How and What to Feed Your Worms

contrary to what you might have seen in horror movies are had nightmares about earthworms do not have teeth and that's important to understand as I discuss how and what to feed your earthworms [Music] hi I'm gardener Scott and about five weeks ago I started my worm farm and if you didn't see that process you can actually check it out in this video at the end of that video I gave the worms their initial feeding and that's actually where this video begins because over the course of the last five weeks I've been documenting all the steps and each of the processes when it comes to feeding my worms so I'll show you those individual feedings the steps and then discuss just exactly what kind of foods you should be using and how to prepare them in the course of this video four days after starting this bin this dry newspaper is now very moist it's absorbed some of that extra moisture there aren't any worms visible on the surface but going down just an inch or so you can see them quite active and almost all of the food that I had laid out in the middle has been eaten there's a few chunky pieces not many when it's definitely time to feed them again today I'm going to give them some banana peels a couple slices of bread some wilted spinach and a little bit of cilantro and then I'll just cover this top again this time the long way with this moist newspaper cover it up and we'll check back in a few days so the very first feeding that I showed in that previous video the food was completely pulverized and then the feeding after that I gave big chunks of banana peels and bread and those greens and that's to get this conversation started about what it is that you can feed your worms all of that is typical kitchen waste and it's all perfectly good your worms will eat it but remember worms don't have teeth so when you put a leaf of lettuce then for example the worms aren't going to be taking little bites out of those leaves they need to wait until that leaf or that bread or those banana peels are starting to decompose and they're eating the decomposed matter that you're putting into your bin its decomposed by bacteria earthworms don't have stomach acids and they have very few enzymes so they really can't digest the food we're putting in like we would if we sat down to a meal they're eating the pre digested food essentially it's what the bacteria starts breaking down so they're eating the decomposed food the bacteria and any other fungus that might be in the bin so it's been a full week since the last time I showed you how the worms we're doing ten days since I started with the worms and as I look at this paper it's drawing out quite a bit in the middle a little bit around the edges here's a worm that actually tried to escape and got dried out on the newspaper so this is telling me that this cover is drying out which means the whole bed is slightly dry now I can dig down and I'll check the cardboard and the newspaper at the bottom and this is still moist and there's actually a couple worms in there so the bed isn't overly dry in the middle there's still stuff that hasn't been eaten yet the banana peels are mostly gone but you can see all of this black right here these are the worm castings and there's a few worms in here they're starting to eat the newspaper and the cardboard and they're actually doing pretty well they're spaced throughout this bed lots of good active worms so because it's slightly dry right now I think what I'm going to do is add a little bit more of this shredded wet newspaper so I'll sprinkle this around on top on top of that big food I had given them previously this will help raise the moisture level a little bit inside the bed there's still enough food to eat right now that I don't need to add any but I'll put the paper back on and I'll come back in a few days and see if this paper is moist and that will give me a good indication of how the moisture level is throughout the bed the moisture level within the bin is very important for the entire process and that's why I use that newspaper on top and then add wet or dry components as I go along it's why I don't drill holes in the bottom of the bin because I don't want it so wet that water is running out I want a nice moist consistent environment part of that is for the worms but the other component is the bacteria and the bacteria need a consistently moist environment you notice what the banana peels they were moist to start with so they began breaking down pretty quickly and they were pre digested and eaten by the worms but those leaves of lettuce and spinach weren't as wet so they take longer to break down especially when you leave them in big pieces and that leads to the next part of the discussion is how big should the food be as I've already shown the bigger pieces take longer to break down and here's a little experiment that I did I measured out 100 grams of pumpkin that's about a quarter pound and in one of these bowls I have very finely chopped pumpkin coarsely chopped pumpkin and then one big chunk of pumpkin each of those weighs 100 grams the newspaper is nice and moist not overly wet I think the conditions of the bin are pretty nice I'm going to sprinkle some of my garden soil I use any type of grit at this point now I'm going to use the finely chopped in the middle the coarsely chopped next to it and then the single big chunk and we'll come back in a few days and see how the worms like these different sizes so the worms have had four days to eat the pumpkin let's see what has happened the paper is nice and moist and if you look the finely chopped pumpkin is completely gone there isn't a speck remaining these small pieces are still intact there's very little worm activity here and absolutely nothing on the big piece so I'm pretty amazed I'm gonna go ahead and take these big pieces now and chop them up into finer bits for another feeding I think there's a common misconception when it comes to feeding worms you'll see a lot of YouTube creators who have worm farms that say the worms like a particular food and there are those that say worms like pumpkin or they love pumpkin but worms don't have a brain to differentiate what they like and what they don't like and if they really loved pumpkin then why didn't they eat the three different sizes the same why did they only eat the smaller size and leave the big size alone well it gets back to the bacteria that's breaking down the food the bacteria can break down those small pulverized pieces much quicker so it's readily available for the worms to eat they're not thinking about liking it it's just easy to eat those bigger chunks while it takes longer for the bacteria to break it down so it takes longer for it to become a food for the earthworms that's why they weren't going around and taking chunks out of that pumpkin it just wasn't as easy to eat before I feed the worms again I'm going to check on the moisture level all the way to the bottom there's no standing water it's evenly moist throughout but I don't want to add any excess moisture and since I'm going to be feeding them pulverized food that I just blended up I'm gonna add some dry material so just take some leaves from outside dried leaves now I want to put these down first this will help moderate the moisture level throughout the bed and also add lots of nice minerals and nutrients the castings that will result so with a nice layer all the way around now I'll pour in the pulverized food and I'm just going to make a big blob in the middle spread it out a little bit mix it in with some of these dried leaves and then we'll cover it all up again with the wet newspaper then we'll come back and check in a few days when I started this bin I use dried newspaper and dried cardboard at the bottom to help absorb excess moisture and now you see that as I add more and more food on using dried leaves as a method to help maintain a consistent moisture level why leaves well it altima leak comes down to the worm castings that's why I'm doing this to use the castings in my garden I couldn't do the whole thing with just newspaper and cardboard and nothing else and the worms would eventually eat all of that but the castings would be so low in nutrients the nutrient value of cardboard but when I add all of those kitchen scraps with all of their nutrients and then I add leaves which have minerals and nutrients the worms eat it all and their castings ultimately will be much richer and will be much better for my garden because I fed them a wide variety of food along the way and it's that variety that will really give you the best castings so let's check on the worms again it's been about four days the top of the newspapers nice and moist and they've eaten all the scraps and they're actually starting to get into some of the leaves I'll check down in the bottom and a lot of the cardboard is starting to break down see all these nice worm castings all throughout and the worms are staying pretty active so it's almost all bedding now that means it's time to feed them again and so that's how the process continues every three or four days I'm checking on the bin I'm going down to the bottom to see what the moisture level is like if it's too dry then I'll be adding a wet layer of newspaper and some wet mushy food if it's too wet then I'll be adding a layer of dry material like those leaves and the food might be a little more chunky and that quite so liquidy I use the food to help manage the moisture level within the bed and so now at the five-week point I'll just keep doing the same thing the top cover of newspaper is actually nice and moist and in fact the worms have actually started to eat some of it as it begins to break down I'll come back in here and I'll dig down to the bottom and the worms are eating the newspaper they're eating the last little bit of food they're getting to the leaves and they all look pretty healthy I keep the food scraps that I plan to feed the worms in my freezer the freezing action will actually cause the fruits and the vegetables to break down much quicker as the liquid inside those cells expands when it freezes it breaks apart the cell walls and then when it thaws the liquid that's in the fruits and vegetables is released much easier and the bacteria have an easier way to get into the food and start that decomposition it's a fast and easy way to actually get the food to the worms faster some of these frozen pieces are actually pretty big and this is a pretty solid piece of ice so I will let this thaw out before I begin to cut it or put it into the blender or food processor while we're waiting for the food to thaw before I cut it let's talk more about the food what it is you can feed your worms now you may have noticed that I left the top off of this bin let's the let it air out a little bit while I'm waiting another great method for controlling overly wet conditions now back to the food use anything that's organic and buy organic I don't mean certified organic the way it was grown I mean something that is plant-based try to stay away from animal products yeah you can put raw meat in here and you can put eggs and you can put dairy but it's going to rot and smell before the bacteria can break it down and it becomes worm food and you really don't want a smelly bin smelly bins are bad that's another sign that it's too wet it's become anaerobic so I always see what the smell is and it should be nothing so if you use organic products those plant-based products your bin will not smell and it'll be perfect food for the worms you can use sawdust as long as it's not chemically treated sawdust can be a great food for worms almost anything that we eat that's plant-based is good for the worms you'll hear recommendations to stay away from refined foods you know the white bread and the sugar products that we use in our kitchen and I tend to agree with that but I use whole-grain bread and that's why you saw me earlier put some slices of bread as a food I don't see any problem with that at all I do stay away from a sugar based products the thing about the digestion system of worms is if a high carbohydrate or high protein food enters the front and then exits the back it's probably not going to be digested along the way so if you've got a lot of sugars a lot of high carbohydrates that you're trying to feed the worms it's going to be undigested in the castings you may see recommendations to stay away from acidic foods for your worms and that's true to a certain degree don't feed them a lot of lemons and a lot of oranges that'll change the pH within the bin generally the bin should be slightly alkaline the bacteria will turn the food slightly acidic within the digestion process of the worms the worms will excrete calcium carbonate internally and that helps reduce the acid created by the bacteria so when it's all said and done the worm castings are pretty neutral if you create an acidic environment it can throw the whole thing off use lemons use lines use the acidic fruits but in moderation and I'll usually chop them up with a lot of other vegetables when I add them to the bin these scraps have had some time to thaw and now I'll go ahead and start chopping them into smaller pieces if the bin were very dry I would put these into a food processor or blender add some water and then pour it as that big glop that you saw earlier but because the bin is slightly moist I'm just going to cut these into smaller pieces I've got a combination of things here I've got some peppers I've got some grapes there's some banana peels some good cucumbers and all of this will add a good variety of the nutrients I'm looking to give my worms don't think that you really need to focus on fresh or frozen foods for your worms when I was 16 years old my father actually started a worm farm on a very large scale and my brothers and I used to go out every week to feed the worms and what we fed them was horse manure that we had cleaned from the barn of the friend who allowed my father to have the worm bins out there manures can be a great food for worms horse manure cow manure rabbit manure whatever you want to use go ahead and consider that as a food for your worms if you've got it in some good quantities so the freshly chopped vegetables are now going in the bin and this time I'm actually going to bury them amongst all the leaves and newspaper this will really get all of this food mixed up with the bedding because I really want to encourage the worms to be eating more of this newspaper and cardboard at this point and why do I do this why bury the food at this point well that frozen food as it continues to thaw will get pretty mushy and all those liquids and that mushy food will start coating a lot of the newspaper and cardboard which makes the cardboard and the newspaper a little more delectable to the bacteria and ultimately the worms and the reason I do that at this point is because the worms I'm using the red wigglers are only eating in about the top two to three inches in this worm bin if I had started with a worm bin that was 18 inches deep the worms would never have gotten down to the bottom to eat the food they would have stayed within that top layer as I continued feeding the worms I'll be adding more and more layers layers of bedding layers of food so I start with the small layer first try to get that bedding eaten as much as possible before I then throw in heavier and heavier layers on top you've seen the whole process and now I'll just keep repeating this for the next couple months ultimately I'm looking to harvest the castings at about six months after I started this bin in that last month in particular I'll really be cutting back on feeding because I want them to eat any organic material that's still left in the bin and I'll show all of that in a future video go ahead and try to be creative with some of the foods that you feed your worms if you've got small animals and you're feeding them alfalfa pellets well any of the extra out falfa pellets that you have when you clean up you can go ahead and feed the worms you can also take an easy approach and by worm food there are companies that will sell it to you it's essentially really ground-up organic material that's all ready to just spread and let the worms eat it you can make a similar product using cornmeal and flour I like to use that kind of product towards the end right before I get ready to harvest the worm castings most of the big chunky food has been eaten but as they finish up those little bits of bedding and other pieces of food a little bit of that kind of powder on the top really can help if you have any comments or questions about how and what to feed your worms by all means please let me know in the comments below if you'd like to see more gardening videos subscribe to the garner Scott channel if you haven't already done so be sure to click on the bell because that lets you know when new videos are coming out if you like this video well then give me a thumbs up and share it with others that you think might benefit i'm garner Scott enjoy gardening [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Gardener Scott

Views: 98,896

Rating: 4.9651418 out of 5

Keywords: how to feed worms, what to feed worms in a worm bin, what to feed worms in a worm bed, what not to feed worms, what to feed worms, worm bin, worm composting, what do worms eat, feeding worms, worm chow, worm bins, feeding compost worms, gardener scott, gardenerscott, red wigglers, red wiggler worms, red wiggler worm farm, worm castings, worm farm, food for worms, worm food, earthworm food

Id: Hb0V8l07jGU

Length: 26min 11sec (1571 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 29 2019