Creative ways to find more food.

15 years ago

My worms have grown to the point where they can eat more food than I have kitchen waste. I produce a lot of paper waste, however, so I want to encourage them to keep growing. What are some ways that you have obtained food for your worms? I need to find another food source. This is for an indoor bin.

A friend has brought over spoiled food. I have picked up crab apples off the ground.

I have asked about spoiled food at a grocery store (Walmart). They cannot give it away. They could be liable if someone eats it and gets sick.

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Comments (7)

eric30
15 years ago
I ran into the same problem a couple of weeks ago so I bought a fruit and veggie juicer. i have a glass everyday and throw them the pulp. Has been working pretty good. A day will come when I might have to have 2 glasses of juice per day.
11otis
15 years ago
You can pick up UGC from Starbucks, and whenever I go shopping, I clean up the empty carboard boxes from the shelves. I don't feed my worms too much UCG because I don't like the smell of old/stale coffee in the house.
I don't shred the cardboard boxes since it is very hard on the shredder. I cut them into bigger pieces managable to put into a pail and pour water (works faster w. hot water) over it and let it sit. I don't want to use too much water, that's why I let it sit for a while. It will then be very easy to rip them to smaller pieces.

I also have an old box with corn starch. Mix some w. water and cooked it into a thicker (not too thick though) slimy glob. Feed them some and put the rest in the fridge. I have started to feed it to them by putting about 1 or 2 spoonful in a corner. The worms can go away if they don't like it but so far everything seem to be OK. Depending how fast it disappears, I will increase the amount.

I think any flour will do. Some people feed the worms corn meal. I just don't have corn meal at hand.

Otis.
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takadi
15 years ago
Talk to some restaurant or grocery store managers and ask for their vegetable scraps. I guarantee you will have too much to manage
11otis
15 years ago
Here where I live, even small grocery stores won't let you have their produce & fruit waste. The staff will let you but when the manager/supervisor noticed, they're told not to do it. Company policy!
One even told me that if I take it anyway, that is stealing!
Dang!

Otis
shesoldier
15 years ago
i've gotten ppl i know in the act. i bugged my parents to start saving their food scraps in the freezer. i visit them every week or every other week. when i go i pick up what they've stored. it's actually way too much so i end up dragging it to the city worm composting project. but i am thrilled to be able to not send it to the landfill.

i also found an eco person at work and gave her a small tupperware thing that the take out soup came from. she said she'd keep her used tea bags and lunch scraps in there, not stinky ones, and i could compost her food whenever.
Jasdip
15 years ago
I've gone to the produce section in the smaller grocery store chain. They give cases of produce regularly to people for their pets. Also the Food Bank. They get donations from large companies, and I've gotten bags of potatoes and cases of spring mix (baby spinach leaves etc).

I've got so much food in the freezer for them that I had to say No to the food bank when they called.

You could ask for veggie scraps on your local Freecycle site. I asked for people's pumpkins after Hallowe'en and got a bunch of replies. One fellow very generously offered to save me his family's veggie scraps as well.
takadi
15 years ago
hahah otis...stealing food waste? Man they must be desperate!

Creative ways to find more food.

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eric30

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