VermiHut - Setup

The day my worm composter arrived finally came and my husband couldn't be too much happier since I've been filling up our large freezer with our compostable food waste while I waited to get it.

My mother-in-law called and said it had arrived at her house and we went down to go get it the very next day.

I had my husband haul it out to my car for me. It really wasn't so much a "haul" because it's not huge and it's not heavy.

 Because we found ourselves at a party that same evening I waited until the next morning to set up the composter.

 Here's what you basically see as soon as you open the box. Exciting no?

 Once you remove that first bit you're looking at you will find your "goodies". An owners manual, coconut chior

 The top and the drip pan are to the left and my trays and stand are on the right.

 On the left if your drip pan and the right is the top of your hut.

 This is the stand.

These are the compost trays. Having a family of what would soon be four I decided to just go ahead with the 5-tray.

For now this is all I should have set up. After all that travel I don't need to add more stress and confusion to the worms by throwing them into a massive composter (you know in comparison to the size of worms) and risk them attempting to escape.

Set the remaining trays aside for now.

 

You will need a gallon of water. I have empty gallon milk jugs laying around so I filled one and used that.

You're also going to need a bucket with a capacity larger than a gallon. Mine is around three to five gallons.

Place your coconut chior into the bucket.

 Pour the gallon of water over the chior, and wait for it to absorb the water.

 As you can see it will "puff up", this is why you need a larger container. Your chior should be moist, not dry, wet, but not dripping wet. If you pick it up and water flows through your fingers you have too much water. If you squeeze and and no water comes out, then you do not have enough. If you follow the directions correctly, all should be fine.

 Place the chior on top of the newspaper.

 I sent the poor hubby out to get me some soil from outside.

 I mixed it in and removed that little piece of plastic.

Now it's time to ass paper shreddings. I've also been saving quite a bit of our compostable "brown" waste in a bag: Ads that are made with newspaper, paper bags, lint from the dryer, receipts that don't have plastic coatings, cardboard, and junk mail.

After shredding up what seemed like enough to add to my mix I threw it on top.

Mix it in.

Now to wait for the worms before I do any more.