Opened up a Can-O-Worms, and last nights escape

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening whatever it might be when you read this... If you have been following our recent posts we settling in with some worms here at our homestead.  If things go as planned we will be using the worm poo called castings to accelerate our garden this year.  However things don't always go as planned.  For example having your worms arrive the day before your worm bin does was an unforeseen problem.  So we had transferred them temporarily to a 5 gallon bucket and a good sealing lid.  We had a bunch of escape attempts(some call it a worm run), but I just kept visiting them and knocking them off the sides of the bucket and lid.  After a doing that for a day they finally decided they liked it and would stay.  No more running activity.

Then the new worm bin arrived last night.  I was excited to see it, but worried another worm run.  The bin is called a Can-O-Worms.  I have owned one in the past and it worked well as long as I did my part.  So God willing we will do our best to make a good home for these guys as we need their help. 

Now for the pros and cons of the Can-O-Worms composter.  Why buy a composter when you can make one for not a lot of money?  Why the Can-O-Worms over another composter?  What are the advantages or disadvantages?  What do I recommend...

First you can make a worm composting bin for not a lot of money.  Frankly when I ordered mine I wasn't aware that my job was going to be gone just a few days later.  So if I were doing this all over again right now knowing what I know I would have tried to build one and save the extra cash.  Is a prebuilt one better than one you can make?  I have not built one, but I did do a lot of research and watched a lot of videos on the topic and I would say the main advantage of the pre-built one you buy made for composting is that the ones designed for this are a more convenient.  Triple the price more convenient over what you can build one for?  I would have to say looking at the bottom line is happy worms, growing population, and castings is what your after and you can get that with one you build.  However the ones designed to be a composter do make this easier when first starting out I think. 

Now why the Can-O-Worms over another ready made composter.  Looking around they all seem to do what they are made to do.  I really wanted to try a "through" composter(like a Hungry Bin) which is one that the material works its way through the composter down to the bottom of the bin where there is a place to catch the casting into a container and you never have to disturb the worms with moving trays around.  The worms you use are called red wigglers.  These are composting or manure worms and they intentionally stay at the top of the bin looking for the new sources of food that have dropped.  Tthey eat until there isn't anymore to eat and keep working their way up to the top of the bin.  So that means the stuff below them usually is already eaten and is castings.  With a through style bin like a Hungry Bin which I was looking at you can let those finished castings work down to the bottom where you have a hatch to collect them and you never bother your worms.   I think this is a very nice system and I would love to build one or have one,  but the cost was just way too high for me to justify even when I was working and had an income.  Frankly I would rather invest that money in a chicken coop and chickens which would not only compost for me but also give me eggs.  So you cannot beat that and is probably one of the projects I will be working on soon.  So keep an eye open for that adventure.  Now back to the compost bins... If I could afford a "through" style worm composter I would do it.  It just wasn't available at this time for me to do it.  So a try system was the next logical choice.  The Can-O-Worms and the Worm Factory are two such systems.

Next style of composter is the bin and tray style.  Now of course if you have lots of space and lots of manure or feed stock to work through you will need something besides a little bin like this.  In that case you will need some open ground with mounds or piles in windrows.  That is beyond the scope of this post, but if your interested in doing this on a large scale these little bins are not the solution your looking for.  The small bins are for converting kitchen waste that we normally put into our compost bins outside to slowly convert to good garden material.  The problem with that method is that we are taking too long to return those nutrients to the garden and using up space in our compost bins fast with the volume of materials we generate during growing season.   So worm bins can help you accelerate this process and provide an even better material for your garden.   Now again back to the topic at hand.  The most common style of bins you will see are these two.  The "Worm Factory" and the Can-O-Worms.  There are others out there.  The primary advantage or possibly a disadvantage depending how how much space you have to host your worms is the size of these bins.  The Can-O-Worms is a larger size bin so it will be able to handle more worms.  However with that larger size remember those worm castings will fill these trays and get heavy.  So that larger size will mean a heavier bin to pickup, move, empty, and replace.  So keep that in mind.  The Worm factory comes with 3 working bins with a collector for the bottom for liquids that seep down and it is collected and used with water on your garden or plants.  The Worm factory is smaller(I have read that it is designed to handle 3000 worms which is roughly 3 pounds of worms) so it may make it easier to manage.  They can eat up to half of their body weight in food a day.  The Can-O-Worms is a round bin with a larger capacity which can scale up to 15000 worms or 15 lbs roughly.  The key is keeping them fed and happy.  I read that the Can-O-Worms has reduced the number of working bins from 3 down to 2 due to the weight that these become when full I was not happy to read this.  When I ordered mine I was NOT thrilled with the 2 tray system idea, but I was fortunate to get one with the 3 bins still.  So I am a very happy camper to have gotten one with 3 bins.  This means most of the worms have plenty of time to move upwards to the top bin and you won't be collecting as many worms, babies, and eggs in your castings in the 3rd bin at the bottom since there is plenty of time for the worms to move through the second tray into the top one over time. 

I only collect the castings when we have moved into the top bin and have been there for a little while.  That way any stragglers will get the clue to move up and there shouldn't be very many worms in the bottom bin of the 3 bin system.  The worms cannot survive the winters cold.  So you need to keep this bin in a place that stays relatively warm or your worms will not make it.  So keep it where you can visit it and add materials to it.  If it is out of site, then it will be out of mind and the worms will likely become neglected and die.  So keep your worms warm, and feed them regularly.

You will still need to use a regular compost bin for your excess food scraps that the worms cannot keep up with.  As your worm population grows they will be able to eat more.  I see many people wishing they had a couple of bins at the very least so that they can process more food waste.  That is good advice and once you learn how to manage your first bin I would encourage people to add more to accelerate the process.

The bottom line:
Are ready made worm compost bins worth the cost?  If you have the funds it does make this more convenient to work with.  So if you have the funds then by all means pick one up.  However if you like this idea and want to try it then don't be afraid to build a bin and experiment.  The resulting material for your garden is priceless.  As a matter of fact gardeners pay good money for worm castings and even the worms.  However it isn't a huge in demand business so I wouldn't run out and invest in worms thinking your going to get rich or make a living doing this.  It however can be part of a rich system of cycling and recycling everything on your property and free materials you can get locally.  This year we are doing a "Back to Eden" Garden which uses a lot of wood chips.  These however are new chips and have not started to break down yet into rich soil.  So we are adding nitrogen fertilizer, compost, and now hopefully in about 90 days we will be adding our first worm castings to the beds to accelerate the decomposition of the wood chips in the beds and to enhance the growth in our beds. 

Worm composting or Vermicomposting is is a small tool that can help you.  I hope to possibly scale this to a second  or third bin and use manure resources I can get for free to feed them and accelerate this even faster.  We will see how this goes with this first bin.  I have a feeling I will need compost faster than this single bin can produce.  But I think I need some chickens to really accelerate this process.  So I will probably focus on chickens next and scale the worm bins once we have done that.  That is my thinking about it all at the moment. 

So what are you waiting for?  Build or buy a bin and get started.  I bought my worms on Amazon, but you can find them on Craigslist, EBay and other places.  Worms are not cheap unfortunately so be prepared for sticker shock of about $20 a lb.  I would recommend starting with at least 1lb, but would recommend 2lbs if you can afford to do it.  It will just take a little longer to process your waste with a smaller number and you will have to regulate what you feed them so not to overload the bin... Overloaded bins can result in smells and bugs.  A well regulated bin and you don't have any smells, and only beneficial other critters will develop in your bins to speed things up.  So here are some links to the bins and worms... 

Worm Factory
Can-O-Worms Composter
2000 worms starter or roughly 2lbs

Now back to the worm escape.  They should settle into their bin in about a day.  So just try to keep an eye on them.  Keep the lid on them.  Some may escape.  I found some who got out last night on the floor this morning.  So some were successful and died... But they should settle in after a day or so and then they are hard at work!

Have fun, and God Bless!

 Longsnowsm