How to Make Compost EASY Method in Your Vegetable Garden in Mini Worm Farm Setup Container Gardening

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Hi, it's Robbie from Southern California. And the other day I was working in my garden and I had a little clip of something I was doing and a few of you asked me, "What the heck are you doing?" Well, I'm making a worm farm.

[00:00:11]No, I'm not. I'm feeding my plants. And I've got a whole video on the pictures, but let me go over it again because it's good to have a refresher. Now, here is a flash fish. I do it two different ways now, by the way, when I'm making holes.

[00:00:24]This is a little power unit. You can plug in a soldering iron, a glue gun. Oh my goodness. All kinds of tools. You can charge up your tablet, your phones, everything. But anyways, let's get back to this. So, I put in my soldering iron and I heated it up. That is a pitcher. I get that at Dollar Tree. They're really cheap, but they work fantastic for this.

[00:00:45]Now, what I'm doing is I'm going to put in as many holes as they feel like doing. The more the better. And if the lid's got these divots, you know, where like water can kind of accumulate on the top, I make two holes just to make sure the water goes back into the pitcher. It is like a worm farm, but what it is, it's for microbes and it's for composting in place in your containers where you're growing. It works fantastic. Why do I want a lid? To keep critters out, and it does work. You snap the lid on and then anytime you've got leaves or kitchen scraps or something, you go ahead and you take the lid off and you stuff it and you close it back.

[00:01:24]Now, I went ahead and I bought the drill, the 12vt. Gary got the 20 volt and it works fantastic. I like the 12vt.

[00:01:29]It's a little lighter. And then I bought myself a step drill, which is fantastic for making holes really fast. Now, the downfall to this is it makes a big mess and you get pieces of plastic everywhere. But if you do it over a trash can or do it someplace where you can catch it all and then throw it away, that's the best way of doing it. But look at the speed. Look how quick you can make the holes. Now, why is it called a step drill? Because you can make the hole any size you want. See the triangle shape? How the drill is shaped?

[00:02:03]The further you push it in, the bigger the hole. And I got a couple of these drills in all different sizes now. And I've been using it all over the place.

[00:02:11]It's kind of like my new favorite thing.

[00:02:13]But see all the plastic? I really want you to clean that up. It is so important. You don't want that all over the place. We don't want to have plastic dust. That's why I really do like the soldering iron because it's very clean, makes a nice smooth hole. I even use that on some of my hummingbird feeders.

[00:02:31]But either one will work. Just make sure if you use a step drill, it is quicker to clean up the plastic. But look at this. So, this pitcher, I'm going to make a bunch of holes. And the earthworms that are in my totes, cuz I have living soil, will travel back and forth into the pitcher. Why? Cuz there's food in there. And if there's food, it's going to bring them in. And what food is that? All the leaves you're pulling off of your plants and everything. Whatever you've got, you stuff it in there and just throw a handful of soil in there so they have some place to maneuver and move around. Now, why do I do this for some plants that I'm growing? This is mainly for vegetable plants. Plants that are heavy feeders like squash, tomatoes.

[00:03:13]It is like feeding your plants everyday plant food. That's why we don't fertilize. We do it like nature does it.

[00:03:21]And if it gets full and you end up with all that soil in there, the compost, just take it, tip it out, and use it because it's going to be the best soil you make. In the meantime, your plants are going to love you for all that food that they're getting daily. These work fantastic. I think I'm going to put this here. This is just a food container or something. And see all the holes I made.

[00:03:44]So, I'm going to do the same thing that I do with the pitcher. It's just a lot of holes. It's going to go in there. And then I can add in leaves like I do here.

[00:03:53]And that slowly will sink down, too. So, even if I don't bury it all the way, I can add more soil or leaves or anything to the top, compost on the top, mulch, and the worms can still go back and forth. So, that's going to go here.

[00:04:07]That'll be really good. Look at this living soil.

[00:04:12]Look at this. Full of earthworms.

[00:04:15]Okay, I'm making this hole here. This is how you make these little worm farms anywhere you want.

[00:04:23]You can use food containers. I've got a whole video on how I do it with pictures. Oh, look. It's just loaded with earthworms. I love having a soil that's alive. That's why I don't use bag soil. Just maybe around the base of the plant if it's a new plant. And I'll use some potting mix. And then from then on, I want to collect soil from old containers I grew in cuz look at all the roots.

[00:04:49]Look at that. This tomato plant's really going nuts. Okay, this opens. Let me see. This way. So, I'm going to be able to get to it. So, if I did it this way, it'd be harder to open. So, we're just going to sit it in like this. So, I want to make sure that lid is on the top so I can grab Oh, hold on.

[00:05:07]Maybe I can't do it that way. Hold on.

[00:05:10]I guess I'm going to have to do it that way. I wanted to do it the other way, but it'd be easier to open and throw things in. Okay. So, means I need a little space here. So, let's go ahead and do it like this.

[00:05:24]This way I creates a little space so the lid won't get stuck. I don't want to be coming out here fighting with the lid.

[00:05:32]Soil will find its way down there later.

[00:05:35]And don't worry if you get soil in here.

[00:05:37]That's great. And then later you can always pull it out.

[00:05:42]Perfect.

[00:05:44]And what do you do with that? Why are you burying containers in your garden?

[00:05:51]Okay, earthworms, you're going to have to find your way back. Oh, I am so sorry. Hold on. Oh, there's so many of them. They're all over here. Here, make sure they're covered up. They'll find their way back. All right, because now, do I have anything? Let's Let's pretend cuz I already groomed all this.

[00:06:10]Let's Let's take from here. So, let's say I trimmed off some of my tomato leaves. I just throw it in there.

[00:06:18]There's another one. And I can bring any leaves from anywhere. Let's see.

[00:06:22]Anything here? Let's take careful with this. This is betitimant. I take a stem, it will grow in here. But then you want to put a little bit of soil in there.

[00:06:31]And by the way, all this will break up so fast that the earthworms will come through here. This will fill up and that is great.

[00:06:40]Look at that. And periodically, I will have to open this up and water it. Now, if you don't have any rodents or critters around that's going to get to it, then you could leave the top open.

[00:06:53]But because I I haven't covered anything here, anything can come in. And I want this because I can put food scraps in here, too. And you don't want to entice them in with food scraps. Like something sweet really brings a lot of certain critters in. But with it closed, they can't get to it and they don't know how to get inside. You can always put a plant on top and that makes it heavier. They can't get in.

[00:07:20]But this is going to be good. But I like the pictures. They're much Look how much easier the pictures are. Just open them.

[00:07:27]This you got to fight with a little bit.

[00:07:28]But I have it and I'm going to use it.

[00:07:30]It's orange. And the only thing orange in this little garden is my pumpkin. So I figured, you know what? I'll just put this here. Later on, I could leave the top open even if I wanted to. Just leave it open and throw things in there. Clean up the geranium. There's a yellow leaf.

[00:07:47]You can throw anything in there. It all goes back to the same. Oh, look at you.

[00:07:54]I disturbed you all. We were just happy eating and chilling out under the soil and then you came along and disturbed us. If you feel it's too low, you can raise it up as you go. But you can pull it out and take all the goodness that was in there, all the leaves you put in there when it looks like this, and you can dump it in another container. But this is just this is so I can help this plant out by putting different leaves from the garden, maybe collard or something or food, little bit of food scraps in there. And then you saw the earthworms, they'll go inside there and they'll eat there. And then this plant will take all the nutrients from there.

[00:08:32]Okay. All right. So, I still have to get the potato mint out. This is just here because there's nowhere else to put it in and set it anywhere. But I don't want the potato mint in here. But for now, let's see. Nothing else back there. No, these are all staying. Everything else is staying. So, that's coming out.

[00:08:51]And this potato's coming out. The rest of it stays. I could layer a little bit more.

[00:08:56]You don't want to overdo the top.

[00:08:58]Layering is good, but you're going to overdo it. And you want to be able to have the soil breathe. But, you know, I can put a little pot here, another one here.

[00:09:07]And this is going to be overwhelming. I can see this coming because these plants are getting massive and I'm not going to know what's what.

[00:09:18]I'm going to keep a lot of it trimmed on the bottom so there's good air flow. I trimmed this one. This is the one that concerns me.

[00:09:26]This is a pear tomato that I planted from a plant that I had growing from a seedling of mine. If this doesn't throw any flowers, that means it's been genetically modified not to continue to grow. And that's what I'm waiting to find out.

[00:09:47]This one is not genetically modified.

[00:09:49]This would be a fabulous plant to collect seeds from. This one came out of my trough and they've grown before and it's a hybrid, but it's doing fantastic.

[00:09:59]It's very vigorous and there's already tomatoes way down there. Here it's got tomatoes. That's a good thing. All right, back to work I go. So, it's been a couple days. Only a couple day. Oh, hold on. Let's see what's left. You know those few leaves I threw in there? Let's see. Two day. In two days, they're gone.

[00:10:17]There's no more leaves. Look at this.

[00:10:20]I'm telling you, it's incredible. Nature pulls everything back quick. So, I am going to put whatever I've got. Here's some squash that did not get pollinated.

[00:10:29]Let's throw that in there with everything else. And let's clean up a little bit around here. And oh, hold on.

[00:10:37]This was not like this this morning.

[00:10:40]Uhoh.

[00:10:42]All right. I got to get this toolled or I'm going to lose everything. We'll leave the pepper. And all this gets composted. Not a good thing. So, we're going to take the leaves from the peppers that something got into. And I'm going to go check my cameras as soon as I'm done here because I think I know what it is. And I think I'm going to have to get to work very quickly getting this thing covered in tool. But any leaves you've got as you clean your garden, you throw it in these containers and then you close the cap and the earthworms will do the work for you. You can't beat that. Let's go check the cameras. Okay, it's a little blurry, but let's look in the lower left corner. Oh, I see it. You know, I knew I was going to get nabbed before I get that tool up.

[00:11:27]That's going to get me motivated now.

[00:11:30]So, I see him. Oh, there he is. Look at that little bugger. That is a ground squirrel, and he is tearing apart the pepper. We can barely see him, but if you look really close, you'll see him.

[00:11:42]All right, so my tool is going up. I always have the link in my description.

[00:11:47]It's like $11. I don't even know. It's so cheap. You get 40 yards, 54 inches wide. I'm going to cover that thing and see if we can get it out that way because if I use wire, it's going to cost a lot of money. If I use tulle, it cost me about five bucks. So, I'm going to get that done. So, I'm hope I'm giving you ideas. We'll come back. I'll get it toolled. You'll see what's going on. But to make these little worm farms is perfect. What you are doing are feeding your plants food. Natural food.

[00:12:17]It's the leaves from your garden goes back. Everything is pulled up, all the nutrients is being decayed by the microbes and earthworms. It's going back into your soil. And what is it doing?

[00:12:27]It's helping your plants grow. It's a cycle of life. And we could do it in our garden with just some food containers.

[00:12:33]You could technically just dig a little hole and push it in, but if you got squirrels, they'll be digging holes.

[00:12:38]That's why in there I'm going to have containers to break down the food or leaves or whatever I put in there with a cap so they're not going to get into it.

[00:12:48]Right now I got to keep them out or I won't have anything left. So I hope you enjoyed this. Oh my goodness. Nature is just so wonderful all the time, isn't it? So with that, have a wonderful day.

[00:13:01]Don't forget to eat what you grow. Maybe for some of your heavy feeders, you should think about making a little container to compost in place because that's what we're doing. Bye-bye.