I do vermicomposting – Composting with worms. I have been doing this for about 13 years and I love it. I get incredible compost in a very short amount of time and it is easy-peasy. No turning, no balancing carbon/nitrogen ratios. Just feed the worms kitchen scraps and walk away. (I also do regular composting in bins)
When I first started out, I made my own worm bin out of a big plastic tub. Then I created a larger one on the ground. I eventually graduated to a deluxe model called "Can-O-Worms" and have never looked back. (By the way, you do NOT keep a can-o-worms in the middle of the kitchen like it shows in some of the marketing photos. I keep mine outside. Although there is no smell, you do get fruit flies.)
As I went out to feed my worms the other day, I took note of what they were eating and what they were avoiding. See…my worms are picky eaters! I don't know if other worm composters have this problem. But apparently, my worms are spoiled. They will avoid certain foods for as long as possible.
For the most part, they enjoy the usual trimmings such as apple cores, potato peels, banana peels. But they absolutely HATE onions. If I put an onion in the bin, they will move away from it and eat everything else first. Just like a five-year-old, they will only tackle the foods they dislike when there is nothing else to eat. And just like a mom, I will leave that onion on their plate until they do! It will remain on their plate until they grow up and EAT IT!
Yes, an onion will take forever to compost while a strawberry will only last a day or two. My worms have a sweet-tooth. Just like other little kids, my worms will devour a bowl of strawberries, cherries or grapes like they are starving. But what I find funny is that they also have an affection for COFFEE grounds.They love their coffee – French roast, espresso, house blend. You name it – They love it. If they had legs, they would probably have the new Starbucks Gold Membership Card.
So, at any time you can open my worm bin and see worms racing around hopped up on sugar and caffeine! No wonder they work so fast! If I fed my children like that, I would get a visit from Child Protective Services. I just hope there is not a worm equivalent to that! Perhaps Amy Stewart from GardenRant will hear of this and write me up a citation for worm abuse!! I hope not. I want to keep her on my side so I can ask her chicken questions from time to time.
Other composting posts:
Clever Ingredients for Your Compost Pile
More on Compost and Human Hair
Even More on Compost Ingredients
About the Author
Theresa Loe blogs here about taking the garden full circle while striving for a more local, fresh-from-the-garden lifestyle. She is a TV producer, video host, freelance garden writer and a wrangler of chickens and children. (Not necessarily in that order.) For more information on these topics, you can subscribe to her free monthly newsletter.
Theresa Loe is the award- winning Co-Executive Producer & Canning Expert on Growing A Greener World TV. She blogs here about Living Homegrown®, local and fresh-from-the-garden. 
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Amazing. Me too: Can’t stand onions (raw), but love my strawberries, and coffee too.
Ahh…So it’s not just MY worms! Must be a universal worm thing. Funny.
There has been an onion skin in the same spot in my worm bin for at least two weeks now. I was starting to worry that I was over feeding them, since they haven’t touched it. I don’t feed them every day – or even every other day – so I guess mine are just picky, too. Maybe they’d like more fruit…
Don’t worry. They will eat the onion eventually. They just will nibble it for awhile until they have no choice. As the onion rots, it becomes more appealing to them I think. Even though my worms hate onions, I throw them in there. They always disappear…it just takes a LONG time.
I just started a worm bin, ( 3 tiered) 4 weeks ago.
I have to admit the first two weeks, I generally flunked out of vermicomposting.
I am now trying to learn FROM them. I realize that they
aren’t fond of show and tell and they don’t like my Vegas style
all day food buffets.
It is my resolution not to look at them for a week.
Suzanne-
Funny! I guess they don’t like you spying on them so much! They hate bright lights and will run to hide.
We have been having cooler weather here and I noticed my worms are slowing down on their eating. I usually feed them twice a week. But I think I may have to put some of their scraps in my regular composter because they can’t keep up this week. Guess I am switching to once a week too!
My worms are picky eaters too. I don’t care how hungry they are, they won’t touch carrots. Pineapple, berries or corn gets devoured instantly. I do love my little wigglers and feed them their favorite foods as much as possible. I have to stop myself from picking up fruits just from them when I’m shopping.
Hmmm. Now that I think about it, my worms are a little slow on the carrots. But they eat them. I put a beet in there once and I half expected the worms to turn red from eating it. But they waited a long time to touch it. Never noticed any color change. LOL
A wormery to eat what the kids leave – I like it. From Ilkley Moor where ‘t worms will come an eat thee up’
A wormery to eat what the kids leave – I like it. From Ilkley Moor where ‘t worms will come an eat thee up’
What a great story! We haven’t really noticed our worms’ aversion to onions as we usually don’t dump our kitchen scraps immediately into the worm bin. Scraps first go into the regular compost bin mixed with “browns” that we turn about once a day. After a few days of decomposition, we then dump some of the pre-composted stuff into the worm bin (BTW, we got both Smith & Hawken bins at a huge discount from the county). They sure love it and breed worse than rabbits
So I guess our worms are spoiled, too, LOL!
Your worms ARE spoiled! (Just kidding) Your methods sounds perfect. Bet they break everything down quickly.
Have you ever frozen the scraps first? I read somewhere that freezing the worm food first makes everything go faster, but I just don’t want to bother with that extra step. What I like about worms is that it is all so easy.
Wish I got in on the S & H discount bins!
Thanks for the great post – I raised worms for several years, just now getting back into it. The worms multiply quickly – do you sell yours? If you have a large operation, many espresso stands are happy to give away their huge volume of coffee grounds and the worms love coffee. Wishing you the best.
Hi Marlene-
Thanks for stopping by!
No, I don’t sell my worms. They are just for my own use. I do collect coffee grounds sometimes from my local coffee house. I also use the grounds around seedlings to keep the snails and slugs away. It helps until they get washed away from the watering.
Glad you are doing worms again too!
I remember many years ago when you first started worm composting you had the biggest fatest worms ever. Mine are red wrigglers and they are such scrawny things….what were those big fat ones and where can I get them?
Renee-
They were red wigglers! Some of them did get quite large, but I swear I ordered red wrigglers. As far as I know, that is the best worm to have for composting.
I can’t remember where I got them. But there are many places you can order. I will look and see. You only need a small amount to start. Then, the more you feed them – the more they multiply.
~Theresa
Mine multiply like crazy but are not like yours were. I might look for some other kind of worm that gets big and fat!
Well, I sorted 15 cases of strawberries today. Seven cases are still good, while eight cases go to the worm bed. That’s about 10 gallons of strawberries. Does anybody know if there’s a chance that the seeds will germinate?
Paul,
Some of the seeds might germinate and that is true with anything you put in there. I get pumpkin seeds germinating all the time. But that is not a problem at all. As they do, the worms just eat that too. It won’t hurt anything to have a few spouts in the worm bin.