How to start a backyard worm compost with kids
Welcome to the first post in our backyard worm composting journey!
I’m always eager to get the kids interested in gardening - and it usually doesn’t take that much effort because children are amazingly capable and curious. Worm composting (also known as vermicomposting) was always on our to-do list and since we just started our new vegetable beds, I thought it’d be a good project for the kids.
Most kids are fascinated with living things at a young age, so you could really start a backyard worm composting project as young as preschool if you like. In addition, it’s really versatile in that you can cover lots of science topics, such as decomposition, worm anatomy, life cycles, soil ecology, etc.
Today I’m going to walk through how we chose our composter, what resources I used to get the kids ready for the worms, and setting up and preparing the bin for the worm arrival.
What worm composting set up is best for kids?
The first thing to do is research and decide which composter is best for you and your family.
First off, know that there are three general types of worm composters:
Stackable: These have removable and stackable trays that sit on top of each other. You start putting food in the bottommost tray and once that is filled, move on the next level with food and bedding. The worms migrate towards the higher food source, leaving the bottom tray full of worm castings to use for the garden.
Common brands:
Vermihut
Worm Factory360
Hot Frog Living Composter
Flow-through: The system is a large, usually funnel shaped container. The worms hang out and eat in the middle section of the funnel. As you dump food scraps on the top, the worms migrate up, leaving their castings behind. The bottom usually contains a door or outlet that you can harvest the castings, and it kind of shifts everything down a bit without hurting the worms.
Common Brands:
Urban Worm Bag
Hungry Bin Composter
Traditional Bin style: This is kind of a dump and go system where you dump bunches of compost on top and mix it in and let the worms feast. Sometimes there’s a door on the bottom. For most of these, when the compost is done, you have to dump the pile, manually screen the compost, and put the worms back in a fresh pile with new food and bedding.
Common Brands:
Redmon Green Culture
DIY Rubbermaid-types
Now to choose the right one of these general types, it’s good if you have a little idea of what you hope to accomplish with the worms. Here are some things to consider:
Are you keeping the worm composter indoors or out?
Most worm composters give you the option of either, but some are more “attractive” than others. For instance, if you’re going the bin-style route with some rubbermaid buckets, perhaps you’re not really into keeping that in your kitchen. There are some more fancy looking ones but it’s personal preference.
Some composters are also quite large. The flow through systems can be big and cumbersome. For instance, the flow through composters actually look like garbage cans and seem to be geared more towards side-of-the-yard types.
One other thing to think about is that the ideal temperature for composting is 50-80 degrees. What’s your weather like? Will it be manageable to bring indoors or at least in the garage or something warmer if your weather gets too cold? Can you provide enough cover if it’s exposed to the hot sun?
How interactive do you want to be with the worms?
Each system has certain hands-on requirements, so we’ll go from the least interactive to the most.
The flowthrough systems will likely give you the least interaction with the worms.
In this case you’re just adding food to the top and pulling castings from the bottom. This situation would be best if you’re not into the worms themselves (or maybe just don’t want to touch them) and just want to get into the benefits of working with the castings. In addition, setup seems minimal in that you just have to put the bin together, but do not have to add any additional parts later on.
The stackable systems give you a medium to high level of interaction with the worms.
The setup is also minimal for this one, but as your needs grow you have the option of adding more trays. Also, the way that it is designed allows you and the kids to lift up the cover, and peek inside at any time. You can get a full view of everything that’s going on from decomposition, worm anatomy, lifecycles, etc. To harvest, you have to continually try to get the worms to migrate upwards by luring them with new food and taking the bottommost tray filled with castings for the garden.
The bin-style systems also give you a medium to high level of interaction with the worms. During the decomposition process, you won’t get much action with the worms, since you just dump food scraps and garden refuse on top. During the harvesting period, however, you’ll have to do lots of manual screening to remove the worms. You can do this by picking worms out one by one (which I’ve heard is really popular with the kids) or you can fashion a screen using large-holed chicken wire or hardware cloth to sieve the worms from the castings.
What’s your price range?
As with most things, the tradeoff here is going to be time and convenience. The more expensive the composter, the more convenient its setup and use will be. Some general things to consider:
Do you have the time to acquire the knowledge about building a system for yourself?
Are you a generally handy person?
Do you want a quick and easy setup that gets you up and composting?
At this time of this post, stackables run from about $80+, flow through bins are $100+ and bin styles vary depending on if you buy them ready-made. (from about $30 for DIYs to $100 or more for prebuilt ones)
There are also some other custom types, from Etsy that are gorgeous, and are worth checking out.
Want to try a DIY worm bins? These cost next to nothing!
Rodney’s Worm Bin
Epic Gardening’s Rubbermaid Bins
What worm composter did we end up choosing?
Although I typically like to build things myself, just due to everything going on in in the garden right now, I decided on purchasing one. I wanted to have it all up and running for the kids.
I’d read good things about the flow-through bins, and that would be my first choice if I were going purely for function. But since I wanted this to be a learning experience for the kids, I wanted complete access to all the composting “action”. I was looking for a fairly large outdoor composter with stacking trays.
We decided on the Worm Factory 360. It’s essentially a big plastic box with four holey trays. The logic is that you start from the bottom and feed the worms and as the worms finish each tray, they migrate upwards. You can then harvest the castings as they migrate out of the tray with no food because you put more bedding and food into the upper tray.
I ordered the Worm Factory 360 from EarthEasy.com for $150, which seemed a little steep (given that this was seriously a large plastic box). Buying the composter on its own is about $120, and ordering worms from another vendor costs $50 (who knew the worm business was so profitable). In the end we saved $10 going this route.
Good educational resources on worm composting for kids
While we were waiting for the composter to arrive, I went over some fun worm stuff with the kids. I had already done a fair portion of reading, so I thought it would be good to get my kids on the same page by looking at some videos and having fun with some worksheets.
Worm farming and worm composting are common projects for schools. And thankfully there is some really great learning material out there! The topics span all types of disciplines and age groups: towards kids and composting, worm anatomy, and soil ecology.
My kids are elementary school age, so this is what we went over:
Videos:
How we set up our Worm Factory 360
The Worm Factory 360 arrived in a few days after order and we set up in less than thirty minutes. It arrived in a large box, with all the trays stacked into one another. Inside you can also find the instruction manual and the voucher for your pound of worms.
We went through the instruction manual to set the stand up, then placed our first tray in. We laid our dry newspaper down first, then got to mixing the bedding.
We broke off half of the coconut coir and dunked it in water.
Then the kids used an old salad container to mix the coir with the provided newspaper shreds, and a couple handfuls of dirt from our nearby raised beds (to provide beneficial microbes.)
Then we placed the whole mixture on top of the dry newspaper, then laid the wet newspaper on top.
We then placed the top on our bin, placed it in the corner.
I then went and entered in the voucher for my worm order. The website that you go to is a little weird in that it didn’t offer any confirmation after I entered the information in, just a little message saying that we’d get an email when the worms were shipped.
The kids are now anxiously awaiting the worm arrival :) We’ll update with some following posts on how we got our worms, what we feed them, and how we take care of them.
