WORMS ANYONE?:-~)

[Kikiriki]

My son was too proud to tell me how broke he was one year: essentially homeless and dumpster diving for food. It did help him become mainly vegetarian, as he rarely eats meat, now. Guess smelling that nice rotting carrion can turn one off meat. Although I could not stand meat when I was pregnant with him (even the cooking smell made me sick) so he is likely meant to be vegetarian!

I'm actually nervous about doing it, though... Rodents freak me out as does the thought of a spotlight and a blue flashing lights! "come out of the dummpster with your hands where I can see them, and drop that bag of organic lettuce...."

 

[gaitngirl]

I just found 4 cat litter plastic pails at the dump and plan on using them for my worms. I was wondering if, after putting them together, will they stick when trying to take them apart. I've had round pails do that, and ended up throwing them away. How many worms should I start with in these pails, Thanks. Where's a good place to get worms, I've advertised on the local CL and got no response. Ebay is all about the same price..

If you are going to be in the Flint area any time soon, let me know - I have EF's (Red Wigglers). I will be doing a harvest in about 2 weeks and was planning on listing them on CL.

How big are the pails? I've used 5 gallon buckets before with approx. 200 worms per bucket. If you are going to make them into a stacking system you can fit more, of course. The main thing is that they have enough bedding and food. As far as sticking goes - could you rig up a ledge or a couple risers in the buckets to keep them from fitting together too tightly? Someone mentioned putting something around the buckets to keep them from sticking, too. I think it was in one of the earlier replies in this thread.

 

[3forfree]

gaitngirl, thanks for the offer but I just made an order for red wigglers from ebay. I'm going to use cat litter pails that look to be about 4-5 gallon in size. They stack real nice with only the tops touching. Another poster suggested using sports tape where buckets touch but I don't think I will need it. What do you use for bedding, I have kept night crawlers and used shreaded newspaper with good luck. For the red wigglers I was going to use peat moss and shreaded paper then put a sheet of wet newspaper on top.Thanks again for the offer.

 

[gaitngirl]

gaitngirl, thanks for the offer but I just made an order for red wigglers from ebay. I'm going to use cat litter pails that look to be about 4-5 gallon in size. They stack real nice with only the tops touching. Another poster suggested using sports tape where buckets touch but I don't think I will need it. What do you use for bedding, I have kept night crawlers and used shreaded newspaper with good luck. For the red wigglers I was going to use peat moss and shreaded paper then put a sheet of wet newspaper on top.Thanks again for the offer.

Great! For bedding shredded newspaper works wonderful - you can't really use too much of it either, the more the better. Coco Coir works great, too. Most pet stores carry the bricks in their reptile section. You soak the brick until it's expanded fully, then add as much as you want to your bin. It has a very neutral PH so I use that instead of peat moss (which is rather acidic). The coco coir makes for a wonderful mix with the castings, too. I use the mixture for starting seeds with great success. A couple layers of damp newspaper on top of the bin and you should be good to go. Just make sure you don't start off with your bin too wet. The worms will be trying to escape (they often do when you start a new bin anyway). If it's too wet just keep mixing in dry shredded newspaper until it feels damp but not wet.
Good luck with your Red Wiggler adventure!

 

[Kikiriki]

If you use paper, you should do some research: I want my castings to really organic so I looked up the chemicals found in paper. It was not good. Worms can break complex chemicals down, but they cannot affect elements. Paper has heavy metal elements that you would probably not want being added to your garden...I'm going to try to find the report I read...

 

[gaitngirl]

The post above is correct - some paper does go through a lot of chemical processes. Shredded mail, office paper, etc. you might want to be more careful with due to the bleaching processes and some commercial/office shredders use an oil to lubricate the metal teeth with. The oil will transfer onto the paper to some extent - I am always careful with paper shreddings and where they come from. I haven't had any issues with the paper I've used (so far) but there's always a first time, I guess. The worms love newspaper and shredded cardboard. The drink containers that you get from most fast food places (recycled paperboard - feels like paper mache') are worm faves, too, along with cardboard egg cartons. I have everyone save them for me and I add those to the bedding mix (well, not the egg cartons anymore, lol). I'm sure there are probably chemicals used in processing them but the worms really seem to like them. If you are going 100% organic you will want to research all of this, of course.
Happy Worming!

 

[3forfree]

I collect night crawlers in the summer to use for fishing and have always put shreaded newspaper, black and white only, in with the crawlers and they seem to survive well doing this and I plan to use it with the red wigglers. If that doesn't work, I'll use something else. thanks both of you for the info on the chemicals.

 

[gaitngirl]

The newspapers will work just fine; like I said, they love it. I bought a couple of established bins last year that were only fed newspaper and a small amount of kitchen waste. The castings that came out of both bins was excellent. The person who started them threw whole sections of newspapers in there - he didn't even tear or shred them. The worms would congregate between the pages by the dozens. I mainly do newspaper, coffee grounds (I let them set in a bucket in the garage for a week or so to get them past the 'hot' stage), tea bags, fruit and vegetable waste, every once in awhile a bit of bread, the 'dust' from the bottom of the chicken feed bags, horse manure (once past the hot stage) - in my outside/garage bins only, clippings/dead leaves from my house plants, collected leaves and plants pulled from the garden (in the fall), and whatever else happens to look like it will work in there. I haven't tried chicken poo yet - I plan on using that for my raised beds this year - but I've read that it should only be used in small amounts after it's been dried/aged.

 

[cmcanallen]

The newspapers will work just fine; like I said, they love it. I bought a couple of established bins last year that were only fed newspaper and a small amount of kitchen waste. The castings that came out of both bins was excellent. The person who started them threw whole sections of newspapers in there - he didn't even tear or shred them. The worms would congregate between the pages by the dozens. I mainly do newspaper, coffee grounds (I let them set in a bucket in the garage for a week or so to get them past the 'hot' stage), tea bags, fruit and vegetable waste, every once in awhile a bit of bread, the 'dust' from the bottom of the chicken feed bags, horse manure (once past the hot stage) - in my outside/garage bins only, clippings/dead leaves from my house plants, collected leaves and plants pulled from the garden (in the fall), and whatever else happens to look like it will work in there. I haven't tried chicken poo yet - I plan on using that for my raised beds this year - but I've read that it should only be used in small amounts after it's been dried/aged.

 

I was told not to use fresh chicken poo in either the garden or in my worm buckets. Let it compost for at least six months before you mix it into the soil.

 

[3forfree]

Thanks again for the help in starting my worms. I'm supposed to get them sometime this week. My grandson wants to start some so I will have 2 bins going. When I keep nightcrawlers I always shredded sundays newspaper and changed the bedding. From what I'm reading I won't have to change bedding with the red wigglers, just keep adding food, then change the bin.