Post by Darryl on Sept 13, 2005 6:37:45 GMT -5
There has always been a divided opinion amoung worm herders as to if they should feed whole food scraps to their bin system or somehow grind or blenderize the food before feeding. I have done it both ways, but personally, I prefer to blenderize all of the food scraps before adding to a bin. Yes, there is more work involved by grinding or blending the food scraps but I feel the advantages far outweigh the extra work..... By blenderizing food scraps, the food is broken down and eaten quicker by the worms. Also the decomposistion of the food is more complete. I have fed certain vegetable scraps or peelings to my worms whole before and sometimes they do not get consumed quickly and sometimes they have even stayed in the bin system without ever getting fully decomposed. I have taken these same peelings and scraps and blenderized them by placing in a blender and adding a small amount of water so that the scraps will become blended and fed it to the worms and it gets consumed within a few short days. Another positive aspect of blenderizing food scraps into a puree is that you can easily mix different types of food scraps since the scraps are in puree form. I use large buckets with tight lids to store my puree food. Every time I puree some food, I simply throw it into the bucket and stir it into the rest of the puree'd food that is already in the bucket. Another good advantage of blenderizing food scraps is that you have direct control over the consistency of the puree. If for some reason you want a thinner food, then you simply add some water. If you want the food thicker, then you can add horse manure, paper, or some other absorbant material that worms love. My blenderized food often sits in the buckets for extended periods of time before it gets fed to the worms. Bacteria builds up in the food before it ever gets fed to the worms and they simply love it. I also have truck loads of horse manure shipped to me from a nearby farm that has horses. After I blenderize large amounts of food, I then add horse manure directly to the puree'd food to thicken it and absorb lots of the excess moisture. I store the food/manure mixture in large buckets with tight lids. It sits there until I get around to using it. Works great for me and the worms have always loved being fed in this manner. The only caution that new worm herders should be aware of when grinding or blending food in this manner is that of moisture as it would be very easy to get too much moisture in your bin system. However, one of the neat things about feeding in this manner is that you can directly and easily control the moisture in your bin by simply making your food thicker by adding absorbant manure to the puree. There has been many times where I have processed bins without ever watering them at all. All of the moisture came from the puree'd food that I fed to them as I intentionally made the puree thinner. It takes time and experience to do this so I don't recommend watering by way of your feed stock to beginners. However, I do recommend blending your food and making it thick by adding manure or another absorbant substance that will break down quickly.
Yes, there is no doubt that my worms are well fed. Spoiled would be what I would call them 
