How to Help Your Composting Worms Thrive
In addition to bedding and food, your composting worms need appropriate temperature, moisture, oxygen, and pH levels to thrive. Here are some basics for maintaining a healthy environment for your worms:
Light: Worms don't have eyes, but they're still extremely sensitive to light and move away from bright light if they can. If exposed to bright light for an hour, some worms become paralyzed. Unable to move away, they dry out and die. Put your bin in a dark location, keep a lid on it, or throw a towel or other covering over it to block light.
Temperature: The optimal temperature range for red wigglers is 55–77 degrees Fahrenheit (13–25 degrees Celsius). You can stretch those limits to 50–84 degrees Fahrenheit (10–29 degrees Celsius), but they may not process as much organic matter or reproduce as vigorously.
Moisture: Maintaining moist bedding is crucial. Worms must remain in a moist, humid environment at all times, or they will die. Worm bedding should be 60 to 85 percent moisture. Depending on what types of food scraps you supply, the bedding may remain moist. If necessary, add moisture by misting with a water spray bottle or sprinkling drops of water across the bed periodically.
On the other hand, don't let the bin become a swamp. Wet conditions turn the bin into a smelly anaerobic composting system.
Breathing room: Red wigglers need oxygen to maintain their household as an aerobic (with air), sweet-smelling system. Be careful not to allow bedding to become too wet or to add too much food at once, which may deplete oxygen levels. Once a week or so, aerate the bedding by gently fluffing it up. If you're squeamish about worms, wear rubber gloves or use a big plastic spoon or spatula to gently lift and turn.
pH levels: In nature, worms survive in a range of pH levels, but in the small space of your bin, it's best to keep pH in the range of 6.8 to 7.2.
Does that mean you have to measure pH levels? Not unless you want to. The following food adjustments can help you maintain pH levels that don't jump out of whack:
Limit the amount of citrus scraps to prevent the bin from getting too acidic.
Add crushed eggshells to lower acidity.
Limit the amount of nitrogen-rich materials that rapidly decompose, such as an abundance of coffee grounds. Nitrogen materials release ammonia and increase pH levels.
If you're interested in testing the pH of your worm bin, garden stores and online retailers sell various styles of simple pH testing kits, such as a paper strips, capsules, or meters. Although not always extremely precise, they'll provide you with a troubleshooting guide.
Gardening Glossary
annuals
Plants that complete their entire life cycle within one growing season. The plant germinates from seed, grows and blooms, and then produces seed and dies.
Gardening Glossary
biennials
A plant that take two growing seasons to complete its life cycle. It germinates and grows leaves and stems in the first year; produces flowers and fruit (seed) in the second, and then dies.
Gardening Glossary
bolt
When a plant flowers or produces seed prematurely.
Gardening Glossary
cold frame
A wooden or concrete block box in which you can grow plants or hold dormant during the cold winter months.
Gardening Glossary
cole crops
A family of vegetables, including broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and Brussels sprouts. They thrive in cooler weather.
Gardening Glossary
complete fertilizer
Any fertilizer that contains all three of the primary nutrients, N-P-K (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium). Phrase is based on regulations governing the fertilizer industry. Does not mean that the fertilizer literally contains everything a plant needs to thrive.
Gardening Glossary
deadheading
The practice of pinching or cutting off spent flowers
Gardening Glossary
evaporative-pad humidifier
A humidifier in which fans blow across a moisture-laden pad that sits in a reservoir of water.
Gardening Glossary
harden off
The process of acclimating plants grown indoors gradually to the brighter light and cooler temperatures of the outside world.
Gardening Glossary
hardiness
The ability of a plant to survive is called its hardiness.
Gardening Glossary
humus
A stable end product of organic-matter decomposition that's believed to increase microbial activity in soil, improve soil structure, and enhance the root development of plants.
Gardening Glossary
Bacillus thuringiensis Bt
An effective bacteria that attacks only the larvae of caterpillar family insects. It is safe to other insects, animals, and humans.
Gardening Glossary
macronutrients
Mineral nutrients that plants need in the largest quantities: nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, and sulfur.
Gardening Glossary
mulch
Organic or inorganic material placed over the surface of soil, usually directly over the root zone of growing plants. Used to conserve moisture, kill weed seedlings, modify soil temperature, provide attractive covering to garden beds.
Gardening Glossary
organic matter
Once-living stuff like compost, sawdust, animal manure, ground bark, grass clippings, and leaf mold (composted tree leaves). Used to enrich soil and improve soil texture.
Gardening Glossary
perennials
Any plant with a life cycle of three or more years. Herbaceous (non-woody) perennials include flowering plants and herbs, mainly. Woody perennials include trees and shrubs. Longevity depends on the plant and growing conditions.
Gardening Glossary
pH
The measure of soil's acidity. Soil with low pH means it's too acidic; soil with high pH means it's alkaline. Most plants grow best in soil with a pH value between 6.5 and 7.2. Neutral soils measure 7.
Gardening Glossary
photosynthesis
The process through which plants take nutrients from the air and from the water in the soil to produce sugars that fuels the plant's growth.
Gardening Glossary
primary nutrients
Nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium are the three nutrients plants need in the largest quantities.
Gardening Glossary
root crops
Plants with edible underground roots such as onions, carrots, beets, potatoes, turnips. Most root crops are cold-weather crops.
Gardening Glossary
self-blanching
A type of cauliflower with leaves that naturally curl over the head and exclude light. Requires cool temperatures for leaves to curl effectively.
Gardening Glossary
sets
Small onion bulbs, about 1/2-inch wide, that were started from seed the previous year. Grow onion sets with the pointy end up.
Gardening Glossary
side-dressing
The act of adding a small amount of fertilizer around or "on the side" of plants after they're growing.
Gardening Glossary
succession planting
Planting small, 2-to-4-foot patches of plants every two weeks throughout the growing season so that you can harvest a crop over an extended period of time.
Gardening Glossary
thinning
The act of cutting the least robust seedlings in your garden to give the healthier plants more room to grow.
Gardening Glossary
vining crops
Crops that grow on vines, such as cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, and winter squash. They usually require support (staking, trellising, etc.) to keep them off the ground.
