Compost and Feed-Inspired by Keyhole Garden, Worm Tower / Worm Tube

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Many years ago, I found the book Let It Rot at our library and it guided me in composting our kitchen waste and yard waste more efficiently. I even set up one of our four compost bins for dog waste.

I was inspired by Keyhole Garden and worm tubes/worm towers and built a lot of mini composters and feed/worm bins in my garden and containers. The worms have access to the food scraps from the bottom of the container. Worms from the garden will find and eat the goodies, then leave rich worm castings, extending to a 3 to 4-feet radius around the worm tube. In essence, these food scraps are effectively turned into beneficial vermicompost and was transported by the worm to your vegetable bed.

The cost is next to none and it is easy to make:

• Take a container with a lid (ie. five-gallon bucket, takeout container, protein powder jar, etc, it just depends on the size you need. Check out Stores that hand out five gallon buckets for free), remove the bottom with a surrogate knife or hand saw. 

•  Bury it in the ground and mix two parts kitchen waste (green) and one part of leaves, shredded paper (brown) and fill the container. Cover the bucket with the lid. The kitchen waste will compost and feed the plants. It also provides food for the earthworms if they are around.

Updated on 7/22/2020.

Now I have a before and after picture for the five-gallon bucket feeder.

The after picture was taken in July 2020 and the Strawberry Sundae Hydrangea bushes are thriving with its help.

This before picture taken in Summer 2019 (sorry that I don’t have a better picture, they were never the main focus before):

Updated June 2021:

For raised beds, the bucket is too big and the food container is too small. We have a couple of 8″ nursery planters handy so we made two compost-and-feed pots for a 3′ x 8′ raised bed.

1. Cut the bottom off. Drill some holes in the planter.

2. Bury it in the raised bed, drop the food scraps and cover it (I used a chipped plate for this).