Okay, you built your worm bin, and it’s full of hungry worms ready to turn your kitchen scraps into nutrient rich soil – now what? Can you really feed them anything in your kitchen? Well, almost, but not quite.

Fruits and Vegetables

Generally, you want to stick with fruit and vegetable scraps from your kitchen. Remember, the quality of your worm castings depends on the quality of the food you feed your worms. Variety is great, but freshness is not needed. So, apple cores, banana peels, slimy spinach and the long forgotten eggplant at the back of the fridge are all great choices for your worms. But there are some vegetables you should think twice before adding to your bin.

Vegetables to Avoid

We avoid feeding our worms potatoes, onions, brussels sprouts, cabbage and anything in the cabbage family. Will those foods hurt worms? No. But, worms don’t actually eat food, they eat the bacteria that grows on food and potatoes, onions and the cabbage family all have antibacterial components in them. So, long story short those foods might start to rot and stink up your bin before the worms get around to eating them.

Onions will start to stink before the worms get to them.

Meat and Dairy

Meat and dairy are two other categories that won’t hurt your worms, but we strongly suggest you avoid adding to your bin. Your worms will eventually eat the meat and dairy, but it’s going to take them a long time and odds are maggots and rats will find their way to the food before your worms finish it.

Dairy will leave your worm bin a gloppy mess.

Chili Peppers

One food that will harm your worms, and possibly even kill them, is chili peppers. The oils in the peppers that give them that delicious kick, can seriously hurt your worms and should be avoided in your bin.

Capsaicin oil in peppers could be a killer.

Citrus

One food group that is up for debate in the worm community is citrus. Eating it probably won’t harm your worms, but some people believe that eating citrus can cause the worm castings they produce to be too acidic. And that acidity could harm your plants. We generally avoid feeding our worms citrus to be safe, but if you want us to do an experiment to test that theory, comment below and let us know.

How Often Should I Feed My Worms?

A question we get a lot is “how often should I feed my worms?” Well, the answers depend on a number of factors. How many worms do you have? How happy are they in their bin? Worms prefer the bin to be between 55 – 80 degrees F (13-27 C), with 50-70% moisture. So, if you’re providing them optimal living conditions, they might be flying through their food fast. On the flip side, if it’s too hot or cold in the bin, they might be eating slower. But a good rule of thumb is to feed them a layer of food once a week along with a thin layer of moist shredded cardboard. But before you add more food, dig around in the bin and check to see if they ate last week’s food scraps first. You don’t want to have too much food piled up in the bin uneaten because your bin will start to stink.

What To Feed Your Worms