Hungry Bin Worm Farm – The Arrival #part 1

It doesn’t take much to get me beaming. The Hungry Bin Worm Farm didn’t need wrapping to be the perfect Christmas gift this year.

We have had experience with worm farms before. While the concept is the same (worms eat food scraps, worms produce castings for the vegetable patch and worm wee for liquid compost), there are worm farms and then there is a Hungry Bin Worm Farm. There IS a difference!

The formerly owned worm farm was a black contraption on legs, with round trays stacked 3-4 times high that required lifting off and rotating when full. The idea was fabulous, but it leaked a lot and the trays were very heavy to carry when rotating and emptying.  The latter? Well, let me tell you about it.

Hungry Bin – The Best Worm Farm Ever!

I was really surprised how lightweight the box was. I knew the assembled kit would be the size of a large wheelie bin, but that certainly wasn’t the impression by the size of the box. Easy to carry, easy to open. Check.

A super nice surprise was to see that there was no plastic packaging in sight. In fact, the allen key and instructions were in a brown paper lunch bag. Eco-considerate. Check.

The instructions were simple, no extra tools were required to assemble. Even with a glass of Christmas morning bubbles in hand, the assembly took no more than 10 minutes.

Preparing the Worm Farm

The unit has a funnel-type setup whereby you fill the bin 3/4 full of moist bedding material to get things started. For me, that meant diving into the compost bin (not literally) to scoop out rich fibrous soil to be used as bedding. If you don’t have compost, potting mix works just as well.

Once worms are in place and start eating, their castings and liquid are pushed down through the bin and compressed by the weight of fresh castings above. Rich soil castings are collected in tray separate to the liquid, which drips into a tray beneath.

Before adding the worms, moisten the bedding mix in preparation. A quick sprinkle with the hose, and job done.

What are Tiger Worms?

Firstly, tiger worms aren’t your every-day run-of-the-mill, common garden earth worms. While they can be found in your garden, they are more likely to be found under rotting leaves close to the surface, rather than the big fat worms you’ll see burrowed deep within the soil. They are slimmer and smaller than a regular worm. While you could spend a few weekends trying to find these in nature, you could also buy a box of worms, which is easier and more efficient!  A box of 1000 worms will soon multiply to 2000 and eventually 10,000.

What do worm-farm worms eat?

This, I was delighted to learn, was quite remarkable: the menu of edibles include shredded paper, paper towels, dust from the vacuum cleaner, brown grass clippings, egg shells (crushed), tea bags, pulp from the juicer as well as anything once grown. The exception is citrus and spicy foods (capsicum, leeks, onions). They also don’t like processed foods (fussy, yet very health conscious worms) so don’t feed them bread, pasta or meat.

Tiger worms apparently don’t like the light, so I’ve covered the scraps with a wet sack. You can use wet paper instead. It encourages the worms to come to the surface to feed.

At first feed the worms 2.5cms of scraps. Given the size of the bin, this is still quite a lot of food scraps!  There is no minimum however it is better to underfeed the worms rather than overfeed them. Don’t allow the uneaten food scrap level to grow more than 5cm deep.

The worms, who work very hard eating, don’t like rotten food.  Allow the scraps to wilt and soften (yet not go rotten) and chop finely so it’s easy for the worms to feed.

As worms multiply in numbers, their hunger gains momentum and you can feed them more. The hungry bin can process up to 2kg of food scraps a day when in full swing! At first, you may need to try just feeding them a few times a week.

Especially in summer, keep the worm farm in a shady place (ideally between 15-25 degrees Celsius).

What next?

Next we wait and see what happens! It may take a while for the army of 1000 to build up numbers. I’ll let you know when/how to harvest our first castings. Exciting times!