How to Maintain a Good Compost Bin

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By Ron Augustine
eHow Contributing Writer

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Maintaining a good compost bin is all about taking care of your worms. If you keep the worms well fed and healthy, you'll have successful compost. Making your own compost is an environmentally friendly way to get rid of vegetables, fruits and yard waste. To maintain good compost, you have to make sure that your worms are healthy. The worms should always be kept in your compost bin at all times, and their food regularly be put into the compost.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Plastic container with lid
Red wiggler worms
Waste
Large spoon or shovel
Newspaper

Compost Upkeep

Step 1

Add leftover food to your compost bin for the worms to eat. Scraps of vegetables, fruit, broken (rinsed) eggshells, cereals and grains are the best foods for your worms. Feed the worms every 1 to 3 days.
Step 2

Use a large spoon or shovel to mix around the compost once every week. Moving around the waste will ensure that the worms get all of the waste in the container. If the decomposing matter becomes too wet or squishy, add newspaper for absorption. Put the newspaper over the compost, covering up the worms. This will deter fruit flies from getting into the compost, too.
Step 3

Store the compost container under the sink or in your kitchen pantry. As long as the compost bin isn't regularly exposed to direct sunlight, your worms will be healthier. Try to maintain a consistent level of light wherever you put your compost bin.

Tips & Warnings

Worms will also eat organic paper, burlap and cardboard scraps. But don't put large pieces into the compost, rip everything into small pieces first. Used coffee filters and grounds can be put into the compost container, too. Both the grounds and filters are OK for the worms, as long as you don't put too many coffee grounds in, because that could make the compost acidic (one brew per week is safe).
Always avoid putting in things like moldy food, chips, candy, fish, poultry and any citrus fruits like lemons, limes or oranges. Also avoid nonedible items like rubber, aluminum, plastic, sponges, glass or any other non-biodegradable materials.