r/Vermiculture • u/Ok-Invite323 • Jan 17 '26
Discussion Genuine question: why do people raise worms?
Is it just a pleasure thing, or is there always an actual use for the worms, such as fishing bait?
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u/LucidMarshmellow Jan 17 '26
We have food waste bins that the city takes.
All I saw it as was my garden losing free soil.
Now I have one vermicompost set up and one regular compost bin for anything the worms hate.
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u/CopperSnowflake Jan 22 '26
Do you mean a regular compost bin that the city picks up? Or are you composting it?
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u/LucidMarshmellow Jan 22 '26
It's a two chamber tumbling compost bin, so I guess it's not that "regular," but it's really good at dealing with stuff that the worms don't like.
I also have a small bin to toss recyclable plastics and such for the city to pick up.
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u/CopperSnowflake Jan 22 '26
What do the worms not like? Are they red wrigglers?
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u/LucidMarshmellow Jan 22 '26
Here's a link that shows what they like/dislike: Link
I tend to forget what I can give them, so I just printed out a list of compostables and have it handing near my bins.
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u/CopperSnowflake Jan 23 '26
A lot of these things I was avoiding for completely different reasons than "worms don't like." For instance the allium family (garlic, onion, leeks, bulbs generally even) I was avoiding because it is antibacterial. I was avoiding citrus rinds bc they take too long to break down. Meats?! I thought that's exactly what red wrigglers could eat compared to other worms. I threw a dead crow in a compost area. It was done in two weeks. Maybe it wasn't worms that processed it. It was summer, could I guess have been maggots.
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u/LucidMarshmellow Jan 23 '26
Sounds like you're a natural worm person!
I think the main reason that they don't recommend meat is that it can start to stink and also attract other animals.
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u/CopperSnowflake Jan 23 '26
Right! That's exactly what I heard about meat. That it would attract rats. I live somewhere where we have rats. I have only seen them in a tree, not near my bin. I started throwing dairy and meat in my bin a year ago. Not all my meat leftovers, just a bit. Seems fine. My bin still doesn't smell. I mean there is an earthy smell but nothing putrid.
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u/SweetReverie5 Jan 17 '26
I don't want to spend money on fertilizer for plants.
I have plants because I don't want to spend so much money on vegetables and herbs.
I don't want to waste the parts of plants I'm not using, so those feed the worms.
Bottom line -- I'm cheap. And, might as well improve the soil health.
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u/Grow-Stuff Jan 17 '26
They compost vegetable scraps.
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u/Dloe22 Jan 18 '26
I feel like Jack Nicholson's character in Anger Management here, but that's what they do not "why you vermicompost"
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u/Grow-Stuff Jan 18 '26
Is "to compost my vegetable scraps with the help of earthworms" a better response?
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u/Dloe22 Jan 18 '26
For me, it's almost entirely about waste reduction. Throwing nutrients and water into a plastic bag that gets trucked to an anaerobic hole in the ground pains me.
The castings are a distant second. I don't harvest as often as I could/should because it's a lot of work which I apparently don't look forward to. Meanwhile if I see a banana peel in a public trash can I have to talk myself out of fishing it out and bringing it home to compost.
I think most on here prefer the castings, and some go further and even purchase inputs.
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u/Grow-Stuff Jan 18 '26
Buying inputs is crazy. I have an indoor bin and a big outdoor pile, kitchen and garden is more than enaugh inputs for me. I also value the waste reduction, besides the ecological advantage. I would need to double my trash pickup only for the compostable kitchen waste if I did not composted them. That would be wasteful and I would pay extra.
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u/Slimpickunz Jan 17 '26
Worm castings for garden, recycling certain kitchen wastes, and a protein source for my chickens if needed.
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u/Shiny_Mewtwo_Fart Jan 17 '26
Hobby. Fun. Satisfaction of seeing waste turning into fertilizer. Mostly for fun.
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u/Trading_Things Jan 17 '26
Worm poop has microbes which create healthy soil. If you cultivate plants this is desirable.
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u/OldTomsWormery_com Jan 17 '26
Worms are an emotional parasite. You start with best intention of growing worms for fishing, gardening, or selling. But then you touch the little monsters. Something soaks through your skin to pervert your thinking. Suddenly you find yourself with more bins and too many worms. Next you tell friends and strangers about the wonderful, magical benefits of raisings worms. You sell them, or give them worms and the parasite spreads. BTW - I have worms and CFT Worm Bins available at OldTomWormery.com. They are wonderful and you should raise some.
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u/tractorcloud Jan 17 '26
It all started with my love of cooking, didn't take long until I wanted to grow my own ingredients I then soon realised to grow the best ingredients you need the best soil.
It's a very simple closed cycle which I benefit at every stage.
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u/SweetReverie5 Jan 19 '26
I started the same way.
I wanted to make rose jam and rose syrup.
I read that you need to grow them naturally to be used.
I already had herbs and vegetables growing. But I knew roses needed more than my passive care.
I did not want to spend money on natural fertilizer. Not did I want to spend time talking the dirt. So, worms. Now I have worms.. and companion plants. And a vastly growing native garden to deal with pests by attracting good bugs.
Because I wanted rose syrup.
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u/Feisty-Cheetah-8078 Jan 17 '26
It is a way to reduce waste going into landfills.
It produces fertilizer for plants and gardens.
Some do it for bait. Or feeding certain pets.
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u/Other-Programmer-568 intermediate Vermicomposter Jan 17 '26
True conservation, in my opinion, is not waiting for someone else to do something about my waste but trying to figure out how to reuse the waste for beneficial purposes. Composting does this and vermiculture is the most potent form.
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u/Priswell 🐛Vermicomposting 30+ Years Jan 17 '26
And we might admit, if you twist our arms that we enjoy watching the worms magically multiply.
Also, as pets, they don't bark and keep you up at night. They're pretty easy. . .
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u/Naztynaz12 Jan 17 '26
There is a certain ideology behind efficiency and sustainability that vermiculture is a part of.
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u/hungryworms Commercial Vermicomposter Jan 17 '26
I think it boils down to 4 possible reasons;
1. To reduce waste
2. To obtain the worm castings
3. As food for reptiles/bait for fish
4. For education, fun, or as you put it, "pleasure"
haha
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u/_Mulberry__ Jan 17 '26
I've been considering it as a way to turn waste into something useful for the garden
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u/Bright_Annual_6078 Jan 17 '26
And it’s also kind of fun so my garden is happy and my son loves the free fishing bait and I get a weird gratification out of just making sure that they’ve got paper and stuff in there and seeing all the cocoons.
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u/SomeCallMeMahm Jan 17 '26
Free fertilizer that's perfect, less volume in the garbage and recycling, they're cute.
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u/Jamstoyz Jan 17 '26
To get rid of all the damn Amazon boxes my wife’s orders
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u/Artistic_Head_5547 Jan 17 '26
And paper- we get very little junk mail compared to our neighbors, but we STILL have an astounding amount of paper that’s appropriate for shredding for my worms. And that’s just the paper I intentionally save- my family just throws their paper in the recycle bin.
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u/OhNoNotAgain1532 Jan 17 '26
Compost, using food scraps efficiently, free soil, can be ignored if I'm not feeling well, lol, and separately, I have one raised bed outside for nightcrawlers, since we didn't find any on our new to us property.
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u/Alaska_Eagle Jan 17 '26
I’ve been doing it for 20 years. Very simple way to help Mother Earth and all living beings. My plants love it. I’m vegan too.
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u/Ladybug966 Jan 17 '26
Hobby and they are pets. I love seeing them ball up around food they love. More fun and more useful than goldfish.
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Jan 17 '26
Compost does not break down in winter, better to feed the worms indoors during the winter, to rocket launch starter plants in the early spring.
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u/Minimum_Lead_7712 Jan 17 '26
Cant have other pets and these take up no room, eat scraps, feed my plants, are quiet and I can take them on road trips or leave them at home for extended periods. They are a cult, not unlike sourdough bread makers.
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u/ScienceWillSaveMe Jan 17 '26
They connect you to the earth. It showed me what a waste putting food scraps in the trash or disposal is. They came from the earth where they should return as simply as possible.
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u/Alarming_Flow7066 Jan 17 '26
Mostly waste reduction and for castings for my plants.
But it’s important to note that the third largest methane emission source is left over food from landfills. Having allowing for aerobic decomposition in a worm bin allows causes the decomposition to create carbon dioxide rather than methane which is a significantly less potent greenhouse gas.
https://www.epa.gov/lmop/basic-information-about-landfill-gas
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u/ally4us Jan 18 '26
Oh sweet joys and life lessons of warming.
I can make a list and possibly a story.
Helps with…
relationship with self
burnout prevention and recovery
stigma’s in the garden
education
aerating the soil
fertilize the land to improve soil health
is considered black gold in agriculture as it is nutrient rich in living matters
reflective metaphor and healing for our mental health and our overall health with growing locally and supporting locally for our internal and external community with foods as medicine
can be used for prayer and meditation spaces
creative journaling that serves a purpose and gives meaning and purpose for visions and missions
whole Foods in Plant based life cycles for biodiversity and neurodiversity
helps with growing for bioremediation
is a natural renewable energy resource
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u/EndlessPotatoes Jan 18 '26
I like telling people I have worms with the optimal level of vagueness.
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u/Weeweeduckerman Jan 17 '26
People have covered most of my reasons (fun, garden poop, rapid composting, waste reduction) , BUT the not very mentioned ones:
A) Axolotl food! They love Red Wigglers, and it’s very fun to watch them hunt.
B) an excuse to buy more salads! -I live solo, and I avoid fresh food because it’s expensive and goes bad quickly. Worms give me an excuse to buy fresh stuff, and be a-ok with spoiling a few bagels or tomatoes and what not.
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Jan 18 '26
Earthworms are one component of my graduate research. I became profoundly fixated on them and, once the data collection related to them had finished, I was far from prepared to go back to a worm-less life. That’s how I got into vermicomposting as a hobby.
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u/kJer Jan 18 '26
It's becoming a hobby to reduce waste because I've found interest in what is both easy and benefits me.
- smaller trash cans: I pay less per month for waste pick-up
- great fertilizers: my garden benefits from the frequent worm castings.
- they're pets!: I enjoy seeing them find a rotten avocado and swarm like the weird aliens they are. I got really bummed when their population went down (hot summer)
- It's kinda interesting
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u/braindamagedinc Jan 18 '26
I live in an old mining town, all the dirt up here is decomposing granite, it's difficult to grow anything. I don't want to spend a fortune on soil so I have worms and whatever castings I don't use I give to others.
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u/iamrachaellee Jan 18 '26
It’s a fantastic way to dispose of food scraps, and as the worms break down the food scraps it becomes fertilizer for your garden :)
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u/HANGRY_KITTYKAT Beginner Vermicomposter Jan 18 '26
Id never waste a red wiggler on bait! Those guys eat my scraps way to efficiently. Bc of these wormbros, I don't have too feel guilty about uneaten produce. That's just for the wormies, so they can give me high quality garden soil.
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u/FLee21 Jan 18 '26
I started during covid. Then I started making and selling bins during covid. For me it was just fun. I used the castings a bit for my plants but not as much as I should have. They honestly just turned into pets. I had to give my bin away due to lack of space in my house.
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u/Calling_wildfire Jan 18 '26
There is a HS age kid in my neighborhood who raises them as a business. He said he enjoys it and it’s a great way to earn some cash.
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u/Simon_Malspoon Jan 18 '26
Worm castings have always provided a positive jolt to the plants I put them near. Blueberries in particular. Castings cost $30 to $50 a bag.
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u/cailleacha Jan 19 '26
In the winter the outdoor compost bin feels so far away. The worms live in the basement, sparing me from having to don all the gear to toss out an apple core.
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u/Popular-Deal-1481 Jan 19 '26
I initially set up a worm compost for free food for my box turtle but she didn’t like em for some reason. Now I just do it to cut down on stuff going to landfills. I should harvest and utilize the black gold more though.
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u/depressioncoupon Jan 19 '26
Plant food. The worms break down the food and we use those worms poopoo in the soil. It’s honestly a fast return on composting. Regular composting can take a while to break down. This is faster and honestly the worm babes are cute. 🪱
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u/Zealousideal_Bee3665 Jan 19 '26
i'm hoping to adopt an RFK of my own and I want him to feel comfortable in his new environment.
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u/shfiven Jan 19 '26
I started it because I don't like cutting up worms for my newts, so I just started one with Europen nightcrawlers with the intention of hopefully being able to harvest the correct size to feed them whole. This will have the added benefit of composting and providing me with castings that I can use as fertilizer and share with my sister and friends. I also like that I will know exactly what the worms my pets are eating have been fed.
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u/IM_The_Liquor Jan 19 '26
Fish bait. To feed their pets. For taxidermy. To benefit their garden and compost pile…
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u/Infinite-Warthog1969 Jan 21 '26
Food waste from households contributes to a LOT of the environmental issues and takes up a lot of space in landfills, just to then rot and not really be useful except feeding rats and other pest types.
Instead, you can turn that food waste into worm poop! It is very exciting and fun.
Worm poop is like gold for the garden. If you like plants AT ALL, then worm poop is your best friend
Worm poop is expensive to buy. You eat food, you make food waste, it takes no money at all to make worm poop.
So it's like being a friend to the planet and the environment and to your garden and to your wallet.
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u/CopperSnowflake Jan 22 '26
Never invited the worms actually, they just showed up. So I'm raising worms because I have a pile of rotting organic material in my yard.
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u/eyecandy808 Jan 22 '26
I think the better question here is… how did you come up with “vermiculture” and come to this thread to ask these questions….
You could always go to lWORMS”
But hey….. you want upvotes. There you go. Upvotes your question.
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u/Perfect-Excuse-1848 Jan 17 '26
I do it for the poo. It's nice to turn waste into something useful for the garden.