The worm bin has been going for several months now, and we have been steadily adding paper and food scraps to it, but now it’s time for a complete cleaning.
There are a couple ways to separate your worms from the castings (compost) depending on how your bin is setup. For our one-bin setup we have 2 options.
- Separate the worms and castings by hand. In a large working area (like outside on a sunny day), put some paper and food scraps in a pile to one side. Then using gloves take a pile of worms/castings from your bin and place next to your paper pile. Make sure there is a lot of light shining on your worm pile. Slowly move the top of your castings pile off, the worms will move down and toward your paper pile to get out of the light. Once your pile is separated, continue until your bin is completely done.
- Move all the worms/castings to one side of your bin. Place fresh paper and food in the other side of the bin. Let the worms move on their own to the fresh side. One source said they will all move on their own after a couple of days. Another said it will take a few weeks for the worms to move.
We’re going to try putting fresh bedding in half of the bin and wait to see how fast the worms move over. If they haven’t moved over after a week or two we’ll separate them out by hand. Spring planting is here and we hope to be able to use the castings in the garden area.
