Today’s Item of the Day is from Vevor—it’s their 5-Tray Worm Composter. Remember to use the code VVPROMO to get 5% off anything you buy from Vevor with my links. I mentioned this item in a recent podcast about various methods of composting. Enough of you guys got one that my Vevor rep literally reached out and said, “Hey, let us send you one for a proper review.”

I figured this one was safe to recommend without a review, as screwing up a worm bin isn’t easy to do, at least not from a manufacturing standpoint. Now, management of worms you can screw up, but that is on the worm keeper, not the bin maker. (More on that in the video at the end.)

I have to say, I am very glad to have accepted a sample of this worm bin. This bin is well-made and well-designed. Every aspect of it is well thought out. And, ole Jack discovered something for you guys on this one that makes it a hell of a good pricing deal. Here is the deal: one of the top-selling all-time worm bins is the VermiHut Plus 5-Tray Worm Compost Bin. The ViermiHut has over 1600 reviews with 4.6 stars overall on Amazon. It is all over groups and forums about worm composting, and everyone loves it. They sell for about 100 bucks on Amazon and other sites. Though they are on sale as of 10-21-24 for about 78 bucks, which is still more than the Vevor model.

Well, what if I told you the Vevor bin, at $69.00 when bought directly right now, was the exact same bin? I don’t mean almost the same; I mean THE SAME. Same accessories, same parts, same instructions, same everything. My instinct from my research is the only difference is the color; the VermiHut is green and the Vevor is black. It isn’t a car, folks; the color doesn’t matter. When I say the same, I mean they are likely made on the same molds in the same factory.

So out of the gate, you get one of the best-thought-of worm bins on the market for $20-40 off the cost of the competition on any given day.  Can I be 100% sure they are the exact same bin? Yes. How? Because I know how private label products work, because I read the instruction manual for product reviews fully, and because we all know documentation from China on products is something that can miss things in translation.

In this case, the name of the private-labeled product I am sure mistakenly remains in the user’s manual. Click the image on the right to enlarge it, and you can see right in the product manual it is referred to as the VermiHut Plus. Clearly, Vevor made a deal with VermiHut to private label this product which means you get it for $20-40 less. Then don’t forget to use my discount code VVPROMO for an additional 5% off.

Now let’s talk about the bin itself. First, I was impressed by two things included that you normally need to buy separately. First, there is a brick of coco coir—call that about a $10 bonus item. It also includes a fiber top mat to cover the top tray of worm food. Additionally, they provide a small rake that may not be a big deal, but it is perfect for scraping off layers of the coco coir when soaking it for initial setup.

This system is designed in a way that should make the vermicomposter think a bit like a beekeeper. What I mean is the instinct of many will be to put it all together and fill it up fast; don’t do that. As you will see in my video, the best thing to do is start off with good bedding and one tray. As that tray begins to fill with castings, add a new tray on top with some bedding, food scraps, and inoculate it with a handful of castings from the lower tray.

Follow this method until you are working on the 5th tray as new; at that point, remove the bottom tray’s castings, and it becomes your top tray. Once you get a system running, you will be harvesting castings say every couple of weeks. Again, think a bit like a beekeeper; you add those supers on top of the hive as the lower areas are full of brood and honey. Do the same here as the worms have almost filled the lower tray; add the next one.

Again, I give more tips in the video, but I want to say something here about any worm bin. There are two reasons for most worm bin failures (other than murder by invading fire ants). They are, in order, too much liquid and too much food, and sometimes too much of some foods that have a lot of water in them, is part of the first one. This bin, like many, has a spigot for removing leachate. This is a good thing, and leachate is a great thing to water down and spray on your plants or drench soil with (an ideal dilution rate is 10:1), but it is NOT something you want to produce in high quantity with a worm bin.

Look, folks, the more leachate you get, the more you are overwatering your bin. Now some say you should get exactly none. Like many things, I am in the middle on this issue. I expect to get some drainage over time; when I do, I back off the moisture, but I don’t freak out and simply see the leachate as a resource. I have never had issues with this approach. And as well as this thing can drain, I can’t see why anyone would.

Problems arise when new worm compost folks think leachate is something you want on an ongoing basis, so they add moisture until they damn well get it daily. Then the worm bin becomes too active, active composting starts, like compost pile style with HEAT, and your worms fry. Unlike a pile outside, they have nowhere to go; you made a worm oven. You can also end up with just being too wet, then they drown or create anaerobic pockets that are bad for worm health.

Next, on overfeeding, most new folks totally overfeed, and one of the reasons is really a surprise to many. Here we go, worms don’t even eat most of what we feed them. This is the real key and why new worm keepers often have catastrophic loss very quickly. We tend to think of a worm bin like, say, a mealworm farm; you feed the worms, they eat it. But compost worms, and honestly, most earthworms do not actually eat the stuff we put in bins, just as they do not eat the mulch on top of your gardens.

No, worms partner with microbes, many actually, that pass through their guts. These microbes break down the food; the worms eat that food partially broken down, they eat the microbes’ waste, and they even eat some of the microbes. I found this fascinating when I learned it; check out this video from Ray Archuleta of worms on a farm literally “farming microbes” by pulling corn refuse just slightly into burrows.

What this means is a new farm should start light on worms and lighter on food. Allow the microbe population to come up as the worm population does. Once you get going, just keep an eye on things, and you will, in time, learn what to look for. One big thing is if you feel significant heat when you open your bin, you are likely overfeeding; again, you have gone from a slow compost to fast thermophilic compost. To correct this, remove some food and add some carbon and stop feeding for a time. Again, more tips in the video.

Let me finish with one more thing here, the value concept. Many pride themselves on “homemade bins” for their worms, and if you are a major operation doing 100 giant long beds and selling commercially, well, you may very well want to do that. But for the average person, you need one or two of these tops, and blatantly, you can’t make anything this good, with 5 layers using something like Rubbermaid tubs for less than 70 bucks. Just price 5 tubs in the 3-5 gallon size, and you will see what I mean, not to mention the drainage and spigot, separation screen, etc., for bottom leachate removal and the ant traps for the feet.

Y’all know me, I am all for making things yourself and DIY and such, but I am not for spending more money to get something that doesn’t work as well as an off-the-shelf purpose-built product like this. It just makes no economic sense and has a bad price to value ratio. Once you take the additional 5% off, the cost of this item is $56.99; it comes with bedding and a mat to cover the top tray, so you don’t have to buy those. You can set it up the day you get it with zero tools. If you build your own instead of getting this, I will say what I say often, “You hate money, and if you hate on money, it will hate on you.” This is a well-respected $100 product for $60 bucks; you just can’t beat that in 2024, and if well cared for, it is also a very long-term investment.

So, check out the 5-Tray Worm Composter (Remember to use code VVPROMO to get 5% off anything you buy from Vevor with my links) and up your composting and fertility game today. Again, check the video for more tips on bin management, including how to accelerate microbe inoculation, where to locate your bin, and more.

And remember you can alway help us out by beginning your online shopping starting at TspAz.com first and when you do so, on Vevor items always use discount code VVPROMO to get 5% off anything you buy.

Check Out this Video Review with TONS of Griddle Tips Even if You Already Own One

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Remember My Discount Code Works for ANYTHING in the Vevor Store, just use my links to get there and use VVPROMO at check out for 5% off literally anything they sell.