Sometimes, when I’m feeling too lazy to hand chop, I give dinner’s assorted vegetable scraps a quick whiz in the food processor before feeding the gruel to the worms in my kitchen wormery. I liken it to cutting the food on your kids’ plate into sizes that are manageable for their little mouths. I imagine that my worms’ mouths must be really, really tiny.
To be clear, I’m not saying I think of them as children. We’re not that close, really.
Going to the extra effort really is worth it. The worms process what’s in the bin much faster, and we never suffer from unfortunate smells indoors.
Ingredients seen here: Romaine lettuce cores and blackened bits and paper egg cartons that have been pre-softened in water and ripped by hand.
This is what I do for all my worms food. ^^ I save it up in a container in the fridge till I can be bothered, or if Ive already used the food processor and am going to have to wash it anyway.
I used to chop up my worm’s food, but then I read that the process of freezing and unfreezing veggies breaks down the cells of the veggies making it easy for the worms to eat. I’m lazy… they seem to like their defrosted meals.
It is survival of the fittest in my kitchen. With the several trays that I have they are able to hang out where they want.
I love it when kids come to the house and I can show them my kitchen worms. They are a very appreciative audience. Their moms, not so much.
I never thought of chopping up the scraps for the worms. I chop up large chunks, but not the smaller peels and such. I did learn pretty quickly how far down was sufficiently buried to avoid odor. Though, I do put newspaper through the shredder for the worms. They seem to like that.
Kate: I do the same using the paper shredder. Works like a charm.
Megan: That’s an interesting idea.
Kristi: We always assume it’s the kids that need educating. Seems the adults do too.
I just emptied my large composter outside, but since it’s too early to spread all that black gold on the gardens, I’ve kept it in a few totes in my greenhouse – I just might have to try out some of these ideas for my current worm population!
i did this in the summer and then froze some of the food in bags (that were way too large and leaked smelly liquid when they thawed). it’s nice to have it around for when you don’t have much to feed them…although i’ve learned my lesson and am now going to use smaller bags
I was going to sell my food processor earlier this year because I rarely use it. Then I also got that idea about running my scraps through it for composting. I’m glad to know that it’s working out and I’m not just crazy after all.
Hahaha! I can tell you have a close bond with your worms.
Just found your site because we’re just about to move to a house with a small vegetable garden and I’M SO EXCITED! Clueless, but excited. I want to grow marrows – no idea how you apply marrows, except perhaps general intimidation, but I’m sure your site will help me find out.
Big fat CONGRATULATIONS! on your book being published. I’m going to see whether I can order it from New Zealand.
x
I’m glad to see so many other people are realizing the benefits of composting with worms. I have been using worms myself for almost 2 years now and I love it. I even recently started a blog: redworm.com just to help others learn more about it.
I keep my worms in my garage though so whenever I have extra food scraps I put them in the fridge until the worms are ready for it.
I have a small bucket that I place all of my kitchen scraps into. It allows everything to break down a bit before I put it into my worm bin. It works great! I have only had it for 6 months and I have harvested one rubbermaid bin full of soil this far :)
Just started tonight with the worm composting! Had a 1-hour course last week at an ecological center nearby, plus read a couple of chapters from two books on composting, to be aware about the pros and cons of users before starting. So for their first meal, I treated them with expired red grapes (yeah, with the tiny grey vegetation), crushed/used/moist coffee beans, cucumber peels and the heart of a red pepper (the latter two chopped down to bits with my Normand Bates knife). Let’s see in 2-3 days if they enjoyed it.