Should you Blend your Worm Food?? Day 0

While I always freeze my food before adding it to my worm bins I have noticed that some people grind or blend their food. This begs the question of is blending necessary or helpful to the worms?
So we have this worm experiment to help us find the answer. I have two 10 gallon totes with equal amounts of worms and bedding material. I added the same amount and type of food (bananas) and we will see how they do.
Here are some of the other items you saw in this video:
For the Mud H2O gloves
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For a kitchen scale used to weigh the food and worms
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Food Processor used to grind up the food
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Rubbermaid Brute Totes 10 Gallon
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Worms not for you check out Bokashi: "Starting a Homemade Bokashi System Cheaply Second Attempt (Day 0)"
• Starting a Homemade Bo...
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[@WorldComposting]

If you have any comments or suggestions for this let me know! Also sorry about blocking the camera!

[@chaniatreides9513]

I just found your chanel today, and have been binge watching, I love it. One suggestion Get a table 😅 you need it for those bins you showed.

[@WorldComposting]

@@chaniatreides9513 I really just need to cleanup the entire area in the basement. Issue is I can work with the worms or clean and every time I decide it is more important to work on the bins 😇

[@TheCrazyWormLady]

Love the idea! Thanks for the video.

[@liliakogan3043]

I have been doing a similar experiment. I call it the Goldilocks experiment. I have three bins going, one is blended, one chopped, and one whole foods. Will be fun to see your's progress.

[@WorldComposting]

I'll have to check out the videos. I'm worried about the variables I can't control that could affect the outcome so it is always good to have others run the same experiment!

[@coloradodirtbike5930]

I freeze scraps and they break up super easy (banana peels crumble like chips) when they are frozen. And the worms devour the scraps almost as fast as I can add them... (I check the next day or two and can't find any scraps of food left). I also amend my worm bedding (coco coir base) with more minerals and nutrition (kelp meal, alfalfa, oyster shell lime, azomite) ect. I also add cut cardboard pieces to mix into coir, with damp newspaper on top of bed material with a piece of solid cardboard that covers the top. Perfect moisture levels, worms are happy, and breaking down everything at a fast rate.

[@WorldComposting]

Great idea to add some minerals. Any issues with the kelp meal or alfalfa heating up?

[@coloradodirtbike5930]

@@WorldComposting yea if you add too much kelp or alfalfa it can heat up due to the nitrogen. I only put a tablespoon or so of each.

[@finnh.krannich2431]

Thank you for this!!! I just started following you today because we’re just starting our first worm bin in our apartment, and we were really hoping to put mostly-whole (chopped, but not blended) kitchen scraps into it as we created the scraps. Can’t wait to see how this experiment turns out!!

[@WorldComposting]

Thank you for watching and hopefully we get a good answer as to what works better!

[@mindy779]

This is going to be intresting to see how it turns out. Looking forward to the updates. 👍

[@markblairharley2890]

You need some ground up egg shell or ground up oyster shell so the worms can digest the food The egg shells need to be washed and heated for a short while in the microwave to kill any salmonella ( when the eggs go in microwave put a small amount of water in small container so microwave doesn't get damaged)

[@شهيدزاملالكبيسي]

Very nice, great video, thank you❤

[@WorldComposting]

Glad you enjoyed it, if you have questions let me know

[@morganhemingway5262]

The coco was a too dry. You should try to add other types of food. Like people, worms do need a variety in their diet. Before you add the worms, mix coffee grounds into your bedding.

[@iveo83]

100% it matters it's going to take forever for those whole bannanas to break down. Anytime I throw in anything whole it takes weeks or months sometimes. Can you do a video on how you separate out your worms when harvesting castings? It's about that time for me to start planting and want to use my castings and start new bins.

[@crt9082]

I usually chop mine but lately i have blended a couple times i feel like i can get more scraps fed that way... And my freezer is getting full. I just add dry bedding under the blended food to make sure things dont get too wet .

[@GrantMcIntosh]

For me it usually takes 2 - 3 weeks before the whole peels start to disappear. I'm interested to see if you get similar results.

[@WorldComposting]

Good to know as I plan on checking in on day 5 to see how things are progressing.

[@gbmiller3]

If you bury a whole banana the worm will be all inside and around the banana. Making it easy to get worm out of bin if you need to. Not my idea, but saw it on youtube.

[@A-V]

Oh man.. that pureed banana is gonna be gone in about half an hour! I recall you mentioning that your typical m.o. is to freeze all your worm food - but did you freeze all this food or not? The whole banana peels sounded like they were frozen & they moved that way too.. but I wasn't sure. Should be interesting to see where things lead.....

[@WorldComposting]

All of the food was taken from the freezer so they have the same starting point. I typically freeze everything before I put it in the bin as I have the extra freezer space and I've read it helps break the cell walls.

[@A-V]

That's what I thought. Excellent choice - I freeze everything too. Thanks!

[@an-alechianeathery770]

I heard some people using biocarbon or have you use it ? Just wondering because Marty garden show said that you could. Also what about rock dust? I heard worm love it.

[@Ryin88]

Hello Ive just discovered your channel and its great ! do you have a video on efficiency of different worm types? I couldnt find that in your videos. Reds vs Euros, vs Africans, vs Alabamas? MY WF360 is in a garage which in the summer gets to 110f and winters get to 50f. So im trying to buy the best worms that i can raise. but also release.

[@WorldComposting]

I'm getting to all your questions now so hopefully you have notifications on. I have only tried two different worms Reds and Euros. As my basement runs on the colder side especially during the winter I'm not sure Africans and Alabamas would do well. So far I have found the reds are just really easy. My Euros I was worried I lost them all at first and have taken longer to get the bin up and working. With temperature swings that wild you need to plan so you add frozen food in the summer spread around the bin so it doesn't heat up. 50 isn't too bad the worms might slow down but shouldn't be an issue. I have videos on a large outdoor custom bin at my parents it went between -6f to 106f. It was insulated and did wear out at about the 5-6 year mark.

[@Ryin88]

@@WorldComposting Thank you so much for the information you provide on your channel and your replies !

[@ayannasmith6589]

Maybe you could do one on what make the worms have babies as faster I don't know much about worms that all 🤗

[@WorldComposting]

Good idea I'll have to do some research first!

[@ayannasmith6589]

@@WorldComposting maybe you can also see how many worms it take to make a farm like begin with 3 or 5 or 11🤗 I think that would be fun

[@alaskansourdoughwormsgarde4392]

Blended will disappear, whole will be there for quite a while.