Recently, I made a worm bin and have begun to raise some worms in it. Specifically, I’m raising red wiggler worms (eisenia fetida). I’m planning on feeding the worms to the chickens (a project that will start in spring of 2010, keep an eye out for the future chicken-blog), compost our kitchen scraps (vermicomposting), fortifying our garden soil with the resulting vermicompost material (worm castings or vermicompost), selling them to the local fishers, and perhaps selling them for vermiculture and vermicomposting purposes.

I made the bin by digging a square hole in the ground, about 18 inches deep (down to the clay where the moles don’t burrow), and about four and a half feet square. The walls of the hole were then lined with plastic bread trays that used to be in a bread delivery truck. The trays were tied together with plastic zip-ties. Next, I built a wooden frame on the ground surrounding the hole, and attached a piece of plywood on top of it with a few hinges. Finally, I added some 2″x4″ framing to the top side of the plywood to support some corrugated metal roofing at a slant so that it sheds rainwater quickly. 2 1/2″ and 3″ star-drive outdoor wood screws were used to fasten everything together. The roof-door is so heavy that there will be no problem keeping out rodents looking for food scraps. I will post some pictures soon so you can see exactly what I did. Read the rest of this entry »