Worm News Update! Time For a New Working Tray

It's been a little over two months since I got my worm bin, and the worms have been busy munching away. They have just about finished their labors on the current working tray. There is a little bit of bedding left, but the tray is now mostly castings (worm poop). It's time to make a new working tray for them, and to harvest the rich compost that they will leave behind when they move to their new digs. The worms can't live in their castings, because it is toxic for them. I think I can hear 1,000 little voices cheering.......
I have assembled all the materials that I will use to create the new bedding for the working tray. I have newspapers, corrugated cardboard, twine, an egg carton, and lots of clean paper towels that I have used for things like blotting excess moisture from lettuce. Such an exciting life I lead!


Everything gets cut up in to small pieces. The Urban Worm Girl told me that the worms love to hide in the ridges of corrugated cardboard, so I will throw a bunch of that in, along with the twine which I have cut into little pieces.


Next, the newspaper is cut into strips and added to the tray.

Add some torn paper towels and give everything a good spritz with water. The bedding should be as moist as a wrung-out sponge.

In goes some cut-up egg carton, and everything gets mixed together. The tray should be about 2/3 full of moist bedding.

Now I'll add a few handfuls of topsoil and give it a few squirts of water. Later on when I boil some eggs, I will add crushed, dried eggshells. It's important to give the worms a bit of grit to help their tiny digestive tracts. Keeps 'em regular!

I've saved some vegetable scraps, and I will chop them into smaller pieces to help the worms ingest them. Looks pretty tasty!

Bury the food in one corner, and cover it up with the bedding. This step is important to prevent unpleasant odors or fruit flies. The worm bin should smell fresh and clean, and it will if the food scraps are properly buried under the bedding. Mine has smelled great so far when I take the roof off -- very woodsy.

Now the new tray is ready to go on top of the old tray, and I have placed it on top and put the little roof back on.

In about 2 weeks, most of the worms should have migrated up to the fresh food and bedding in the new tray, and I will be able to collect my reward. At the end of 2 weeks, if there are still a lot of worms down in the old tray, then I will take that tray and move it to the top, take the lid off and shine a light on it. The worms can't live in light, so they will hopefully migrate down into the new tray.
This has been a fun and interesting hobby so far, and I feel like I am doing a little more of my share to help the environment. My garden will thank me, too!