So, what do strawberries and worms have in common? The story about worms started about 4 years ago. My wife, Maureen, was watching a “green” tv show. One segment was about an ex NFL football player in Michigan. He was raising worms and harvesting the castings to grow organic transplants in his greenhouse. She coaxed me into watching the recording.

I’m a bit slow in taking a hint most of the time. I resisted her urgings to start producing our own fertilizer. She thought we could save a lot of money on buying fertilizer. After some time, I gave in and bought a pound of what I thought were the most expensive worms on earth, red wigglers.

I did some online research and put together a “rubbermaid bin”. I followed the directions and fed our household waste, shredded newspaper and cardboard. The worms were neglected because I was a busy guy. When I’d check them it seemed that the bin was wet. A lot of the worms were on the under side of the lid and on the sides. I guessed that they wanted to “fly to coup”. None of these expensive worms were getting away. I started to do more online research and did what I could to dry out the bin.

I tried a number of different types of bins. I have to admit here that this money saving endeavor was not saving us money – it was costing big bucks! One of the first bins I bought was a wooden stacking system from Canada. Within weeks I hated it and put it on eBay and sold it at a loss. I tried different sized tubs. I found what I call a mortar tray at a big box store. It was about 6″ deep. Here’s a picture.

I still use it. An old piece of carpeting keeps some moisture in but allows it to breath. The worms don’t try to escape as long as I keep it moist but adding water occasionally when needed.

About the same time as I was in this testing phase with vermicomposting, I received the largest wholesale order for plants that I had received to date, a thousand plants. Wow, was I excited. As usual, I checked the customers email address to see if I could find any info on their business. The customer was a landscaper from upstate NY.

The short story is that I contacted him after seeing on his website that he was making and selling compost tea to his lawncare customers. He said he was brewing it in 55 gallon batches and that he had customers waiting in line to buy his expensive tea. I couldn’t imagine what they wanted it for. More research.

One of the things I discovered in my research was that compost and especially vermicompost teas had been shown to suppress insect and disease populations. About this time I was battling fungus gnats and soil diseases like pythium and rizoctonia in my strawberry seedlings. Being and entomologist, I found it difficult to believe that vermicompost tea could have an effect, but these were desperate times with some major pest pressures.

I didn’t have any vermicompost from my pitiful worm farm so I bought some.  It wasn’t that expensive to have it delivered. I chose a company that provided a kit on how to brew a tea from the vermicompost. When the kit arrived I followed the directions and brewed a 2 gallon batch – pitiful compared to my customer. Once brewed, I drenched a tray of strawberry seedlings. It was a “desperation drench”. I was very frustrated with the fungus gnat populations and they were winning. Stay tuned for the “rest of the story” ….. until then, promote global worming!!

The OSCR plans call for an electric heat cable but I felt that there was too much material in the bin that’s potentially combustible. Paper and cardboard make up a good portion of what we feed the worms. These materials are normally wet, but we have seen them dry out and we didn’t want to take a chance. So, we decided on installing a hot water heating system.

We felt that a 5 gallon plastic bucket would be sufficient water to circulate and the buckets will take temperatures that are pretty high. We started out with an aquarium heater in the bucket but it didn’t heat the water very fast nor very hot. We found the following on sale at our local Southern States:

We happened to have a high volume aquarium pump that we planned to use for brewing vermitea.

We bought 9′ of heavy wall plastic hose. There was no specific structure in the plans to accomodate the hose. We wanted it to be stable and still allow the contents of the bin to continue to settle without hangups. Here’s what we came up with:

securing the heating system in the bin

We attached a 1×3 at each end of the bin and drilled holes to hold 1/2″ emt pipe. We drilled two holes in the bin so that the hose could be inserted just under the emt.

This is what it looks like from an end view:

We then secured the hose to the emt with electrical ties:

The hoses were attached to the pump after drilling holes in the lid of the bucket as shown here:

This is what it looks like after adding some insulation and an electronic thermostat:

The thermostat has a probe. A hole was drilled in the bin to insert the probe which was positioned in about the middle of the bin between the emt pipes. As the contents of the bin have settled we have had to dig around a little to raise the probe a couple of times so far. We don’t want the probe to go too far down or we won’t be taking readings in the right area.

The heating system has been working well. The outside temperatures today are in the teens with wind chills around zero. The thermostat is set at 70 and the compost thermometer is showing temps in the 60’s. The probe’s reading fluctuates around 70 within a degree or two at most.

We are very happy with the heating system. If we build another bin in the future, we will likely make some minor changes with the design.

I wanted to preserve the wood as much as possible and found 3/4″ washers that would fit over the emt pipe. They are sold by the lb at our local Tractor Supply. The washers cost me about $5.00 plus the cotter pins of about $1 as shown in this picture:

Use of black plastic to line the bin and use of washers and cotter pins on emt pipes

The plans call for a lot of ventilation holes. I’m guessing that my perfectionism caused me to search for alternatives to the cheaper window screening recommended to be installed over the vent holes. I found 2″ and 1″ aluminum siding vents (louvers) with screens online. I bought some. They were about $1.50 each plus s/h. Here’s a photo:

Aluminum Siding Vents with screens

I used the sliding action noted in the plans. These vents are 2″ diameter. 2.25″ holes were drilled into a 1×4 and into the plywood of the bin. The vents are held in the 1×4 with screws though there’s not much of a lip and a couple fell out until I tried a couple of times to secure them.

It turns out that the bin lid is open most of the time so the vents don’t do much. I have the bin in my garage for now. When I put it outside the vents will become more important.

The final step was to apply paint. I picked up a gallon of primer and a gallon of latex paint at Lowe’s. I chose the color ‘taragon’ as you probably noted from some of the pics. The only thing I’ll say about painting is that putting on two coats of primer and two coats of paint to the inside and outside of the bin takes a LOT of time.

The next installment will be about heating the bin. I’ll get to that hopefully in a day or two.

tek Screws in emt pipe

And, a tek screw added to each pipe OUTSIDE of the bin to be used when I build a crank handle to turn the pipes -

OSCR Bin showing emt pipes with tek screws

Sorry, it’s hard to see. I’ll take some closeups. More later ……

With the vermicomposting experience gained in the last 3 years, I wanted to share products that I’ve tested and use in my business. Voila – that’s why VermiTec was created.  It will take some time to get the information online but let’s start now. Join me in the exciting world of vermicomposting. It can change your life too!