It’s been a while since my last post about #vermicomposting, today I want to cover the importance of bedding material in a worm bin and how it can make the difference between success and failure for the newbies.
A lot of my occasional customers are buying from me because they have killed their worms. The reasons are:
- a heat wave killed them
- long term neglect that dried the worm bin
- no apparent reasons
Most of the time, after discussing with the person, the no apparent reasons was actually due to overfeeding and not using any bedding material or not enough. They describe the compost as muddy, sometimes stinky with a lot of flies or fruit flies.
All of these problems and more can be solved or at least attenuated by the use of plenty of bedding material.
What is a bedding material?
It's a material that provides a bed to an animal. The worms will enjoy a comfortable and safe place to stay in when they are not feeding rather than in the food layer which sometimes can be or become dangerous and harmful to them. Too much food added will start breaking down by bacteria action and in sufficient quantity will begin heating up, become acidic and release too much water at once. That is the reason why bedding material is important, it provides the worm with a neutral place that will buffer the resulting effects of adding too much food. But the benefits of bedding material does not stop here as we will see later on.
The bedding for the worms needs to be made by neutral materials i.e. carbon rich material, those who are familiar with composting call this type of materials “browns” as opposed to “green” that are richer in nitrogen. Good material for bedding needs to also be bulky and absorbant this will create better ventilation and moisture control. C:N ratio in a worm bin is also similar to traditional composting as the first phase starts with the bacteria. Food scraps are high in nitrogen so you need to add bedding material to get to a high C:N ratio.
How does the bedding help?
- it provides a clean home where the worms can go relax and watch TV after diner 😂. Seriously, that’s like their bed and it has to be safe.
- by adding fresh and dry material under each feeding, it will absorb excess moisture and retain nutrients in the bin rather than leaching it out.
- a good ratio bedding/food will also act as a pH buffer by absorbing the leachate and diluting its acidity.
- bulky material such as the great corrugated cardboard (that can be collected for free from many places) creates air channels making a better ventilated environment
- covering the food layer with bedding material will also reduce odours and keep critters at bay. Fruit flies won’t be able to lay their eggs in the food.
- in winter a thick layer of bedding at the top can act as a blanket
- in summer a thick layer of bedding at the bottom or even a full tray of bedding material under the feeding tray will create a cooler layer for the worms to dig down too when it is too hot above
- a dry layer of bedding at the top will help keeping wandering worms inside as they don’t like dry environment
- adding bedding material will also increase the volume of content which will help stabilize the temperature even if it is fluctuating a lot outside. This is why a large worm bin will more likely survive a heat wave better than a small one. A small glass of water will boil much quicker in a microwave than a bowl of water.
- if you have continuously added bedding material to a worm bin then you can go on holidays for several weeks without worries as the bedding will also become food as it breaks down.
Good bedding materials can be:
- well aged or hot composted horse manure or grass clippings. They need to have gone through their heating phase during the Composting process. In the case of grass clippings, don’t add too much at once because even well aged clippings can still heat up
- corrugated cardboard are excellent readily available material that can be shredded or hand torn
- newspaper are also excellent material shredded or hand teared in one inch strips
- egg cartons are easier to rip off than corrugated cardboard
- leaf mould
- traditional compost
- hay, dry leaves etc...
- peat moss and coco coir are good too but are expensive, the production of peat moss is not sustainable and coco coir can contain salt so needs to be washed first
It is a good idea to use a combination of different bedding material as each of them will have strength and weakness.
How to use the bedding material
A thick layer is used to setup a new bin:
At every feeding, use the same volume of bedding as food or even double:
Cover the food scraps with more bedding material:
The bedding material is like a safety net for when you make a mistake. If you overfeeding accidentally, the worms can retreat until the food layer is safe. If a heatwave hits, the extra volume will give you more time to come and fix things or can even allow the worms to survive the heat waves.
On top of that, the bedding material will also help with the general health of the worm bin as the absorbant material will also reduce moisture so that you do to get into anaerobic and smelly conditions. By reducing the moisture level, your compost will have a better texture instead of being muddy.
Footer
At some point, I had both four of these species of worms in my worm bins. Nowadays, I mainly breed Eisenia Fetida/Andrei and Peryonix Excavatus (in Australia, they are actually Peryionix Spenceralia, a very close cousin). I must still have some E. Hortensis and E. Eugeniae in some of the bins but I haven't really paid attention anymore and just let it be. My aim is to produce a good compost for my garden so I don't really mind which worms are in my bin. All I notice is in winter, the Red Wigglers are kings and in Summer, the Blue Worms kick their asses.
Vote for your 30 witnesses
Credits
- The image at the top has been generated with the Canva app using my own photo.
Related content
- Four common worm species used in worm farming
- The better the ventilation, the happier the compost worms
- Blending or freezing food waste for compost worms
- Composting with worms in an apartment
- Do worms really not eat meat. Understanding relative quantities
- How to feed your compost worms
- How to set up a worm bin
- What does a worm cocoon look like
- 10 myths in worm farming
I don't follow for follow, I don't upvote for upvote. If you make quality posts that I like/enjoy then I will upvote and/or follow you
Glad I found you.
Sorry, I arrived late.
But thanks to you upvoting my post, I wandering down the list, and there you were!
Keep up the good work.
Thank you
Great post. I have a thriving worm bin but its much too small, I need to move them into a bigger space. I didn't know you could use things like grass and leaves as bedding, I usually use newspaper and cardboard.
Thanks for the tips!
Take care,
@amymya
Newspaper and cardboard are great material often overlooked and thrown away.
Great to see a post on worms. I have been so busy with all the spring baby goats and livestock on the homestead lately. Seeing your post reminded me I need to shred lots of boxes for this weeks feeding. Great article as always.
Hey mate, yeah I need to post a review (hopefully a video one) onnthe uwb too. Been busy with other projects that I have not blogged as much on worms and bsf. Are you using Discord chat by the way? You should get on the PAL channel. The minnowsupport project allows one upvote from their vote every 48hrs. I will also get you one share of @steembasicincome for a lifetime upvote from them. Check their profile if you want to know more how they work.
I am not on Discord but I will look into it when I get a few minutes. Thanks.
Hello @quochuy,
Just wanted to say hi and let you know that your wonderful post have been picked up for the weekly Sustainability Curation Digest in association with Minnow Support Project.
Your post will be Upvoted and REsteemed by @msp-curation bot on behalf of MSP.
Thanks for writing awesome content and if you have some time, make sure to check out some of the other posts from this week.
Sustainability Curation Digest #3 🌸🍄🌹 by Carpedimus - MSP
Keep up with the great work :) and thanks for sharing!
great informative post, as always :D fantastic variety of info on the whys and what to look out fors. :)
Thanks mate
This is great info. I had a worm farm way back in the day (and didn't kill them) but knowing about bedding would have been useful.
Thank you. Killing is an extreme case. But that’s a good point, I will amend the post and add other use cases. Thanks 😊
Thank you!!! This was very informative!!! Easy to read! I'll be using more corrugated cardboard. I use peat moss because it's just easier, but yes not sustainable.
Thank you.
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by quochuy [witness] from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.