Worm what do they eat

Worm composting can be done either indoors or outside in a bin. A wood bin or barrel is best for this use, since it will prevent the compost from becoming too wet, as can happen with plastic containers. The size of the container will depend on the amount of garbage you will be composting.

A good rule of thumb is to allow one square foot of space per pound of weekly household material. You will also need a lid to keep moisture out of the bin.

Take the barrel and drill at least eight holes in the bottom of the container. This will allow for drainage. Set the barrel on bricks to help with drainage. There are two types of material that you will need in the bin for worm composting, bedding material and green ingredients. The green ingredients are the organic household materials you will add to the bin. The bedding material can be dead plants, fall leaves, shredded newspaper, sawdust or straw.

Vary the material and use a few different materials. Fill the container about three quarters of the way with the bedding. You can dig in your garden to find earthworms for your bin or purchase them. The number of worms you need will depend on the size of the container and the amount of material you are composting. Once you have filled the container with bedding material and added the worms, you can add the green ingredients.

This can be fruit and vegetable peelings, crushed eggshells and other organic materials from your home or garden, such as grass clippings and leaves. Each time you add these materials, choose a different area of the bin.

After a few months, you will see no more bedding when you open the bin. The compost will be brown and full of worm castings. Therefore, you need to regulate the temperature of the worm bin often. A temperature above 95 degrees Fahrenheit will boil the worms to death, and at below freezing point, they will die.

Adding the wrong foods will put your worms in danger. Citrus fruit, papaya, tomatoes, pineapples are acidic, and they do not have a chance of long-term survival in an acidic environment. A sign of unbalanced PH levels is a rotten smell, and the worm bin should have an earthy smell. You can correct an imbalanced PH by adding neutrals like paper or eggshells. As a general rule, worms should not be overfed or underfed. A worm will eat twice its body weight daily. Having less food will stunt its growth and performance.

On the other hand, too much food scraps can cause excessive fermentation and protein poisoning as the food will rot. The wrong foods can also be an open invitation to pests like earwigs, rodents, fruit flies, and centipedes.

Worms thrive in soil with water in it, but too much water slows down their oxygen intake. This forces them to come up for air. On the surface, worms become disoriented and have difficulty finding their way back into the soil.

This endangers their life in many ways. The soil in a worm bin can not be fresh forever; after a while, it is full of worm casting, plant food, and microorganisms. Changing the soil can help to make sure that harmful microbes do not overpopulate the bin. Worms are an important part of the ecosystem. They perform a vital role in recycling organic material.

These slimy creatures enrich the soil with their castings, improve soil structure, and aid plant growth. They aid decomposition and prove very useful in compost making. They also serve as a source of food for other animals, like birds and raccoons. Worms can also serve as a source of income for worm farmers and vermicompost producers. So what do worms eat? They will consume almost every kind of organic matter as long as it is not acidic or dry and hard.

What Do Worms Eat? What to Feed Worms? Eggshells: A Worm can eat eggshells, which provide calcium and grit to break down other foods. Eggshells are good for balancing pH levels. Paper: is also a rich source of carbon when feeding worms. Worms cannot digest inorganic substances. The paper you might feed worms with should not be coated with chemicals or plastic. The paper should be soaked in water and shredded before you add it to the compost. Cotton: Cotton is a natural plant fiber; worms can eat pieces of clothing made with cotton.

Banana peels, apple cores, leaf stalks, potato skins, and fruit skins we throw away are things worms enjoy munching on. Worms like to eat food waste like moldy bread and cooked or soaked grains. In fact, the high sugar content of discarded wate like melons will help worms gather around for a good feast.

Coffee grounds: worms eat coffee grounds and the contents of tea bags. Not all tea bags are biodegradable, so you can just pour the contents into your worm bin and thrash the bags with other plastic. Animal Manures: worms eat animal dung too. They particularly relish cow manure and horse manure.

Leaves: worms like to eat dead leaves and other decaying parts of plants. Acidic food: orange, lemon, lime, papaya, and pineapple have high acid levels and will burn the worm's skin. Salty and spicy food: salt is an irritant that will cause a worm to dehydrate and die off. Grass: grasses release heat and ammonia as they decompose, which endangers the lives of the worms.

Dry grains: worms don't have teeth to chew on hard, dry grains, and the grains will give off too much heat. Dairy foods: dairy foods produce a foul stench as they decompose; this pollutes the environment.

All About Worms Worms are everywhere. Photo by Sippakorn Yamkasikorn from Pexels. By Jennifer Okafor. Jennifer is a content writer with an educational background in Public Relations and Advertising. From her desk in Lagos, Nigeria, she helps businesses around the world reach and connect with their audiences. Featured in Sustainable Living. Today, clothing is cheap, and with Black Friday and two-for-one deals, it gets even cheaper.

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In addition, this can lead to a toxic environment. It is better to underfeed your worms than overfeed them. One way to prevent overfeeding worms is to add food scraps in small amounts and in one place at a time. Some people like to alternate sides when adding food scraps into the worm bin. Or they rotate adding food to different sections in the bin. For example, add food scraps to section 1, then a few days later repeat and add food scraps to section 2 and so on.

You should also consider the water content of foods that you add. Feeding too many high moisture foods such as zucchini and watermelon can cause a worm bin to become too moist. Worms like to eat foods just as it begins to decompose. The rate of decomposition of organic materials is greatly influenced by carbon and nitrogen. For worm composting, conditions are generally ideal with a carbon-to-nitrogen C:N ratio of between and Materials high in carbon C:N ratio greater than are categorized as browns because they are dry.

And nitrogen rich materials are categorized as greens because they are fresh and moist C:N ratio less than If you add equal amounts of greens and browns into the bin, then the C:N ratio should take care of itself. You should try and optimize worm farm food for their consumption. Worms do not have any teeth.

This means they need to wait until the food begins to rot or break down so that it is soft and wet enough for them to eat. There are a couple of other ways you can prepare food and make it easier for worms to consume.

You can puree, grate, freeze, or microwave food scraps to help break down the material. And remember to make sure that food has returned to room temperature before adding it to your worm bin. Cover new food scraps with a mix of bedding and paper or use worm blanket.

This keeps it dark and moist, encouraging the worms to come up to the surface and feed. This will also discourage pests such as fruit flies. Having both an outdoor compost bin and a worm farm work well together.

And if you have more food waste than the worms can handle, then topping up the outdoor compost bin is a great option. Yes worms will eat lettuce. Lettuce is high in water content and rich in nitrogen; similar to grass clippings. Avoid adding large quantities of lettuce in your worm farm as it will heat up as it breaks down. Worms love eating little bits of bread.

But it is best to avoid adding bread into your worm bin. Bread tends to go moldy and starchy foods including bread, pasta, rice etc… will attract large populations of potworms.

Instead of soil, composting worms require a habitat of worm bedding material, such as shredded….