| In the photo to the right we have an OSCR Jr. type worm bin that is nearly full of worm castings and an empty bin ready to be placed into service. |
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With the lid off we see there is still some un-composted kitchen waste on the surface of the bin. I stopped adding food waste about a week before the photo was taken so there are only a few paper towels left on the surface of the worm castings. |
| In the photo to the right I have removed all of the un-composted kitchen waste from the original bin and placed in the bottom of the new bin. |
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In the photo at the left I have added a mixture of kitchen waste and moist decomposing leaves to the new bin. The decomposing leaves are not required but I didn't have a lot of food waste handy and I wanted the new bin to have an environment rich in microbes to encourage the worms to move up from the old bin. |
| In the photo to the right I have removed un-composted food waste that was buried in the worm castings near the surface and placed it in the new bin. While doing this I created a smooth surface on the worm castings, so when I place the new bin on top there will be good contact between the bottom of the new bin and the worm castings. This will make it easier for the worms to travel from the lower bin into the upper bin. |
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In the photo to the left I have placed the new bin on top of the original bin. |
| In the photo to the right I tore newspaper into strips and placed them on top of the food waste mix in the new bin. The photo was taken before I moisten the strips of newsprint. I try to add moist paper in the form of paper towels, newsprint or shredded office paper along with the food waste. This adds carbon to the food waste mix which tends to be high in nitrogen. The balanced combination promotes faster growth of the microbe population and this is what the worms are really eating. |
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The last photo shows the two bins with the lid placed back on top. By the time this new bin is nearly full the worms will have finished off the food waste in the lower bin and most of the worms will have migrated from the lower bin into the top bin. You can then harvest nearly pure worm castings from the lower bin and start the process all over again. |
