Worm bedding

Worm bedding is an essential component of any worm bin. It is the home for compost worms living in a worm compost bin.

Ideal bedding should be pH neutral,  have the ability to hold moisture, offer worms good nutrition and  offer some protection against extreme temperatures.

Bedding is the area of any worm farm worms spend most of their time in and provides protection if the conditions in the upper layers of the worm bin become uncomfortable or dangerous for the worm herd. 

There are many different materials that can be used to prepare a good bedding for worm bins. Amongst the most popular ones used by professionals are horse manure, rabbit manure and cattle manure.

These materials if treated correctly make excellent safe bedding and most of them can be collected at a very low cost or or even free of charge. If you want to use any of the manures, droppings or mixes of manures it is recommended that you compost the material before you use it as bedding for your worms. This makes sure that the material will not heat up once its added to your worm bin which could be fatal for the worm herd.

But manure is not freely available to many private worm composting enthusiasts and not needed if one just wants to prepare a single worm bin for a herd of compost worms. 

Some worms enjoying themselves in a piece of cardboard bedding.

Newspaper strips soaked before being added into a worm farm.

Easy available worm bedding 

Shredded cardboard and torn up newspaper are materials that easy available for almost anyone and they make good bedding to start a worm bin.

Virtually everyone can get hold of some old newspapers, corrugated cardboard or advertising pamphlets (stay away from the shiny paper). If you can’t get enough of one of the materials alone they can be mixed together as well. 

Although torn up or shredded newspaper can absolutely be used as bedding in worm bins it has little nutritional value for worms. A worm farm that is using newspaper as bedding should therefore always be supplied with sufficient amounts of good worm food to make sure its inhabitants will grow properly.

My worm bedding material of choice for any private worm composting enthusiasts would be torn up corrugated cardboard boxes. The cardboard can store lots of moisture, is usually pH neutral and worms love to feed on it. This way worms can and will feed greedily on the corrugated cardboard  and will not depend alone on other worm food added to their bin. No matter which bedding you decide to use it should always consist of organic

material. Over a period of time they will completely devour it and convert it into nutrient rich worm castings. 

Find out how to start worm bin right here. To learn more follow the links below.

For more worm compost related information!

Type your question or keywords (for example “earthworm”) into the search box below.

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