Yes! You can add dry grass clippings and deciduous leaves to your worm farm, as long as you keep food scraps and dry waste balanced. Avoid adding fresh lawn clippings, evergreen or native leaves, and sticks or woody stems.
Leaves and dead grass are mouthwatering entrees for worms, and they'll always go for seconds. This organic material passes through their digestive systems, and is expelled as nutrient-rich fertilizer. The worms even go so far as to spread the fertilizer throughout the soil, for an even dispersion.
The Wrong Food
Grass clippings are a great addition to a traditional compost pile and worms will eat these as well in their natural setting, but in your vermicomposting system, they will heat up the soil and can kill all of your worms.
Worms eat basically anything that is an organic material which is in the process of decomposing. This includes as well grass and other garden waste.
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.
Can I add garden waste to the worm farm? Yes! You can add dry grass clippings and deciduous leaves to your worm farm, as long as you keep food scraps and dry waste balanced. Avoid adding fresh lawn clippings, evergreen or native leaves, and sticks or woody stems.
Compost worms benefit from a balanced diet. They will eat most normal kitchen fruit and vegetable scraps. 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.
The presence of earthworm castings can actually damage an otherwise healthy lawn. The problem with excessive earthworm castings is that they are actually too full of nutrients.
Mulches keep the ground cool and moist and provide worms with food—not only from the organic material itself, but from the fungi, bacteria and other small creatures which it supports.
It's definitely safe for your worms to eat (if humans can, why can't they, right?). You can even compost paper coffee filters, too, as they are biodegradable! So, don't be afraid to feed some to your worms and enrich your soil with coffee grounds. It will definitely be a good addition to their diet.
Organic mulches attract and provide food for earthworms. Earthworms are a valuable resource in the garden. Earthworms tunnel deep into the soil allowing air and water to easily reach plant roots. As mulch and soil pass through the earthworm they are transformed into castings that are rich in minerals that plants need.
Earthworms do not eat turfgrass but feed on several different components: Grass clippings, or the thatch layer just below the turf, between the turf and the soil. Soil. Microorganisms.
Leaves and other plant waste are the perfect food for composting worms. If you have a yard or garden of any size, you can capture these valuable nutrients by composting. Composting with worms, called “vermicomposting,” is fast and efficient.
Earthworms are not pests of turfgrass and do not feed on turf. Earthworms swallow soil as they burrow and feed on microorganisms and partially decomposed organic matter in the soil. Their role in a lawn is primarily beneficial.
Banana peels are an excellent worm food. Keep an eye out for fruit flies though!
They will eat some of their bedding, but they really love scraps of fruit and vegetables. Worms will eat the parts you won't, like cores and peels. Don't feed them too much or too often at first. A yogurt container full of scraps once a week will be enough.
If there isn't enough moisture, worms will become lethargic, start to dry out, and may not eat as much. If the bin is too moist, especially at the bottom of a bin or tray, the worms may stay in the bedding or near the bottom of the bin and not eat as much.
Once every week, pour about five litres of fresh water into the Top Working Tray, which will flood down through the lower trays, ensuring the entire worm farm remains very moist. The sudden 'flood' will not harm the worms. Adding water is especially important in the hotter months of the year.
Sprinkle 2-4 cups of soil in bin, which introduces beneficial microorganisms. Gritty soil particles also aids the worms' digestive process. Potting soil, or soil from outdoors is fine.
Coffee grounds have about the same amount of nitrogen as grass clippings – 2% or so, meaning they heat up quickly when added to compost and help turn the entire pile into a beautiful dark rich soil. They are also very suitable for the worm farm, with those little guys loving used coffee grounds.
Eggshells are useful to vermicomposting bins because they help increase the pH of the entire bin contents to make it less acidic. This is not something the casual worm composting enthusiast needs to worry about too much.
Run food scraps through a blender before adding to your bin. This makes a mushy slurry that is easier for worms and bacteria to eat.
Over feeding is one of the most common causes of worm farm problems. We understand that you might be eager to get your worm farm churning through as much of your waste as possible, but too much waste can cause the environment to become too acidic, damp and anaerobic – all things worms don't enjoy!