How to Make a Worm Bin with Worm Tea Collection - Our $20 DIY Worm Bin

  

How to Make a Worm Bin with Worm Tea Collection

For years we wanted a worm bin to make our own worm compost aka vermicompost and vermicompost tea, but on a teacher's budget the worm bins we really wanted were out of our price range, and they were either too small, too complicated, or didn't have the worm tea collection compartment. 

This is why we decided to make our own. We used 2 free 5-gallon buckets and a spigot we had on hand, so the entire diy worm bin was free, and it has worked great. Now, because our DIY worm bin has worked so well, we want to scale it up so we can expand our worm compost production. 

Since our first worm bin setup has worked so well, we're simply scaling up the design and using the same worm bin concept. 

What You Need for Your DIY Worm Bin

• 2 x Solid-colored plastic bins with lids w/enough space between the bins for a spigot. 
• 1/2-inch Threaded PVC ball valve 
• 1/2 inch make adapter that fits jnside the ball valve. A washer Waterproof silicone Drill Drill bit 
• 3/4-inch wood bit 
• 1/16th drill bit 

It's important that you use solid-colored worm bins because the worms prefer the darkness.

Look for bins that have enough space for a spigot when you put them together (see our video for how to find the best bins).

How to Make Your DIY Worm Bin

1. Drill a hole into the lower side of the bottom bin to create a compost tea compartment.
2. Make sure the hole is smaller than the thread on your adapter.
3. Add a washer to the adapter and screw it into the bin from the inside 
4. Put waterproof silicone on the outside of the hole around the threaded adapter. 
5. Screw the spigot/pvc ball valve onto the adapter from the outside of the bin.
6. Put the two bins together and drill holes with the 1/16th drill bit into the top area where the two bins overlap. 
7. Drill holes into one of the lids
8. Separate the two bins (to avoid accidentally holes in both bins) and drill drainage holes into the bottom of the top bin.
9. Get rid of any plastic remnants.
10. Put the two bins together and you've made your own worm bin.
11. Keep the second lid close by the bin in case you have a big storm come through to prevent too much rainwater to get into your worm bin.

 

The Best Worms for Composting

Now, you can start out with finding up your own worms just make sure they're not the invasive jumping worms that can harm your plants instead of helping them. 

You can find red worms under logs and near compost, but it can be difficult to identify these. 

You may also be able to find red wigglers at Walmart or in your fish and bait shop, but again, make sure these are the right worms for composting. 

Or you can order red wigglers online, which is what we did a few years ago. The best types of worms for vermicomposting are red wigglers (Eisenia fetida) and redworms (Lumbricus rubellus) because these worms prefer a compost environment to plain soil and they thereby produce better, or richer, worm castings. 

When we made the 5-gallon bucket worm bin a few years ago, we originally ordered 250 red wiggler worms on Amazon, and these have been great providing us with lots of worm castings and worm tea. 

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We considered our original red wigglers an investment into our future. It is mostly advised to get at least 400 red wigglers for your bin, but since we're on a tight budget, we just got the 250 red wigglers from a place with a great reputation. 

It did not take long for the worms to start reproducing, and they've definitely multiplied over the past 3 years, which is why we're just transferring some of these to the new worm bin.  If provided with the right conditions, the worm population can double in 3 - 4 months.

We plan on making a third and maybe even a fourth worm bin within a year or so, and we'll just keep on splitting up the worms from the original worm bin. 

What to Feed Your Worms in the Worm Bin

• Vegetable scraps
• Leaves
• Yard waste
• Shredded paper (make sure to remove plastic windows and staples before shredding)
• Crushed eggshells
• Broken up cardboard 
• Broken up cardboard egg cartons
• broken up toilet paper rolls
• Composted manure 
• A limited amount of grains
• Coffee grounds

Benefits of Worm Castings

Worm castings are an organic fertilizer that you can easily make at home with very few resorces.

By having a worm bin you can keep food scraps out of the landfill and create food for your plants.

Worm castings are 7 times richer in phosphates, 5 times richer in nitrogen, and 11 times richer in potash than regular soil.

Worm castings are loaded with beneficial bacteria and increase a plant’s resilience to pests, drought, heat, disease, and other stressors. 

The Final Cost of this DIY Worm Bin Project 

• 2 x plastic bins on sale at Target $7.20 $14.40
• 1/2 inch Threaded PVC ball valve $2.83 
• 1/2 inch slip coupling $1.67 male 
• Washer (had on hand) 
• Silicone (had on hand) 

Total cost $18.90 

Our only regret with our current worm bins and any other worm bin is that these are all made out of plastic. 

We would love nothing more than to one day own one or more worm bins made out of biodegradable, compostable plastic that is safe for everyone. 

We are not purists in the sense that we do the best we can with what we have available to us. We avoid using plastic whenever we can and hope for safer alternatives in the future. 

The 5-gallon buckets are made out of food-grade plastic, but as we all know, all plastics leach microplastics over time. 

We have faith in the scientists and environmentalists, and we look forward to supporting the new, safer and environmentally-friendly alternatives to the plastics we all know. 

But we worry avoid the chemicals used in plastics and we try to educate ourselves as much as possible, and we encourage all of you to do the same. 

The reality is that gardeners and farmers are surrounded by plastic, and whenever we can find alternatives, we are all for it. 

We don't use weed barriers and we wish we didn't need to grow a lot of our fruit trees in plastic containers, but until we reach our dream of finding more acreage for the Dancing Treetops Family Farm, we are forced to grow most of our plants in portable plastic nursery pots. 

 

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