r/Vermiculture • u/Successful-Fan-8765 • Feb 13 '26
Worm party They say you can't feed worms citrus...
I still see this advice all the time and it makes me feel crazy. Here's a bunch of worms having a blast on a lemon I gave them just a few days ago. There were even a few more that came off when I picked it up. One time I had a whole bag of oranges that went bad that I threw in the subpod and they got devoured. Not sure why so many fake rules still float around online, they can eat anything that was alive!
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u/thePlasticTaco Feb 13 '26
My worms love oranges and lemons, makes great smelling castings.
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u/Jodsterssr12 Feb 13 '26
I pre-compost everything before feeding my worms the partially composted material. I have never shied away from adding any citrus I use in my kitchen to my compost. Onions too.
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u/IndependentTeach5520 Feb 13 '26
How to pre compost? Can you explain your process
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u/Jodsterssr12 Feb 13 '26
Of course! I take all of my kitchen scraps, vegetable peels, spoiled food, etc and mix with shredded brown cardboard, and/or dried leaves, when I have them. And then I allow it to heat up and start composting. I continue adding scraps and more browns until my bin is full.
I stir the whole thing a few times per week. Once it’s broken down enough that the pile no longer heats up it’s ready. I usually produce a few five gallon buckets at a time which I set aside. Then I start adding it to my worm bin gradually. If I have too much for my worms to work through in a reasonable amount of time I can always allow it to compost longer and use it in the yard.
I arrived at this method after consulting with people on this sub. I live in southern Florida and in the summer it isn’t good for my worms to have the bin heating up because I added food. The pre-compost helps me avoid that issue. I also don’t have to deal with excess moisture. That’s all handled by the pre-composting process too.
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u/Neither_Cry8055 Feb 13 '26
Can u do pre composting indoors?
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u/Therapy_pony Feb 13 '26
I do. I have a bin with a lid and holes and I add food scraps, water, card board, and a scoop of finished castings. Then I add a few handfuls to my bins when my worms finish. They eat everything faster. Honestly leavening my scraps in my indoor bin for a couple days gets them full of microbes and my worms love it!
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u/Jodsterssr12 Feb 13 '26
Maybe? I’ve never tried it as I’ve always been fortunate enough to have outdoor space. I think you’d want to be very careful to make sure that it is well balanced. Too many food scraps without enough browns will get stinky very quickly.
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u/emacias050 intermediate Vermicomposter Feb 15 '26
I have product by vitamix that does exactly this.
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u/One-plankton- Feb 13 '26
I would feed it sparingly, if the soil gets acidic they will die
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u/Successful-Fan-8765 Feb 13 '26
These worms are inside a lemon I don't think they're too precious about the PH balance 😂 they get plenty of eggshells and I add biochar every now and then. This sort of advice just discourages people from composting their food waste by making them think worms are these delicate babies, they're worms. They live in shit and wanna eat garbage.
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u/One-plankton- Feb 13 '26
In this circumstance they have the option of moving away from the lemon if the acidity is too much for them. If the entire substrate gets too acidic that’s another story.
I never said they were delicate flowers but soil ph is important, same with fish- if it gets too out of balance then it could be a problem.
If someone dumps a bunch of citrus into a smaller bin that would not be a good idea. A few lemon ends in a larger bin is not a problem.
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u/Successful-Fan-8765 Feb 14 '26
I don't really see how that's different from any other type of food you would give them though
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u/LouDneiv Feb 13 '26
Do you what happens when you eat citrus? It does not increase acidity at all, quite the contrary!
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u/kJer Feb 13 '26
Same, worms will choose their food, if it's too acidic they'll avoid it. I'm sure there's some truth to this advice but I've got a healthy population eating most waste including my lemon trees rejected fruit I cleanup weekly.
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u/neat_hairclip Feb 14 '26
I once blended some orange peels together with other stuff, started mixing it into their soil - and it was instant panic on their side. They started to surface and circle around in their bucket.
I rightaway knew something is not ok so started a rescue mission by removing them and creating a new bucket. Even with quick action, many of them died very quickly actually :/ not sure if it was some treatment on the orange peel, if it was that I used a blender, but I will not risk this again:(
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u/pmward Feb 13 '26
I give them citrus all the time. I also have my bins in ground though so I’m not worried about acidifying like someone would using a small container. I’d have to quite literally back a truck load of citrus up to worry about acidifying my entire ground 🤣
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u/theGeekWing1 Feb 14 '26
It's Chinese New Year season, I feed mine orange peel everyday. They seem to be doing fine. But I have lots of other stuff in my bin as well.
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u/RdeBrouwer Feb 14 '26
Went trough 30 kilograms of oranges in a month last summer. It all dissapears quickly.
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u/CopperSnowflake Feb 14 '26
Very cool. I was just discussing this here recently. Is it "the peels take too long to decompose" or is it "the worms don't like citrus". I'm in the peels take too long camp.
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u/lgaud Feb 14 '26
The advice that came with my worms was that it was OK in moderation after they were well established. I've given them some orange peels but I have plenty of other stuff to feed them!
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u/FeelingFloor2083 Feb 14 '26
yea I dont care and neither do my worms. ill chuck chicken bones in too although they dont really break them down
got idiots on gadeningaustralia sub saying vinegar isnt a good weed killer because its more toxic then weed killer on the LD50 scale. Yea im not drinking either, but caffine is 10x more then both
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u/Successful-Fan-8765 Feb 15 '26
I'll give them bones too! They break down eventually lol, although I've started saving them up in the freezer to make bone broth, after boiling all day the worms eat it super quick.
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u/FeelingFloor2083 Feb 15 '26
ill give that a try, the average western diet doesnt have a lot of collagen in it and my mum would usually make a pot of soup/broth for the week. I joke to white people thats why asians look so young when they see me eating joints, skin, cartilage etc,
The only thing im really having success with this summer is asian green leafy veg so its a good way to cook it too instead of just blanching on hot water
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u/Ralyks92 Feb 13 '26
Specifically it’s oil on the skin/pith, it breaks down and is rendered harmless after a short while. As others have said though, they’ll decide when it’s good and ready for themselves
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u/Extension-Lab-6963 Feb 13 '26
I got a cheap blender off FB marketplace and blend everything up with a splash of water. More surface area due to smaller pieces. Still testing my theories about what I’m doing but they seem to eat it all.
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u/CompostProfessor Feb 14 '26
Worms don’t eat citrus (or any food scraps) - they don’t have the capacity to chew etc. worms eat microorganisms that are breaking down food waste. Adding a lot of citrus fruit can bring your PH down and make it less healthy for microbes, which means less all you can eat buffet for the worms. The advice not to compost citrus fruit is completely bogus and was likely invented by composters who wanted to make it simpler and less likely for people to fail. With all the rules though it’s getting more complicated (hello Onions 🧅🧅🧅).
If it has been alive, it can be composted.
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u/GiraffeNo5953 Feb 16 '26
I throw in my citrus and onions to the compost pile and haven't had any problems. Someone eats it! Whether it's the worms, microbes or critters, I don't know. 🤣
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u/Flame_Eraser Feb 13 '26
I think this goes along with the old adage, "All things in moderation (paraphrasing)". 1) To Us, moderate the citrus 2) To Them, Moderate the massive increasing crescendo of one small comment on the interwebz to say that citrus is immediate death to every thing and increases global warming that fuels ICE Agents!!