5-Tray Worm Compost Bin, Dark Green with Free Worm-Saver Tray

I started worm farming using a DIY 5 gallon bucket with instructions from youtube videos. Using the Vermitek worm farm brings my hobby to another level. I had the Vermitek worm farm for about a month. I am completely satisfied with the quality of the product. My sister has a competitor product and the Veritek bins are much sturdier. The instruction manual is well written with lots of good tips. IMHO this is simply the best value worm farm on Amazon. There's a lot to love using the Vermitek product vs. a 5 gallon bucket: 1) There is so much more surface space using the bins 2) With not much more vertical space I can have 5x more worms vs. a single 5 gallon bucket. 3) The Vermitek worm farm looks so much better than a bucket with random drilled holes! 4) It is so much more convenient and much cleaner to work with the worm bins. 5) Harvesting worm castings is so much easier with minimal amount of work with the Vermitek. See suggestions below.My order came with missing instruction manual. I found the vermitek web site and email the seller. I got a phone call from the seller the next day and got the instructions needed. Customer service was excellent! Talking to the seller I took the opportunity to purchase additional accessories from the seller's website. I guess the prices are so low for the accessories that the seller don't list them on Amazon. For example the coco coir mats are less than a dollar. Other accessories I found useful and I wish the seller would sell as a bundled extra: the plastic claw for moving worms castings around, extra coco coir brick, moisture and temperature meters. If you order extra worms from the seller you can easily get to having free shipping with their order minimum.Some suggestions using the Vermitek worm farm:1. As others noted Fruit flies may be an issue with the unscreened holes in the top cover. However I had no issues with fruit flies by using a few layers of damp paper on top of the worms in the top bin.2. I use a spray bottle to keep the worm farm damp but not wet. I only spray water on top of the layers of newspaper I use. The farm is never wet enough to have much "worm tea" drop to the bottom spigot bin.3. For the worm food when adding "greens" (vegetable scrapes etc.) also add "browns" (damp newspaper, coco coir etc.). Your worms eats both plus a good ratio and greens and brown will keep your worm farm smelling fresh.3. What I did to migrate worms to a new bin: instead of adding new bin with new bedding + food on top of the existing bin I added a new bin below the existing worm bin by using a coco coir mat. b) I moved some casting and worms (about a third to a half) from the existing bin and pushed them to one side of the new bin so that the top of the casting/worms from the new bin touches the bottom of the existing bin c) I had cut out a few pieces of scrap wood and use them as spacers to prop up the bin so that it sits evenly when the old bin is put on top of the new bin d) on this side of the new bin add worm food, more coco coir + damp newspaper and, move a few wigglers over to the side e) For the old bin, I pushed the worm casting + worms to the side touching the bottom bin side with casting. With this the worms will migrate (drop) down to the new bin leaving the old bin with just the worm casting. f) Continue to add new worm food just in the new bin only. I think this is easier way to move the worms to a new bin and harvest the casting especially if you are using a coco coir mat as a base for the new bin. I will take some photos next time I do this and will post them.

I bought this particular bin for 2 reasons. 1) It was one of the cheaper priced worm composters 2) It had 5 trays so I knew I would have room to grow into it. I am not disappointed in my purchase at all! It came a few days later than the original ETA which stressed me out a little because the worms ended up coming early so I didn't have a home for them for 24 hours. This hut was so easy to put together and the little manual that comes with it is perfect and extremely useful. Although, the manual states that it comes with a coconut fibre mat, mine did not which is fine, I just covered the bed with wet newspaper. I put it together as instructed and it has you put the drain cloth over the drain bin before setting in the first tray. I don't particularly like the cloth hanging over the bin but I highly recommend it. I have lifted the tray a couple of times and have found tons of worms in the drain cloth. They would normally end up in the drain bin and possible the drain spigot so this cloth has kept them from clogging things up downstairs.I followed this instruction in the manual of using the coconut coir, shredding newspaper, and adding compost for the worms to start their bed. However, when feeding them, I put food in one corner instead of all over the bin. This helps me check how much food is actually being composted and how quickly. When they are nearly done with one corner I move onto another corner. Saw this in a couple of YouTube videos so that is where I got the idea. ***Important note - If you use your normal paper shredder to shred your newspaper, make sure your shredder blades are completely cleaned of any other debris. I didn't check and ended up with strips of plastic from junk mail and windowed envelopes so I periodically pick these out of the composter. Would hate for my worms to choke on plastic!I keep the bin in my kitchen and there is absolutely no foul smells coming from the hut and my two big dogs don't even pay attention to it. I enjoy having it close by so I can check on them and see how things are progressing. Depending on how things go, I may buy another hut in the future and would definitely get the same one. My only wish is that this hut came with a trowel/rake so that I could move the worms and compost around inside. I am too scared for now to touch the worms and have been using a fork to maneuver things. I'll be buying a plastic one soon so I recommend you do as well when making this purchase. - Katherine