I stumbled across a video on YouTube about farming worms for their castings. I watched it, and several others, and all of them were basically the same info, and they were more about how to sell the castings. A lot of good info but I just wanted to grow some worms for my garden.

Using ideas from the videos, I took an empty plastic kitty litter container and drilled holes in the bottom and sides.

I drilled 3/4″ holes close to the top for air flow and then in the bottom and sides I drilled 1/4″ holes so the worms could move in-and-out of the bucket as needed. I cleaned up the holes with a round file and some sandpaper so there were no sharp edges.

The plan is to allow the worms to move freely between the bucket, where I will put food scraps, and the rest of the planting bed so they can do their magic throughout the whole planter bed and I don’t have to try and harvest their castings, and they will have a steady source of food to eat.

Once I had the bucket ready I dug a hole in the raised bed and placed it in the hole, leaving the large holes above ground level so air can pass through and let any gasses and odors dissipate.

Once in the ground I added some bedding material: shredded cardboard, paper and dirt, then put in some food scraps: a banana peel, some chunks of tomato, a chunk of melon, and covered this with more shredded paper and dirt. The cardboard and paper was wet when I put it in.

Then I added the worms. I bought these night crawlers from the local bait store. 2 dozen of them.

I dumped them in the bedding mix, swirled them around a bit, added some more dirt, covered them with some bubble wrap and cardboard, snapped the lid on and let them start doing their magic.

I will check on them in a week.