Blog

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAjrkL9D_WI

When my friend told me he had a Worm Factory in his basement, I had to check it out.

Although I use a Worm Inn system, I definitely like how this system works, too.  Check the video for my on-the-spot observations!

When it comes to vermicomposting, I’m a big fan although it requires some attention to ensure the worms are happy.

I’ve made my own worm bins in the past, and then decided to focus my attention on the Worm Inn system: better airflow, easier harvesting of castings.

I kinda forgot about the Worm Factory 360.  It’s been on the market for a while now, but I prefer outdoor composting in a typical cubic yard compost bin.

I was hanging out at my friend’s house, and he wanted me to take a look at his worm system in the basement.

I took a look around on some forums to get some feedback on it, and it seems that keeping the bugs to a minimum is the main issue.

Luckily, that can be fixed for about two bucks making a fruit fly catcher- check the video here.

Here’s my grainy picture of his system:

Upon opening it up, right away I noticed that all the trays were not only full of castings, but they were full of beautiful earthy castings.  Wow!

I was impressed.

The castings were really moist, and that’s the thing with plastic…it doesn’t breathe well, if at all.

There are little gaps around the edges of the trays, this must be intentional to get some necessary airflow in there.

There were a lot of critters inside, indicating the system was alive and… well?

Maybe slightly out of balance- it was lacking cardboard.

Worms love cardboard, and I’m not sure if that’s scientifically been proven yet, but they like crawling in the corrugated tubes and I’ve read that the glue is tasty to them (can anyone confirm this?).

Besides taming the flies, the spigot seems to be the other design challenge.

Looking at the bottom tray, it was holding a significant amount of leachate because the castings were clogging up the spigot.  Makes sense.

What I didn’t expect was that although the bottom trays were all processed into castings, they still contained plenty of worms.

The worms seemed to go where they pleased (which is great and I’m happy for them), but I figured they’d all be in the top tray focused on eating the food.

How would I rate this thing?

Well, I only hung out with it (them) for about 10 minutes…but based on that, it exceeded my expectations.

If attention is paid to exchanging the trays frequently enough, along with diversifying the materials added, this thing is a worm castings machine.

If you’d like to learn more, I suggest clicking here to go to the company page on Amazon.

Plus, it’s always fun to read Amazon reviews, isn’t it?