Worm Composting With Kids

My mother-in-law found some awesome books for the twins a couple years ago, one was Kids Garden! The Anytime, Anyplace Guide To Sowing and Growing Fun by Avery Hart and Paul Mantell. I was flipping through the book today looking for something new and fun to try with the boys when I came across page 43: Keep Pet Worms In An Indoor Compost Bin. Now we're talking, something educational for Mom and the kids! I've always been interested in worm composting but honestly, I had no idea where to begin and no time to figure it out. So, we've stuck with our handy dandy outdoor compost bin, which you can learn to make HERE, and it's great for outdoor yard waste, like leaves and grass clippings. We were adding our food scraps to our outdoor pile as well but now that we'll have some new house guests, we'll be adding it to our indoor compost bin.

Three Important Worm Compost Facts:
1. Worm waste, also called castings, is an excellent food for plant roots.
2. Composting is a great way to recycle fruit and vegetable food scraps.
3. Compost bins do NOT stink! (No really, they don't.)

The bin is easy to make when you follow the directions in Kids Garden! You only need 5 things, most of which you probably already have!

10” (minimum) deep container with a lid
Shredded newspapers
Soil
Earthworms
Moist kitchen scraps

Place 3” of newspaper shreds in the bottom of the box. Then fill the box ½ way up with soil (Garden soil not potting soil, most potting soils have fertilizers which could hurt your worms.). Add worms. Mix in fruit and vegetable scraps with the dirt. Every day or so add a little clump of scraps and cover it with dirt. To make it even easier, Kids Garden! recommends keeping a chopstick in the box to stir the compost every once and awhile. Last but not least, take out the fresh compost every few weeks (4-6 or so) and add it to your houseplants. Then add new bedding for your worm friends to thank them for their hard work!

Give Them Roots' style:
We're using a clear storage tote and covering the outside in construction paper that the boys are decorating with stickers and crayons to give the worms a dark home. We will be leaving a 3” x 3” square to sneak peeks of our worms at work... like an ant farm.

Most people keep their worms under the kitchen sink. You can keep them anywhere you'd like but just remember that worms like dark, cool places. Avoid windows and high heat areas.

You can dig for worms or purchase them at most pet stores or fishing bait suppliers. The book doesn't say how many you need but we're going with a dozen.

Do you have a worm raising tip that you'd like to share?