In-Ground Worm Bins: Easy Install + DIY Build

See this stuff right here? This is black gold, and I'm going to show you how to make an endless supply of it for your own garden. Today, I'm going to show you how to build an underground worm system that takes your kitchen scraps, brings them outside, and puts them into the easiest composting system out there. And by the end of this video, you'll be throwing away less trash, creating a living, self-sustaining ecosystem right underneath your feet. If you've ever tried traditional composting you probably know the struggle. These large piles can be overwhelming, attract pests, they might get smelly if you don't do it right, and they take up a lot of space in your garden. Another option is an indoor worm bin, but that creeps a lot of people out thinking that the worms will escape and they'll wake up to them next to them on their pillow. Well fret not, because the underground worm system solves all of those problems. It's by far the easiest way to compost, it keeps the worms out of your house, there's minimal pests, and it's easy access right in your garden. Now you can either bury it in a raised bed, personally I like to use every inch of my raised bed, or you can put it straight into the ground, which is what I'm going to do. Just wherever you do put it, remember that it has to have easy access because you'll be putting food scraps into it all year long. Okay, so with underground worm bins, you have two options. You can buy one online, pre-made, or you can do it yourself. I'm going to show you how to do both. Let's start with the pre-made. So with the pre-made bin, you want to dig a hole that's just as wide as the bin and as deep as this line here. You want a couple of inches above ground for air exchange. You can see that they've pre-made these holes. So let's start digging. Now that it's deep enough, I just fill in the dirt around it. So remember, make sure that you don't bury these air holes here. So now we're going to add the worm bedding into the bottom of the bed. And worm bedding is basically just a carbon material. I'm using coconut coir and dried leaves here today, but you could use shredded paper, shredded cardboard. Some people use straw. It's just a place for the worms to move into. Now we got to get this bedding wet because worms breathe through their skin and they like a moist environment but not overly moist. So we're going to do the one squeeze test where it's just wet enough that if you squeeze it one drop comes out. So we're aiming for about three inches of bedding here. Next you can start adding some food scraps. So at this point you have a couple of options. Worms primarily eat the bacteria that grows on food. They'll take chunks of food out when they bite the bacteria, but they're primarily targeting the bacteria that grows on the food. So we can wait about a week for bacteria to grow on this food, or we can add worm castings that will inoculate the bin, that will put bacteria in the bin immediately. Personally, I'm not a very patient guy, so I'm going to go with the worm castings route and add my worms in straight away. Next we just add our worms. Now a bin this size I would probably start with about 200 worms. Now you just put the lid on. Now there are some do's and don'ts on what you could feed your worms. We did a whole video about that. I'll leave the link here. And if you like this worm bin and Or you need castings and worms, I'll leave links to those below. So there are a couple of myths about in-ground worm bins that I need to address. The first one is when people install one they think that it's going to be like a grand central station for their worms where their worms spread through their garden and then come back to eat and then go out again and spread their fertilizer and then come back and eat. That's not how it works. In fact it's been shown that worms in their entire lifetime will spread maybe 10 feet and Worms can live to be like four or five years old. So the odds are pretty good that they're just gonna stay in that worm bin. They're kind of like teenagers. If there's food there, they're gonna stay there. The second myth is cold weather. Now their marketing department will tell you that the earth is enough to keep those worms insulated throughout the winter. And if you live in a mild climate that might be true. But here in Colorado where I'm at that's absolutely not true. Those worms will freeze. But the good news is that the cocoons that they lay, basically their eggs, those will survive the winter. So come springtime when it warms up the cocoons will thaw out and you'll get new worms hatching out of it. But if you're really attached to the worms that you put in there, what you have to do is look up what your frost line is for your area. You can just type in an internet search saying frost line and your zip code and that'll tell you how deep you have to dig a bin in order for your original worms to survive. Now here in Colorado, that line is three feet. I'm not willing to dig three feet for my worms. So I'm content enough to have my cocoons hatch in the springtime. Now if you're really attached to those worms you could DIY your own bed and dig that far down. I'm going to show you how to DIY it but I'm not going to dig that deep. So to get started with our DIY in-ground worm bin we're going to need some hardware cloth. Now hardware cloth is kind of like chicken wire. In fact you can use chicken wire if that's what you have on hand. I happen to have hardware cloth so that's what I'm going to use. And I cut this hardware cloth to be 15 inches wide by 40 inches long and that will line our hole and give our hole some structure. If you don't know where to buy hardware cloth I'll leave a link below. So let's start digging. I'm going to dig my hole 15 inches deep by about a foot across. All right now that my hole is dug I'm going to align it with the hardware cloth. Really the hardware cloth is just to give the hole some structure so you don't have to fill the sides with dirt. And just like the pre-made underground bin I'm going to add bedding, moistened bedding, about three inches still, food scraps, and still not patient so I'm going to add castings to add the bacteria and my worms. So obviously unlike the pre-made bin, this one doesn't come with a lid. So we're going to put straw on top and that will not only keep the light out but will also help insulate it in the wintertime. So now you will have to remove the straw when you put in the food scraps, just put the straw back when you're done. So there you have it, your very own underground worm bin. Other than digging a hole, a pretty easy way for continual worm casting. And you know what? I ended up with an extra underground worm bin, so I'm going to give this away to one lucky winner. So if you would like a chance to win this, click the link below.