I started with an ice cream bucket with a few small holes in the bottom and 2 oz of worms - a handful. I went to a seminar that started us out that way and offered more worms, but you could still get started without paying much. It took 3 to 4 months to get decent vermicompost with that many worms, but by the end of the time, you had more than triple your weight in worms.

I don't know what type you'd have in your garden. It's worth looking in to. There are 2 basic categories. Endogeic (inside the earth) and epigeic (on top of the earth). We normally think of endogeic worms when we think of earth worms. Those are the kind that dig down in to the earth. The ones that make good vermicomposters are the epigeic, that usually live under leaf litter and thrive in places like pig farms (or so I'm told ;-)

As well as worms, put some of the dirt to make sure you have all the other necessary bugs and bacteria.

We were told to fill the bottom third with shredded cardboard and newspaper, the middle with food and the top with more newspaper making sure you had at least 2 inches of fluffy newspaper over the food. It worked really well. We put the ice cream lid back on with a number of holes in it and set it on an old plate or the kind of thing you put under plants to catch the water.

Best of luck. Let us know how it goes. Susan.

Another no cost mini start up bin is to use the thin plastic pots that plants come from the nursery in - already have holes. I have half a dozen of these and they are working well