Hi! I'm Ali Reynolds with Ali's Organics, and today I'm going to show you how to start a red worm composting bin. This is a bin that we carry on our website at Ali'sOrganics.com or here in the store, and we're liking this because it's just pretty simple, straightforward, easy to do. So what we want to have is either some coconut core or some peat moss and the night before, we actually want to get this moist. We want, we don't want any dry spots in it. So we want to dump in two or three inches of this of this one here is peat moss, and spread it out, and we're going to add some newspaper to this, and we want to shred it up. Okay. We're going to add the newspaper because it gives them something to eat and just a part of composting. So we're just going to kind of mix it in with this peat moss. And now we got our worms that we're going to be adding. These are the red wiggler worms, and they are the best for composting. They are little workhorses. You know what, nightcrawlers or the earthworms. These are the ones that you want. They're red wiggler worms. Anyways, we're going to just sprinkle these guys over the top. We're going to be adding some food. This is just some lettuce, just stuff from the kitchen. And I like to put it in a corner. You can also add some leaves, and I like to just sprinkle the leaves over the top. They'll eat all of these though. Make all these worm cast that you can use in your garden. Then, I like to take some newspaper, and I like to get it wet. And I'm just going to lay this right over the top. This helps keep some moisture in. It makes it dark for 'em. They like to have darks, a dark place to be, and I'll just cover this. Then, you want to put a lid on this. You pretty much just want to leave these guys alone. Don't disrupt them too much, but do check on every once in a while. This'll take a few days for them to eat these. Each worm can eat its own weight in food a day. So if you have a pound of worms you're talking a pound of food a day. Then, you're going to do the same thing again as we did at the very beginning. You're going to add what is now called a working tray. You're going to put that on. You're going to add your peat moss. Oh, you don't have to add the worms and then your food. You can just put in the corner. You can just basically put on the top layer. You can use leaves. You can even add a little bit manure like cow manure. Don't use chicken manure, it's pretty hot. So you can use rabbit manure, they really like that. Some people have even put some chicken feed in it. As long as it's an organic chicken feed, I think it's alright. You want to store this in a place that is cool. You can put it in your garage. Put it out of the sunlight because it will attract the sunlight, they'll create too much heat and you'll kill your worms. They can handle some freezing. But if it gets really cold in your area, then you'll definitely want to put them in your garage. After a while you'll end up getting earthworm castings and that's when you'll remove the tray here, and then you have the castings down here. And you can continue to add four levels of trays on this. They'll also create a worm juice that comes out of the spicket down here. You'll open it up and drain it, and that's just like a like a compost tea. And you can use that earthworm juice on any of your vegetables. You can even use it in your house plants. The biggest thing is with the worms is you gotta remember to feed them, and don't let them get too wet. If they get too wet, then you'll drown them. This tray here has holes in it, and when you have a food up here the worms want to come up through these holes. They'll come up to eat their food. Remember you always want to have your food on the top. And they'll just work their way up through here, and once you put all your stuff in here they'll come up, they'll eat everything. When your lid's off, they're going to go down the bottom 'cos they don't like the light so you want to make sure that your lid is on when you have the food up in here. You can feed them egg cartons, egg shells. Make sure it's broke down. They can eat it a lot faster when it's broke down really small. You can use napkins, cardboards. Any of that kind of stuff that you can use in here. Table scraps are great. But there again, you don't want to be using meats, you don't want to be using oils, dairy products. You don't want to be putting in here. And chop it up really fine for 'em, and they'll be able to digest it a lot faster. Some of the things that they really like is tea from the tea bags. You can even put the tea bag in there as long as you remove the staple out of it. And they love coffee grounds. They seem to just thrive on those. And just remember, keep everything up on top. Keep it moist but not too wet because you don't want to drown them. Okay. That's all there is to beginning your earthworm composting bin.
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