Harvesting Worm Casts

I wanted to show you how efficient worm composting can be.  After several months of feeding the worms with food scraps and watering twice a week (at no cost, literally), the worms have produced an amazing amount of black gold for the garden.

I've disassembled my worm bin for the picture.  The top container simply drops on top of the bottom container and it has an additional lid to cover the top.  This allows it to separate the worm castings for you, dropping it into the bottom container for an easy harvest.  What you're seeing in the picture is the top container (on the right) with dirt, worms and food scraps.  In the bottom container is the black gold.  I just mix that into some regular potting soil and it's incredibly good for the plants.  Last week, I moved my bell pepper plant into a bigger pot and added the worm poop-infused mixture.  The pepper fruit that was growing doubled in size very quickly.


If you don't want or don't have this bin, worm composting is still possible.  Harvesting just takes an extra step.  You can see in the top container that a large piece of old celery is dividing the bin into two.  One side has all the food scraps.  The other is pretty clear of food.  I have done this to urge the worms to evacuate the food-less side, which they will do over a 1-2 week period.  Then I will remove that dirt, mix it into the garden, and replace it with new fresh bedding.  The food scraps will then be moved to the fresh bedding and, over another 1-2 weeks, the worms will follow.  Remove that old dirt, replace it with new dirt, and replenish the scraps.  This is the other way to harvest.  I do both.