It was worm bin maintenance, year-end file cleaning and paper shredding day at chez rickd, so I thought I'd snap some photos and share them.

In my previous post I described my composter and the reasons why I compost with worms.

I also briefly described the harvesting and maintenance procedure, which consists of removing finished compost from the bottom bin and then refilling it with almost-finished compost from the two active bins. That last part is what I did today, essentially skimming some of the worm castings from the active bins and putting them into the bottom bin for a final period of composting.

Theoretically, the reason for managing the bins this way is that the worms should leave the bottom bin and travel up to the active bins as the food runs out and the castings become more concentrated in the bottom bin. That way you're not throwing a lot of worms into your garden with your compost, or spending hours trying to separate the worms from the compost by hand.

By the way, the crab shells I added to the bin a few times during December were virtually unrecognizable today.

Here are the photos: