Fruits make up an essential part of our diet! The same goes for many creatures, to including the worm.
Many households have a fruit bowl full of the general fruits, such as bananas, apples, oranges, and depending on the season, some extra tasty, fruity treats.
Yes, worms eat fruit, among other food scraps. Fruits are also an important part of a worm’s diet! But what fruit should you feed your worms, such as red wigglers?
Worms need and want fruit as much as we do, and those of us who have vermicomposting systems and/or worm bins are strongly advised to feed our composting worms/red wiggler fruits like:
- banana peels
- apple cores
- and general fruit that has gone bad
to our helpful little wormmy friends as a major part of their food source.
What fruits do earthworms eat?
Earthworms can and do eat a wide variety of fruit. In fact, in the wild, worms will eat the decaying matter from any fruit that they come across.
A major reason that many choose to start their own worm composting system or worm farm, is that they find themselves needlessly throwing away fruits and vegetables that have gone bad, their peels, their cores, etc.
As we all know, those precious peels and whole fruits are full of nutrients that would simply and sadly just go to waste if sent to a landfill.
We know that worms will eat them and make good use of them by turning them into worm castings (worm poop).
Worms need all the nutrients that they can get from fruit in order to thrive for themselves and to create the richest castings that they can, for you and your garden!
That being said, composters are also cautioned against feeding certain fruits to their worms, and are told to treat other fruits responsibly before feeding them to their worms.
- Firstly, vermicomposters are told to not feed the worms any or very little citrus fruit. Citrus fruits are obviously very acidic and too much acidity can harm the worms and even kill them.
- Citrus fruits such as lemons, limes, pineapples, oranges, grapefruits, clementines, etc.
In the wild, earthworms can cope with this kind of food great as they are able to consume what they want and, should the environment become too unstable for them, they can just leave. This is not the case in a worm bin!
Do Worms Like to Eat Wet Fruit?
You should be very careful with wet fruit. Though feeding worms a variety of fruit is a fantastic idea, compost worms need a good balance when it comes to moisture.
The bedding that we are told to place in the worm bins is there in fact to absorb the moisture of the various food scraps that we put in the bin, to keep the worm farm nice and damp (as well as to balance nitrogen with carbon).
Should the bedding be adequately moist and then be subject to very watery fruit, you do run the risk of creating an environment for the worms in which they will not enjoy and will either try to escape or be unable to survive for long.
Fruits such as melons and tomatoes are indeed very watery and can be fed to your worms, but it should be done with caution.
Do not put too much in at once, especially with the tomatoes as they are quite acidic as well, and you could be causing the same problem that you would cause with a citrus fruit. Avoid feeding your worms this in excess.
It would also be wise to add more bedding absorb excess moisture and water. Bedding like:
- coffee grounds
- cardboard
- shredded paper
- egg cartons
- manure (from herbivores)
- crushed egg shells
Adding these along with the fruit in order to make sure that the environment will not become too wet for the worms and they will be completely comfortable and safe.
Summary
Worms like to eat fruit and there is no doubt that fruit will be a staple in your worm composting arsenal.
While worms love most fruit and common compost earthworms like red wigglers would like to see fruit being posted through their bin regularly, there are some you should give less frequently and some you should flat out avoid!
As long as you’re careful each time you feed compost worms – as even some organic foods can cause issues – your worms will love you for putting some their favorite food into their bin or farm for them to eat.
They’ll reward you with some fresh new worm castings to take and use for whatever you want to grow in your garden.
