School:Worm: Harvesting the Vermicompost

School:Worm: Harvesting the Vermicompost


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harvesting the vermicompost

You will know your vermicompost is ready when you no longer see food and paper in sections of the bin. The finished product should be rich, black, and relatively homogenous.

Basic Instructions
To prepare for harvesting, you will need to stop feeding the worms in all or part of your bin. This enables the worms to finish off the remaining food and paper, creating a finished product. At this point, it is common to feed in one half of the bin and wait for the other half to finish. In time, the worms will migrate over to the section still being fed. If you have multiple bins, set up a schedule in which you stop feeding one bin at a time. In this way, you can keep handling food waste in the other bin(s) and still facilitate your vermicompost harvest.

Once the area that you haven't been feeding looks like it has finished vermicompost in it, it's time to harvest. (Note: Some people prefer to wait until all of the paper and food has been vermicomposted, while others prefer to remove the last bits of unvermicomposted material and place them in a new bin for additional processing.)

Since there will almost certainly still be worms in the finished area, a simple worm sorting process should be followed:

• Place a tarp or paper on the ground or on a table in a well-lit area.

• Scoop out some vermicompost and place it on the tarp or paper. Since the worms don't like the light, they will burrow down into the vermicompost.

• Remove the top layer of vermicompost, which will now be relatively worm-free, and place it in a container.

• Repeat the process until you are left with a small amount of vermicompost and lots of worms.

• Place these worms into a different container. Scoop out more of the finished vermicompost from the bin and repeat the process until you have harvested all of the finished vermicompost.

Now you can restart your empty bin by adding moist bedding, the worms, and grit.

Harvesting Larger Bins
With larger bins, it may be rather cumbersome to sort through all of the vermicompost for the worms. Therefore, it is recommended that you only feed one portion of the bin and wait for the worms to migrate over to the fresh food source. It could take a month or more for the migration to happen.

In addition, deep bins may have a considerable amount of finished vermicompost underneath the unprocessed food and bedding. If the selective feeding method will take too long, you may want to consider removing the top six inches or so of unfinished food waste and bedding, setting this material aside, and harvesting the vermicompost underneath it. Most of the worms will be in the unfinished top section of the bin. After you've completed harvesting the bin, place the unfinished material back in the bin for further processing.