Choosing a bin

From WormWiki

There are two main considerations when choosing a worm bin. First, will your bin be outdoors or indoors? Second, will your bin be purchased or do-it-yourself (DIY)?

Indoors or Outdoors

Whether to keep your bin indoors or outdoors depends on your environment and your (and whoever you are living with) tolerance for having worms in the house.

An outdoor bin will need to be protected from predators and scavengers. Predators like moles will burrow underground to feast on your worms, and scavengers like raccoons will try to get into the bin to eat the food you've put there for your worms. An outdoor bin will also need to be protected from temperature extremes -- both too low and too high. Most outdoor bins are DIY rather than purchased. This allows you to design the bin size to fit the space and location you pick for it. Outdoor bins are typically built of blocks (either brick or concrete) or wood, with some sort of semi-permeable bottom (landscape fabric, hardware cloth, gravel, etc.), and a lid that is either tight-fitting or can be weighted to prevent incursion from scavengers. Outdoor bins have several advantages over indoor bins: they can be larger, they are more forgiving to accidents and they can process things that might smell too much indoors (like meat). The main disadvantages are that they slow down during cold temperatures, take up significant space, and might be located some distance from the house.

An indoor bin will need to be located somewhere with fairly constant temperatures that can be conveniently accessed from the kitchen (where most worm food will be produced). Although an established worm bin does not smell bad, a bin that's just starting up, or one that has an accident, might generate unpleasant odors. This can be a problem for some members of your household. Indoor bins can be made of plastic, wood or other materials. The most common designs use plastic containers of some sort An indoor bin has several advantages over and outdoor bin: it can be more conveniently located in the home, it is smaller, and it can be managed more closely. Disadvantages include the build-up of too much moisture, a danger of overfeeding, and limitations on what can be processed (generally no meat or dairy).

Purchased or DIY

There are a number of different stacking bins on the market that are excellent, but expensive. They have different brand names and designs, such as Can-o-worms, The Worm Wigwam, The Worm Factory, and so on. These systems all work on the same principle, utilizing trays with perforated bottoms that are filled and stacked. The worms work their way up the stack, processing the waste as they go. This web site has good pictures of a Can-o-worms in action, which would be useful for anyone with a stacked tray system: http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y209/redhen/COW%20Unwrapped/?albumview=grid. Many local governments (city, county, parish, etc.) offer a free or lower-cost worm bin to residents, so check there first before you buy a system.

If you decide not to buy a bin, very good do-it-yourself bins can be made, ranging from very easy to very complex. One of the better more complex ones is the OSCR Jr. or Boreal Wormer (see Building a bin) The easiest is any largish container (e.g. rubbermaid storage box). (see Building a bin)

Wood is an excellent bin material if you're going outdoors because it both 'breathes' and keeps excess water from pooling in the bottom. This can range from a box/rectangle shape of any size to the more complex Berkeley vermitopia. (see 'building a bin) It's huge, but can be scaled down to fit the space you have.

There are also plans for a number of flow through bins that simplify harvesting of the vermicompost. The basic idea is put new food and bedding in the top and take processed material out of the bottom. Check out the Flow through systems on the Building a bin) link.