folks, the first church of dirt is now selling worm bins. if you like, think of them as alters to Äkräs, the Finnish god of fertility and protector of plants. or think of them as boxes full of worms and rotting food.
worm bins are great for folks living in apartments who likely don't have chickens or pigs to feed kitchen scraps to. keeping worms allows some good contact with healthy and dirty life that is often missing from urban homes.
but worm bins are typically either rather expensive or a lot of trouble to maintain. we at the first church of dirt don't believe things should be expensive or troubling. so some intellectual property was abused and an easy and more affordable option resulted.
we're selling a three-tray bin for $40, just about half the price of the model we ripped off. extra trays are $5 each. still not chump change for most folks, but a lot better. it's fine to stack up to ten trays on these things, but more than about seven can be difficult to work with.
if you would rather build your own, it will probably cost you about $35 for materials for a three-tray bin. you'll need:
five deep propagation flats.
a plastic spigot.
a drill and bit to make a hole for the spigot.
something to seal the base.
something for a lid.
a few small nuts and bolts to build the base.
all that's pretty readily available at your local hardware store, except for the propagation flats, which you'll probably have to order over the internets. I bought some HDPE sheets and some silicone caulk to seal the base. the lid is made of 1/4" plywood cut to 14" square and treated with several coats of shellac, though there are probably better ways to seal it. a short section of wood dowel was screwed to the lid for a handle.
you'll also need some worms and bedding. hardware stores and garden stores sometimes sell worms (red wigglers, not night crawlers) and you'll make bedding out of something on hand: newspaper, shredded confidential documents, old dry leaves. an internet search for "worm composting" will yield all the instructions you need.
so build it. or, if you're in or near Seattle or Portland, buy one from the first church of dirt. either way, on the off chance that he actually exists, Äkräs will certainly be pleased.
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