How to Grow Your Own Worms

Find Out What Essential Items You Need to Make a Worm Bin

By
Amy Jeanroy
Amy Jeanroy

Amy Jeanroy is a master gardener and farm homesteader who has operated a greenhouse business since 1999. She served as the herbal gardening expert for The Spruce for eight years. Using her expertise in herbalism, she makes and sells herbal soaps, tinctures, salves, teas, and recipes at farmers' markets in Maine. She has also authored three books on canning and fermenting foods.

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Updated on 11/01/22
Closeup of a bin of soil with live worms on top

Kriangkrai Thitimakorn / Getty Images

If you grow an indoor garden, then you are halfway to the idea of also growing worms. Worms are silent, odorless, and work around the clock, making fresh, organic compost, for your garden.

If you have room for a bucket or shoebox, then you have room for a worm bin in your home. This is perfect for urban dwellers who may not have space for a compost tumbler or other large device. Making a worm bin is just as easy as it sounds: combine a few simple ingredients and add some easy to buy worms. You will then have a place to add your kitchen scraps and turn them into luscious fertilizer for anything you grow. Here are five essential items for creating a healthy worm bin.

A worm bin will continuously create composted kitchen scraps that can be used for your gardens and indoor plants. No one even has to know that you have this hard-working team of composters unless you show them. In fact, you can have a huge bin right on the counter, and it is a conversation starter, but unless you share what is inside, it simply looks like you have a square Art Deco piece sitting there.

  • 01 of 05

    Idiot's Guide To Composting

    Green bucket with lid filled with old vegetables and fruit scraps
    Peter Dazeley / Getty Images

    There are several informative books on composting. An excellent book to get started, The Idiot's Guide To Composting, is a great place to start.

    From the author's sense of humor to depth of knowledge on the subject of composting, this book will help you understand how simple it can be, and how important the few basics rules are to follow. There is an extensive section on worm composting, which walks you through the concept of cultivating and keeping a worm bin.

  • 02 of 05

    The Perfect Bin

    Green worm bins stacked on top of each other in a backyard with plants
    Julie Thurston / Getty Images

    This is the part where it gets interesting. Making a worm bin is not only useful, but it can also easily be designed to fit just the area you have. From a small bucket on the counter to a large, multi-tiered bin that can hold thousands of worms, your worm bin can fit just where you need it to.

    Take a look at these simple and efficient bins. We have seen worms survive for three years in the bin you see pictured before being transferred to a larger bin for increased composting.

  • 03 of 05

    Worms

    Hand scooping a cup of dirt and live worms in a wooden box
    Peter Anderson / Getty Images

    Of course, the worms are important. Without them, even the best setup will never get started. You can not add worms from your garden to the composting bin. They are not able to survive, and your efforts will end up in disappointment.

    The correct type of worm, Eisenia fetida or Red Wigglers, isn't your average type of worm. They thrive in captivity, where the worms in your garden will certainly die when placed in the bin. They also reproduce prolifically and can eat their own body weight in scraps every day!

    These hard workers are easy to purchase as well. You can, of course, buy them online (start with one pound, for most indoor worm bins), or simply buy them at your local pet store. When buying from the pet store, they are often sold by number, so plan on buying 50 to 100 of them. You may have to specify that you need bait or feeder worms, so the person at the store understands you are looking for the live type of worm.

    If you do buy them from the pet store, remove all the bedding that comes with the worms, to avoid adding anything unwanted visitors to your bin.

  • 04 of 05

    Cornmeal

    A piece of cornbread with a green pepper on the side
    Corn Meal © Norwichnuts

    Cornmeal is the perfect food to keep your worms lively and healthy. This is a simple trick that makes keeping a worm bin easier than ever. During the winter months, if you want to go on vacation, simply sprinkling a layer of cornmeal on the top of your bin, will give your worms a fresh supply of food the entire time.

    Cornmeal is the answer if you don't have enough kitchen scraps to feed. To supplement kitchen scraps in your indoor bin, keep a bag of organic cornmeal in the pantry for just this reason.

    Continue to 5 of 5 below.
  • 05 of 05

    Appropriate Kitchen Scraps

    Worm bin lined with plastic, wood and straw, containing soil and eggshells and a sheet of newspaper.
    Peter Anderson / Getty Images

    If you have a worm bin, you probably wanted a way to compost throughout the year. Although they will eat almost everything, there are some foods to avoid adding to the worm bin.

    The obvious foods are the same as an outdoor compost pile: meat scraps, bones, and grease, but there are some not so obvious items, like onions and citrus fruits.