Steem-spiration post DIY worm compost barrel

So this is my second project inspired by another steemian @quochuy, a very knowledgable worm composter in the community. Check out his original post here, which is has very detailed info on how to maintain a CFT worm composter.

Personally I have been working with worm composting for about a year now, and I'm really excited to be working on a slightly larger scale from the standard worm bins which may only compost a small amount of scraps per week. I own and help manage vegetarian mobile food carts in Philly, so decided to build this to reuse some of the scraps and leftovers each week.

I found this 55 gallon drum in the woods behind my work, cleaned it up and cut the bottom off to start the build. The bottom works great as a saucer for any large 10+ gallon pots or trees.

The only challenge is building a strong base which provides space below the drum to harvest the compost from the bottom as the worms eat their way to the top. I started by cutting notches in 4 legs which would support the weight of the barrel. There are probably better ways to do this, but it was the best solution I came up as a very amateur carpenter.

From there I cut 4 lengths of board from scrap wood that will hold the legs in place and provide additional support. I was a little rough with my measurements as small mistakes wouldn't make a big deal in the overall function.

I also attached the barrel directly to the frame with a few extra bolts for additional support.

After the base was built, I tightened everything to make sure it was square and more or less level. The next part would be to add the bars into the bottom which would hold the weight of the compost and allow harvesting from the bottom. To start, I found some scrap metal piping and drilled 3/4" holes through the drum and about 1/2" into the wood. I loosened all of the bolts on the base before measuring and cutting so that I could drill and slide pipes into the wood before re-tightening.

When all the pipes were cut and in place, I tightened all of the bolts on the base which pretty much finished the construction! Next was to line the inside with cardboard and provide a comfortable home for the worms to live=)

I took some of the worms I had in my smaller bin to get started. I'll need to purchase some more worms to go through the amount of scraps we have but I'm pretty excited to have gotten started with this barrel. 😸👍

Its going to be a few months until we have compost but the build wasn't too difficult and pretty easy to maintain. The nice thing about these bins is that after the initial harvest, we can take from it pretty much bi-weekly or as we need for the garden. The bin stores easily next to our trash cans in the garage.

Hope you enjoyed the post! Please let me know what you think in the comments, and thank you for following and upvoting!

-Paul