The Original Vermihut ® Plus 5 – Tray Worm Composter -Dark Green,Sustainable Design for Both Indoor & Outdoor, Worm Compost Bin for Vermicomposting Starter, Recycling Food Wastes

Wanted to try my hand at this and took a chance on this item. Upon arrival, the bottom liquid catching part had a massive crack due to shipping and was unusable. I contacted Vermitek directly and they responded within 24 hours that a new part will be shipped and arrive within the week. It was and now we have everything setup. It was an easy set up for the most part. The instructions were a little confusing due to diagram and all items included were not labeled on instructions. There were bonus items I'm still not sure of their purpose. However, it was genuinely nice they included these hidden surprises. The one design opportunity I think is the bottom tray and guard board do not have a more secure lock in to each other and the bottom feeding tray. I think some sort of tray guard rail would help instead of being flush. While there are cheaper variants out there, I decided to buy this one as it appears to be a legitimate business attempt at a product and not a knockoff trying to cash in. The value has been great overall and the customer support was fantastic. The size is suitable for a small operation with opportunity to grow. I would definitely recommend.

This is the fourth worm bin I've had and by far the best! The first worm bin held both the castings and the compost tea, which made it difficult to get only the compost tea to dilute and fertilize the garden. The second worm bin had similar trays as this one -- without the worm-catching layer and mesh to ensure the worms don't drop into the compost tea tray. The third worm bin had such low capacity even though there were separate trays for compost tea and castings that I had to separate the stacking constantly. This one is just perfect - has all the works the previous ones were lacking and then some! Included is a portable rake to help you move the castings aside to put fresh compostables. It comes with a cup that is the perfect size to get some compost tea. It has mesh to catch the worms. It has starter coconut coir. It also has an instruction manual and a handy refrigerator magnet that all my prior worm bins did not have. The only thing I can think of missing from the instruction manual is where to put the mesh to catch the worms and a close-up image of how to screw the spout onto the compost tea tray to make sure it's a snug fit. Hint: the washers that are on the spout should stay in the same position with the tray wall between the washers. See the color-coded illustration below for more information on spout installation on the compost tray wall.

The picture gives the impression that each tray sits equidistant from the bottom of the one beneath it, as if they lock in place. This is not the case. Each tray sits pressed directly against the compost in the tray below it. No trays lock in place. The tower could easily be knocked over and fall apart by a person or big animal. I keep a broken cinder block piece on the lid to discourage this possibility Worms do escape at night (I find them dead in the ant traps around the feet, and sometimes I see them noodling out in the day before trying to squeeze back in). They aren't escaping en masse but a few every day is going to add up. This is also problematic because I had planned to take them indoors when it gets super hot in summer. If I do that, I'll have to worry about worms exploring my house. 😔 All that said, the price is pretty good compared to some other models, it came with a couple unlisted extras including a little hand rake and a nice coir mat for the bottom tray (the instructions suggested using cardboard but the coir mat is perfect), and the overall design makes sense (though perhaps not optimal for my summer needs).

Nice system - well put together!

My first worm-bin traveled through several moves but died a tragic death in the late 1990s when mice chewed their way in and feasted on my hard-working worms, so I'd been leery of keeping one in the cellar ever since. We started this one at room-temperature in a seldom-used space with mixed worm species from a local professional supplier (worm castings are big with the marijuana trade) and they'd multiplied happily, but they needed to move to our cellar and I was fearful that the mice or the cold would put an end to them. There's probably a little heat from normal composting processes, however, and it turns out that mice can't crawl upside down so I moved a stack of four trays onto a 40" square of 3/4" plywood on top of sturdy former router table table (and out of jumping distance from nearby climbables) and everyone is doing great. There must be 3 or 4 pounds of worms now and even when it's under 50°F they go through a couple pounds a week of well-vetted scrapings, rinds, too-spotty veggies and fruit. The worms can only process so much shredded corrugated, b&w newspaper, and other "browns", however, and this design produces more liquid than models with more aeration, so another advantage of the 40"x40" plywood square is that I can position a container under the tap and tip the square with the bins on top of it to empty the bottom reservoir weekly (which is a nice bonus for the houseplant forest, too!). Moisture is also an issue when the bottom bin of castings is ready to "harvest", so you'll need to do some air- and/or sun-drying, but that's all part of the worm-husbandry fun, right? The bins are sturdy and fit together well. The coconut-fibre top pad won't last long but the worms don't seem to need it. They'll thrive as long as the human factor is consistent and considerate! No onions, no potatoes, and nothing too watery... and the worms are happy and remarkably odorless.

I'll start with saying that all of the vertical stacking worm farms operate pretty much identically. There's no big differentiator between them in terms of producing worm castings. With that said, I bought the Worm Factory 12 years ago and it's produced a large amount of worm castings over the years, but with that amount of time, a couple of things cropped up; 1) the trays are starting to crack at the corners, and 2) I don't feel the legs are designed well to support the weight of five full trays; the legs have been splaying out over time. Given that they all operate on the same principle, it came down to design and, to a lesser extent, price. I like the base on the VermiHut as there's no way the support legs will splay out over time. I also like the rounded corners of the trays as I believe this design relieves some of the stress that my Worm Factory experienced with cracking at the tray corners. And I'm happy that everything's allegedly made from 100% recycled materials. I guess the second criteria for selecting a product is what's included. Mine came with a brick of coconut coir and a woven mat made of some kind of organic fiber. I don't need either one as I just moved the contents of my existing trays to the new VermiHut. I also didn't use the included sheets of nylon mesh as I'm using mine outdoors, nor did I need the trays for preventing ants from invading (good design though). The one thing the Worm Factory came with that the VermiHut didn't was a small bag of vermiculite that worms apparently like for digestion (it deposits in the worms' guts), but I haven't used it in years and it doesn't seem to impact the quantity of worm castings produced. As another reviewer mentioned, you should be producing little to no leachate. If you are, you're ecosystem has too much moisture and the whole bin is likely to smell pretty bad. When I moved the contents of my old trays to the VermiHut, there was literally zero smell at all, no liquid in the base, and thousands of happy worms. We've tuned what we put in the bin over the years and are now down to just espresso machine coffee pucks (very low moisture), banana peels and the occasional overripe banana. The worms love it, but I think it comes down to the moisture level that makes them and the ecosystem thrive. The VermiHut is clearly designed for very little leachate production based on the volume of the base which is fine with me. All in all, I'm a satisfied customer and expect the VermiHut to last at least as many years as the Worm Factory. I did contact VermiHut to ask about a couple of things not mentioned in the owner's manual and they promptly clarified everything. I'll close with a lesson learned a long time ago.... you should never give your worms hot chili peppers. I literally murdered almost every worm in all of the bins and felt horrible about it! Poor little guys.

I purchased my first Vermihut approximately 19-months ago when I was brand new to worm composting, a.k.a. Vermicomposting. Prior to purchasing my first Vermicomposting system, I reviewed several worm composting bins and decided on the Vermihut Plus 5-tray Worm Composting Bin System. The instructions regarding set-up were very easy to follow. I set up my Vermihut, I added my worms and they instantly took to their new home. They wasted no time laying worm castings down. I was so happy with the results of my Vermihut Plus, I obtained a second system, to double my Vermicomposting capacity. My worms have never been happier working for food. They eat, poop and multiply, exactly what you want in a composting system. My worms provide me with high nutrient worm castings, which make my garden vegetables grow bigger, faster and healthier. It’s the only way to grow and it’s all organic. Moreover, it keeps pests at bay too. Happy and healthy soil doesn’t get sick. Sick soil lures in pests, which is not an issue when you have a Vermihut Plus because you will always have rich, dark, healthy worm castings available to keep your soil happy and healthy. Therefore, I highly, highly, highly recommend the Vermihut Plus for anybody wanting to grow organic. It is designed with beginners and professionals in mind. I would bet experienced Vermicomposters would rate the Vermihut as one of the best farms on the market; if not the best, when it comes to effective and efficient Vermicomposting. Oh, I would be remiss if I did not mention triubleshooting. The instruction manual covers just about every problem a worm farmer may encounter. Fir example, world crawling down and out of the bin onto the worm saver tray. I initially encountered this problem so I went to the manual and discovered my bedding was too wet because the other reason was failing to put paper or cardboard in the bottom of the bin before adding bedding, which I did, leaving bedding too wet as my problem. If the bedding gets too wet the worms can break up the paper or cardboard in the bottom as they are trying to escape the bad living conditions. Therefore, I mixed in some dry newspaper shredding and it solved the problem. Finally, this review would not be complete without mentioning the outstanding Customer Service the company provides. Good Customer Service is a lost art but not at Vermitek. Their Customer Service sets the Gold Standard. When I first started Vermicomposting, I had a lot of questions. The folks at Vermitek not only answered all of my questions, they followed up to check on my progress. Let’s see other retailers do that. VermiTek, my forever go to for all my composting needs.

Doesn’t smell at all closed, very minimal odor of moisture is off when the lid is off if you’re right on top of it. I’ve had no escapee worms. The instructions are a bit confusing but it’s pretty intuitive to put together. I’d recommend this to everyone I possibly could convince to get it. You start with only a couple of trays, so it will start shorter than shown, but it’s so fun and low maintenance. It’s obviously smaller than many compost bins, but it’s perfect for kids and convenient for kitchen scraps. With so many worms (best price i found was wwjd worms on Amazon), I’m not super worried if kids accidentally kill a couple and plan to occasionally give my turtle a snack. It would be a good worm farm for fishers as well. The whole family is comically and wonderfully invested.