.
Composting worms, or Red Wigglers, are not picky eaters. They will happily digest a wide variety of organic plant material into nutrient rich worm castings. I put old lettuce in there, rotten vegetables, potato peels, fruit, grass clipping, and leaves, just to name a few.
Other foods worms like are crushed egg shells, avocado skin and poultry pellets. Avoid adding meat, fish or dairy products, garlic or citrus and onion peelings as these may produce offensive smells, attract pests and are not favoured by the worms.
Dairy products such as milk, cheese, and yogurt should never go into a worm bin. Even non-fat varieties are bad for composting worms. Therefore, dispose of meat, bones, gristle, and dairy products in the trash.
Avoid feeding the worms large quantities of meat, citrus, onions and dairy foods. Some processed food also contains preservatives, which discourage the worms from eating it. These foods won't harm your worms, but they will avoid them and those scraps will break down and rot in the bin.
The worms' job is to eat the food before it gets super-rotten and stinky. If you add too much food at a time, they cannot keep up. Too much food can also push the air out of the bin, leading to foul-smelling anaerobic decomposition.
Worm-like invertebrates have a lifespan that varies according to species. For instance, earthworms such as the Red wiggler worms live between 4-5 years. On the other hand, Riftia pachyptila, also known as the giant tube worm can live for 300 years in the depths of the oceans.
Banana peels are an excellent worm food. Keep an eye out for fruit flies though!
Items you cannot compost in a worm bin:
Onions and garlic (a good rule of thumb is if it makes you smell, it makes your worm bin smell) Meat, fats, grease, bones or oils (no butter, lard, stocks, soups, etc) Plastics and plastic coated paper (like glossy magazines)
Elephants, cats, flies, and even worms sleep. It is a natural part of many animals' lives. New research from Caltech takes a deeper look at sleep in the tiny roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, or C. elegans, finding three chemicals that collectively work together to induce sleep.
For example, peanuts, soy, milk, and eggs. These contain deadly toxins for some, while others safely consume them daily. Compost worms, however, seem able to stomach nearly anything grown from the ground.
"Worms love hair. They love lint from the dryer and they love nails." Gellert mixes these ingredients up with coffee grounds and other organic waste.
Worms will swallow eggshell powder to add grit. Since Red Wigglers don't have teeth, they need a bit of grit to help break down the food scraps. Eggshells are perfect for this.
Don't be fooled though, they make up for it with the interesting aspects they do have. Like five hearts that squeeze two blood vessels to push blood throughout their little bodies. Earthworms have mucus and little hairs covering their skin that allows them to move through different types of soil.
An earthworm's lifespan depends on its environment. Those with a wholesome country lifestyle can live up to eight years, but those in city gardens generally last 1-2 years. They often die from changes in the soil (drying or flooding), disease or predators such as birds, snakes, small animals and large insects.
A worm's skin is photosensitive and therefore they need a dark environment. Because worms have no teeth, they need some type of grit in their bedding that they can swallow and use in their gizzard to grind food, much like birds do with small stones.