OK. So I understand that I can put coffee grounds in my worm bin.
My question is whether there is an upper limit to this. We drink a lot of coffee and I would hate for the little critters to get hyper and stampede.
So, can I just toss in the grounds from my coffee pot each day?
Roy - Carpe Noctem
Kind of depends on how much coffee you drink and how large your worm bin is. I wouldn't add coffee grounds that made up more than 5% of the material added daily. My estimate, not based on any scientific observation.
We don't use a bin, just loose soil with old planks on top outside the kitchen window. We throw out edible table scraps, coffee grounds, egg shells, etc, (no meat or bones) and from gathering worms to go trout fishing, I can tell you where the worms are concentrated. That's where the coffee grounds land!! YMMV Tom J
Since we just giving opinions without a basis, I'll say don't use more than
100% coffee grounds. I also think worms like Indonesian coffee grounds more than Latin American coffee grounds.Or you could just try giving them your coffee grounds; the worms will let you know how well you like it.
Nothing that I have read about vermiculture indicates any specific proportions of what edibles to provide - the whole point is to recycle kitchen scraps/waste into a useful end product. However there is a rule of thumb that determines how large a worm bin you should have based on the amount of waste product you generate. Provided that ratio is maintained, I'd go ahead and give them as many coffee grounds as you have available, but provide any other kitchen scraps as well. I'd think a varied diet might encourage increased productivity. But then again, all that caffeine might just keep them up and running at full steam!
You could always apply any excess coffee grounds directly to the garden, specially around acid loving plants.
You may find this helpful:
My question is whether there is an upper limit to this. We drink a lot
A worm stampede! But who would wrangle them back into the compost? More seriously, if you gave them a lot too much you might kill them, if the case of P. Lyautey, who wrote the original stories on which "La Boheme" is based, was correctly reported. Supposedly died of blood poisoning/systemic gangrene after a long regime of 40 cups of coffee a day. zemedelec
Wow that's a lot of coffee and I thought my husbands one pot a day at breakfast was a lot I think the worms from my own experience are ok if the previous advice is followed just make sure there is lots of other goodies . I used to keep worms in a bin for fishing and I had some monster worms and great tomato compost too. But NO meat or meat by products at all or dairy bad bad bad don't want to add that stuff just veggies egg shells coffie grounds and stuff and if memory serves me right I never found them in my grass compost pile I guess it gets a little warm for the buggers
A book I read a few years ago on worm composting strongly recommended coffee grounds for them, and when I get worms they got more coffee than any other single thing and seemed to like it.
I gave up worm composting in semi-disgust eventually. The bin attracted and supported fungus gnats and the worms wouldn't eat up tough stuff, like tomato skins, so the vermicompost I got was pretty crude. I think you need
2 bins--one in which to multiply the worms with lots of food, and one in which you starve the worms to death so that they eat up the tough stuff. After collecting your vermicompost transfer some worms and switch bin functions.Andrew
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