How to Make a Red Wiggler Bin

Gather your compostable kitchen scraps like raw fruit and vegetable leftovers into a plastic bag for one week. Avoid meat, bones, oily leftovers and plastic or paper trash.

Weigh the collected scraps on a common household scale. Write down the weight and understand that you will need approximately 2,000 red wiggler worms for each pound of kitchen scraps you want to turn into compost.

Purchase or build a shallow wooden box that measures 24 inches long by 18 inches wide by 8 inches deep. Drill eight to 12, 1/4-inch diameter holes into the bottom of the wooden box to provide aeration and drainage for your worm bin.

Line the bottom of the box with moistened newspaper strips, shredded leaves or sawdust. Place the appropriate number of worms, kitchen scraps and soil in the box until it is filled to within one inch of its top edge.

Monitor the compost bin, adding scraps to it daily. Observe that, after about two months, the volume of the box will decrease significantly. Look for brown worm casings and move those casings over to the left side of the box and place them in your garden and fertilizer, to improve the quality of your soil. Fill the empty right side of the box with new moistened paper and food scraps. Move the worms and soil back over the right side.