Omega masticating juicer for the fruit/vegetables and eggshells and a Vitamix for the grains.

My wife just purchased a new large blender and gave me her small chopper to chop up food to use for my worm factory. If money is an issue and you don't have an old blender, suggest you go to a "thrift" store and pick up a used blender. I saw several at our local Goodwill Store for from $5 to $20. I am also going to buy a cheap paper shredder for my home office and I am going to also use it to shred paper for my worm bedding. Now I am tearing the newspapers up by hand. You don't need to use a shredder; I just want to try it. I have had my worm factory for a year. Got it from my daughter as a Christmas gift and have just harvested 2 trays of worm castings / vermi-compost to use for my spring potting soil.

A regular blender works....just add a bit of water....worms go through food a lot faster when blended

If you just want to juice for yourself any blender will work. But if you are saving banana peels , potato leavings, fruit peelings to juice and save pulp for the worms the average blender will not do the job. I have been using the hamilton beach big mouth juicer , 800 watt from walmart for 4yrs now and still going strong. Dont kid yourself into thinking a lesser powered juicer will work. I got a jack lalane from goodwill but it was only 200 watts, wasnt strong enough to take what I save for my worms to juice for pulp. There are other big mouths with say 400 and 600 watts, my suggestions are to go with no less than 800 watts. I give my juicer quite a workout and it keeps on going, but if you intend on pushing banana peels thru chop it up into quarters before juicing those , it will help. Banana peels will from time to time bog the machine down and you will need to remove them from top portion of machine but no problem in my mind, like I say I give it a hell of a workout and it keeps on going and yours will too as long as you use some common sense when using it. I save up these scraps in gal . ziplock bags untill I think I have enough to fill my 1 .5 gal container and if It wont hold it all I put some in a large coffee can.

A knife for pumpkins and this for smaller veggies.

I agree with gumby. You don't need to chop up food for your worms. Freezing and then thawing breaks down the cells in your veggie scraps and decomposition starts much faster. Your worms will be fine with it. Keep it simple.

Blending reduces surface area. Half-inch chunks are plenty small enough and easy to get from a chef knife.

For me, composting is about simplicity as much as anything else. Buying shredders and blends has never crossed my mind.

EDIT: buying appliances specifically for this hobby has never crossed my mind.

Many people actually own a shredder for security reasons and many own a kitchen blender for culinary uses... these items simply can have dual purpose, and it is especially useful if one has both uses in mind when considering a new purchase.

I've been juicing for over 10 years now, I no longer have high blood pressure (thrown the BP meds away a long time ago), no more stomach issues (acid reflux), been able to sleep soundly through the night since juicing, and who knows? maybe its prevented a cancer or two from occurring if I had not started juicing? We actually own two juicers (one is a masticating style and the other is a centrifugal type) together they cost about $450... I figure I've saved on the BP meds, the medical bills I would have incurred while my stomach rotted out, feeling sharper and peppier with sleeping soundly at night has got to be worth something and then possibly the chemo or other cancer treatments if I'd had developed cancer. I know I'd have save on my gall bladder surgery if I'd been juicing in the years prior... just that one operation alone would have paid for both juicers 4X over and then some (and that's just the deductible). What's the price one puts on one's quality of life and health? It's about the bigger picture and so some times you need to spend money in order to save money.

Any juicing pulp I put into the bin is completely gone within a week and I put like 10 pounds of the stuff in at a time (remember this is moist fruit and vegetable pulp with the juice/water content near totally extracted)... not so sure how pretty it would look or smell if it were just whole peelings, etc. left to rot over a few weeks sitting in the open bin down in the basement and then there is that huge amount of water it would add to the bin drowning everything in the bin.

My sister gave me a Vitamix (a $600 unit) that she got free from a neighbor across the street from her who never used it... the unit's over 15 years old but works like its new... I use it now to powder up several pounds of layer mash in seconds, which otherwise would probably take more like a couple years to break down in a compost heap. I mean it turns whole dried grain into a very fine flour, very quickly.

Our cardboard boxes (we often get in a couple corrugated boxes a week from UPS, not to mention all those weekly circulars in the mail, oh and the pizza boxes!) these disappear in the bin faster if shredded and will allow more air flow and capture more oxygen than back when it was just torn off into large flat chunks and thrown into the bin... also just tearing up a whole cardboard box by hand was very time consuming... now a shredder makes it very convenient and fast to do (my wife paid ~ $20 over 10 years ago for the shredder we use to destroy billing statements before tossing into the trash).

To my way of thinking using ordinary modern appliances is the simpler way and far more efficient. If you don't already own or have any other purpose for such items, you have a lot of time and are in no hurry to amass vermicompost and your weekly refuse never gets ahead of your worms (and bacteria and fungi and the other bin critters) then yes I agree it might seem foolish to purchase anything like a shredder or blender or juicer just for that purpose. Every one has a different focus and individual goals in mind for their worm bins and the reasons why they are vermicomposting in the first place... so in the end it makes sense for some of us and may be worth consideration for others but definitely may not be a thing for every one.

While I have an Omega masticating juicer I use for myself I do not put anything in where I will not drink the juice. I did purchase a used Food Processor to grind up some of the frozen foods I have. I only use this when I have a large buildup of food and I'm trying to have the worms consume it as soon as possible. Here is a video.

I then have an old magic bullet blender I use to crush up egg shells as well.

I try to use the least amount of energy on my worms but I still find that sometimes tools are needed to help with the process.

Each person will choose his or her way of feeding their worms. Certainly no one has to break up their food for the worms , it just decomposes much faster if you do. Can you imagine for instance if you threw a whole cucumber into a bin and waited for the worms to dispose of it . First of course it would need to decompose to the drgree worms can deal with it. Therefore anything you do to make the food bits smaller the quicker unless of course you are not in any hurry at all. I have frozen food before giving it to my worms but find it is not any quicker to decompose than running thru my juicer and feeding the worms.

While I do agree that everyone can feed their worms any way they choose, I think it should be pointed out that chopping, juicing, or blending up the worm food is not required in any way, shape, or form as that is not the way worm food is provided in the wild.

Faster decomposition may not be a good thing in a worm bin - in a compost pile yes. But in a worm bin it can cause heating which will cause the worms to wander or look for another place to live and eat.

IF your worms are leaving the bin it is most likely they are not happy with the living conditions and more likely something that you, the landlord is doing.

If you have a good balance in your worm bin heating up would not be a problem. Also leaving room in the bin for them to escape to always helps and BTW faster decomposition is a good thing and Im pretty sure most wormers will agree.

Steve, I believe you are right on all accounts... in addition, a critical mass is required to create any significant heating build-up. Hot-composting usually requires at least a cubic yard of high nitrogen:carbon ratio feeder stock. In small bins excessive heat build-up is really a non-issue, especially if less than half the bin surface is used for feeding. I know this from personal experience (over the last couple months now). Also heating will be very spotty and short lived, varying from normal temps to as high as 95F, which the worms simply avoid the hot spots until it drops to under 85F and that can take from a few hours to just a couple days (this is due to fast bacterial decomposing from having pre-masticated the worm food). Worms do not try to leave as long as the lid is left off (this is to prevent high humidity conditions from developing, which is actually what entices some worms to go exploring just as they do in nature).

Mono-- Yes you are correct about reference to a larger compost pile. Last fall I started a pile trying get it to hot compost and I know I didnt have the mix right , but one brief period I did get it to 130 F. but never could get it back there again. Im guessing my pile just wasnt really big enough to and maybe not enough carbon either. Still struggling with it so I know naturally it would be cold composting but disappointing I couldnt get it where I wanted. I turned on occasion thru the winter but no dice. 90 F is as hot as Ive got it since then.

In this instant gratification world you may be right.

But maybe I wasn't clear - what I was trying to say (when someone is searching for what they need to start a worm bin) they should know that tools are not required to start a worm bin. Nor is a juicer, blender, or otherwise chopping "the worm food is not required in any way, shape, or form as that is not the way worm food is provided in the wild." Certainly they can choose to do it that way IF that is what they wanted.

Whether pre-masticating worm food leads to faster decomposition I think is a topic for debate in another thread as I doubt that professional worm breeders do any pre-masticating in any way shape or form.

Why worms escape is certainly clear to me - they are not happy where they are and that means very simply it is something the breeder is doing or not doing and can only be found and corrected by the breeder. Some common reasons are too wet, not the right temp. (as in too hot), or there is no food. I can't really see them leaving because there is too much food. Maybe the food is not at the point where they can feed on it or it is heating up but not because there is too much.

The reason worms stay put with the lid off is because they despise light, period. When you see worms crawling on sidewalks etc. it is normally because the ground is too wet for them and they choose the lesser of two evils, exit their home and get caught when the sun rises.

It is so much less stressful when you let nature take its course.

As Gumby has always said IF you need something (worm castings or compost) tomorrow plan to buy it today.

Good Luck

In the beginning of my association with worm composting: an old cleaver on layers of corrugated cardboard destined for the bin anyway. Anything will do to chop kitchen scraps (or corn husk).

I just use my chef's knife. Works great. I usually microwave the food as well, which also helps it soften, but I actually do it in order to kill any gnat/fruit fly larvae or eggs that might be on it. I don't like blending because the blender is more of a pain to clean, and blended food tends to add too much moisture too quickly to the bin. However, I don't like to leave food in large chunks because then it takes forever to break down, and part of why I have a worm bin is to reduce the amount of garbage I put into the landfill, so I want a decent rate of consumption. Chopping into small pieces seems like a good compromise that also doesn't make it harder to maintain good conditions in the bin.

Everyone has their own style of doing their worm food and none are wrong as long as they get ate and there are no problems in the bin. Its true if you use a blender/juicer it will need to be cleaned and you would be making a mistake if you dont get a powerfull enough machine to do the job in the first place. The juicer I use is 800 watts and Ive been using it 4 years now no problems. I save my food in ziplock bags untill I get enough to fill 1.5 gal container when processed. Now days I usually add juice back into the pulp as it tends to be on the dry side. When saving banana peels though I usually always at least quarter those for easier processing. Dont forget to remove any labels or you will see them again come harvest time.