Now you have a worm bin and added worms to it, how do you feed them? A worm bin is not a rubbish bin, you don’t just throw things in it and expect things to just happen. Worms are living beings and need to be cared for when held in captivity.

What to feed the worms?

Your compost worms will love common kitchen scraps: fruits and veggies. You can feed them virtually anything that is a fruit or veggie but you should avoid these:

• rice, pasta, bread, oat, wheat, chicken feed are to be avoided or only in a very small amount to avoid heat and other issues
• meat/dairy products: causes many issues onion, tomato, citrus: contains elements worms won’t appreciate
• pineapple, papaya/pawpaw: is said contains meat tenderizing enzymes that can harm the worms but I personally haven't had any issues with them when added to other food scraps
• pet manure: special treatment needs to be done first for health issues
• other animal manure: can be used but only if you know what you are doing

How often, how much and where to feed the worms?

Feed once a week an amount of food equal to the weight of worms you have. At each feeding, feed one half of the surface area at max, then the following week, feed the other half and come back.

When you come back to a previously fed area, verify that the previous food has almost gone before feeding again, however:

• if there is still a lot left, wait until it is almost gone and feed again in smaller quantity
• if there is none left, feed again an increase the amount by a little bit.

As time goes, your worms will breed and their population will increase, the feeding method described above will allow you to dynamically adjust your feeding to your worm population. By feeding half of the surface area of the time, there is always a safe area for the worms to retreat to if there is something wrong with the fresh food scraps. At one point you will see your food scraps from a previous feeding has totally disappeared, add more food next time. This amount will increase until the max population for your bin has been reached.

How to add the food scraps when feeding the worms?

Dig a little whole in the current bedding and put the material aside. Put some dry bedding material in the hole, apply a little bit of the worm farm conditioner, add the food scraps on top of the bedding material. The base bedding material should be about same or double volume as the food scraps. Cover the food with the material you put aside earlier, cover with more bedding material. This will help controlling odour and keep most of other critters at bay.

I want to stress on the importance of adding enough bedding material before adding the food waste. Not only for a good C:N ratio but also to absorb any excess of water from the food waste and prevent formation of leachate. Your final compost will have a much better texture and will be a dream to work with during its application in the garden.

Other feeding methods

There are other feeding methods and some people don't even add bedding material at all in order to maximise the amount of food waste they can compost a one time. However, I find this method, which is also called pocket feeding, much safer.

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