Short List:
YES
Uncooked fruits**, vegetables, mushrooms
Coffee Grounds
Tea Bags
Eggshells
Breads
Newsprints*
Non-glossy paper
NO
Fats
Meats
Oils
Nuts
Anything Cooked
Moldy or Rotten food
Seeds***
Longer:
The above image is of a note I left on my refrigerator when my room mate moved in. Though her stationary is kind of abrasive, even I like to have reminders about what can and cannot be composted. Worm bins are pretty much like an outdoor compost when it comes to what you can and cannot add, the main differences are that a worm bin is smaller and the worms have one or two things that they won’t eat, that would otherwise break down in soil over time.
Worms don’t have teeth, they rely on smaller creatures in your bin to break down the food before they can eat it. Though not essential, if you cut your food into smaller pieces, your worms will eat the scraps more quickly and you will have a healthy bin.
Learning how much to feed the worms is the hardest part about keeping a bin. If you overfeed them, the food is more likely to rot in the bin, and this will make your worms unhappy too. Try to think in weight, worms eat their weight daily. If you’re having trouble keeping track, set your scraps aside in a bag and weigh them at the end of the day. Then, add them to the bin.
*In Recycle with Earthworms, the writers urge you to soak newspapers overnight before adding them to the bin. Most websites and books are not this anal retentive, but I think it makes sense. They don’t trust the inks. Another note however is that the book was written in 1996, now most newspaper inks are soy based. I tried the experiment myself and was shocked at how black my hands were after handling the wet newspapers. It might be a good idea…
** Adam Candell of the Baltimore urban network and farm system, Hamilton Crop Circle, told me that he never adds citrus peels to his bins. A few other books have confirmed this. Apparently, the peels can effect the PH of your bin, and cause everything to turn to mush. I’ve heard some say that they wont even put banana peels in the bin. I’ve added both of these things before, but I don’t eat a lot of them. I think if I added them every day it could be very harmful.
***Seed are fine, they aren’t going to hurt your bin, but once you add the soil to the ground it may grow a plant you wouldn’t have expected. Sprouts sometimes form in the bin when seeds are added, and this is actually good, it adds living matter to the bin.
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