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Jeffery Jago is a expert in horticulture and worm breeding. With a background in plant cultivation
Last Updated on April 24, 2021 by Jeffery Jago
For those of you who are not familiar with worm composting, let me give you a brief introduction. The process is pretty simple: put your food scraps in the bin and wait for worms to come to do their thing. After a while (depending on how many worms there are) they will start making lots of little white eggs, which then turn into more worms! It’s a really fun project and a productive hobby/way of life.
The problem can happen when it rains or you put too much wet organic matter inside, and the water levels in your bin become too high. This article will go into how to solve that problem by dry it out a bit and keep it balanced so that you can continue to enjoy vermicomposting!
One way to dry out a wet compost bin is to install a ventilated top or make sure your bin has an opening on the side that can be covered with plastic wrap if need be. You can also lay some cardboard down to place the wet organic matter on top of, The idea is so that when you add wet organic matter, it doesn’t get in contact with dry material and instead gets exposed to air which will eventually evaporate some of the moisture content. The worms are still easily able to access the food, And the extra dampness will also make the cardboard easy for them to break down and digest too!
Another way is by using bricks (or something heavy) to weigh down one end of your compost heap so that there’s less airflow at one end than another–this simulates what would naturally happen if you had taller bins like I do! It also helps keep things balanced while letting any excess water flow out toward those bricks and away from where food scraps are placed.
You can also add shredded paper to absorb excess moisture.
It is a good idea when adding organic material, such as kitchen scraps or leaves and grass clippings to your vermicompost bin, that you make sure it’s on the dry side–you don’t want them dripping with water before they’re added! If this sounds like what happened and there are puddles of water inside the compost pile, then cover those wet spots with dry pieces of cardboard or newspaper until things have had time to “dry out”. Then add more food waste while working from the top-down.
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