WORMS ANYONE?:-~)

[3forfree]

I got my worms on saturday and put them into the bins I made from a cat litter pail, and a round pail, using shredded paper. I went to the basement to look at them today, and some had already escaped. I guess I should have read the instructions that came with them about putting a light over the bins, I went down just now and they are all staying put.

 

[gaitngirl]

You shouldn't have to keep the light on them for very long - a couple of days will usually do it and then they settle in. If you are doing a bin system, leave the lid slightly off for extra air flow. If it gets too wet in there, they will try escaping, too.

 

[3forfree]

Where I keep the worms in my basement I have my garden seeds started and have lights on them for 14 hours each day. I plugged the light for the worms into the power strip I'm using for the lights and it seems to have settled the worms down. they are quite small compared to the night crawlers I pick up in the yard. quite a difference trying to pick them up.

 

[Kikiriki]

Klkiriki, I will do as you suggested by building up compost and leaves arround the tower and covering it with a tarp and see how it works. thank you for your advice. Also, I am thinking since most of the worms congregate inside the tower it will be safe to let my chickens clean up my beds at the end of the season without eating the majority of my worms. Does that sound reasonable?

It does sound good, but I would really try to gather some worms for an indoor container over winter as there would be several benefits for you if you do: you will be able to feed them your kitchen waste over the winter while your outdoor worms are either inactive or only slightly active; you will have them continuing to multiply over winter; you will have castings at hand to add to soil mixture for spring seedlings and adding the castings up to 50% of the soil means your seedlings are much healthier when they go in the ground; you will have adults that are breeding and eating to go into your tower in the spring to kick things off.

The bins do not smell as long as you do not add too much food or things that smell (like meat). When I open my bin it just smells like really rich soil and the smell is a good gage of how healthy the bin is. It is not something that will eat away at your time, either. I can go a month without even looking at my bins: I did this when my dad got sick, then again when my dog went paralyzed. I just loaded the bin to the top with a mixture of different types of leaves, as well as mixing some greener and older dry ones. The worms did not grow as fast as when I add fresh kitchen waste, but they were fine. If you poke a lot of tiny holes in the bin and have an adequate drain, the bin keeps a very nice climate and moisture level. I found with the plastic bins that it was better to not pre wet dry matter because that dry stuff absorbs excess moisture from inside the bin. If the bin is too wet, the castings get muddy instead of light and fluffy. I also give them a handful of sand and a handful of composted cow manure that I'd bought for the garden, and they are good to go for a long while in case you have an emergency. Then you can just toss in whatever kitchen waste you might have as quickly as you could throw it in the garbage...

 

[cstronks]

Are wooden worm farms better than plastic ones. I've seen varying postings online regarding what the farm is made out of. Apparently wood does better in retaining moisture and not getting too hot? Any insight on this would be great!

 

[kortmom]

It does sound good, but I would really try to gather some worms for an indoor container over winter as there would be several benefits for you if you do: you will be able to feed them your kitchen waste over the winter while your outdoor worms are either inactive or only slightly active; you will have them continuing to multiply over winter; you will have castings at hand to add to soil mixture for spring seedlings and adding the castings up to 50% of the soil means your seedlings are much healthier when they go in the ground; you will have adults that are breeding and eating to go into your tower in the spring to kick things off.

The bins do not smell as long as you do not add too much food or things that smell (like meat). When I open my bin it just smells like really rich soil and the smell is a good gage of how healthy the bin is. It is not something that will eat away at your time, either. I can go a month without even looking at my bins: I did this when my dad got sick, then again when my dog went paralyzed. I just loaded the bin to the top with a mixture of different types of leaves, as well as mixing some greener and older dry ones. The worms did not grow as fast as when I add fresh kitchen waste, but they were fine. If you poke a lot of tiny holes in the bin and have an adequate drain, the bin keeps a very nice climate and moisture level. I found with the plastic bins that it was better to not pre wet dry matter because that dry stuff absorbs excess moisture from inside the bin. If the bin is too wet, the castings get muddy instead of light and fluffy. I also give them a handful of sand and a handful of composted cow manure that I'd bought for the garden, and they are good to go for a long while in case you have an emergency. Then you can just toss in whatever kitchen waste you might have as quickly as you could throw it in the garbage...

Thank you for your wealth of information! That actually sounds like a very good idea. My husband will fight me on this one because he will not want worms in the house, but I think if I keep them in the storage room in the basement, they will be just fine. So if I get this right: I would fill up the bin with bedding, worms, a little manure, a little sand, and fill to the top with a mixture of leaves, poke holes in the bottom of the bin and put something under it to catch drainage, close lid, throw in handful of kitchen waste every few weeks. Did I get that right? Am I missing anything? Do I ever have to water it? Do I add air holes in the top of the bin?

 

[Kikiriki]

It does sound good, but I would really try to gather some worms for an indoor container over winter as there would be several benefits for you if you do: you will be able to feed them your kitchen waste over the winter while your outdoor worms are either inactive or only slightly active; you will have them continuing to multiply over winter; you will have castings at hand to add to soil mixture for spring seedlings and adding the castings up to 50% of the soil means your seedlings are much healthier when they go in the ground; you will have adults that are breeding and eating to go into your tower in the spring to kick things off.


The bins do not smell as long as you do not add too much food or things that smell (like meat). When I open my bin it just smells like really rich soil and the smell is a good gage of how healthy the bin is. It is not something that will eat away at your time, either. I can go a month without even looking at my bins: I did this when my dad got sick, then again when my dog went paralyzed. I just loaded the bin to the top with a mixture of different types of leaves, as well as mixing some greener and older dry ones. The worms did not grow as fast as when I add fresh kitchen waste, but they were fine. If you poke a lot of tiny holes in the bin and have an adequate drain, the bin keeps a very nice climate and moisture level. I found with the plastic bins that it was better to not pre wet dry matter because that dry stuff absorbs excess moisture from inside the bin. If the bin is too wet, the castings get muddy instead of light and fluffy. I also give them a handful of sand and a handful of composted cow manure that I'd bought for the garden, and they are good to go for a long while in case you have an emergency. Then you can just toss in whatever kitchen waste you might have as quickly as you could throw it in the garbage...

Thank you for your wealth of information!  That actually sounds like a very good idea.  My husband will fight me on this one because he will not want worms in the house, but I think if I keep them in the storage room in the basement, they will be just fine.  So if I get this right:  I would fill up the bin with bedding, worms, a little manure, a little sand, and fill to the top with a mixture of leaves, poke holes in the bottom of the bin and put something under it to catch drainage, close lid, throw in handful of kitchen waste every few weeks.  Did I get that right?  Am I missing anything?  Do I ever have to water it?  Do I add air holes in the top of the bin? 

The tiny holes go all over the top and around the upper portion of the sides for ventilation: I used a drill bit that was teeny tiny for this... I had tried to use window screen as a lid, but even the big worms squeezed through that! So since the holes I drilled were so small, I made a lot of them. Small holes, however clog too easily to be useful for drainage: in the bottom I made a large hole: one container I glued on a piece of fabric; that was a pain, so the next bin I found an old sponge (not a natural one: it came from inside a Dobie Pad) and just stuffed that into the hole. The sponge does great!

Adding water or not is goung to depend on your humidity, as well as the type of material the container is made of and how well you do your ventilation, and most of all from what you feed them: wet food like cantaloupe makes the bin more wet. When you add food, just pay attention to what is going on...is the top matter nicely damp or dry? Push it aside and notice if the castings look like tiny bits of matter (good), or a black mud (too wet). If you have air that is very dry in winter, plastic will do well since it will not absorb water. If you find you need to add water, you can keep a clean (no chemical residue!) spritz bottle at hand, or just add some matter that is soaked in water and squeezed out. I have seen some people use burlap like a blanket inside the bin. If you have that super low humidity that would probably be a good thing to try.

And a basement is perfect! Wish I had one! Just try to find the warmest spot to keep them active...near a water heater or furnace perhaps?

My husband hates my worms: he thinks they are disgusting! Of course, he does not garden or like to mess with anything dirty: he is meticulous...
I have no idea why he married me! Lol!

 

[Kikiriki]

Oh, I missed the feeding part of what you wrote: you can get away with only feeding them every couple of weeks, but they do better with smaller amounts on more regular feeding cycle. Too much food stuff at once can begin to compost and get hot, or rot and get smelly. If you use a compost pail in your kitchen you could empty it every week or however often you need to. I found that I was poking around at the bins almost every day until I felt comfortable that I wasn't going to kill them! Then I became so fascinated with them, I was constantly checking out their progress! That turned out to be good, because I noticed when I had my first crisis: they tried to escape bananas. My worms acted like they were poison! (and as it turns out, bananas are sprayed with tons of pesticides and fungicides...I do not add them anymore). Next crisis I added too much tea leaves and coffee grounds in one feeding and things got too wet and acidic. Final crisis was the chicken manure.

All in all, though, I find it so relaxing to check on them... They are just so quietly efficient at making this magical stuff from garbage!

 

[gaitngirl]

I was surprised to see worms in the chicken poo I shoveled out of the coop today! I would have thought it would have been too 'hot' for them. My coop has a dirt floor - heavy clay that was pretty much underwater most of the past couple of months. I had layered several bales of older hay so the chooks weren't standing in muck. Not fun to clean out, btw, lol. I replaced nasty, wet, poopy hay with several inches of sand. There weren't as many worms in there as there was in the horse manure pile but I was still surprised . . .

 

[Kikiriki]

I was surprised to see worms in the chicken poo I shoveled out of the coop today! I would have thought it would have been too 'hot' for them. My coop has a dirt floor - heavy clay that was pretty much underwater most of the past couple of months. I had layered several bales of older hay so the chooks weren't standing in muck. Not fun to clean out, btw, lol. I replaced nasty, wet, poopy hay with several inches of sand. There weren't as many worms in there as there was in the horse manure pile but I was still surprised . . .

If the chicken manure soaked in water that long it was diluted and broken down pretty well. I am surprised worms moved back to a flooded area so quickly, though.

I love going out in the yard and seeing little piles of worm castings. I have a mole and moles eat worms, so I was worried I had no native earthworms left. I was delighted to see the piles of castings, and these worms are big! The hole it made was really large. In another area I was shoveling and accidentally sliced one. It was really fat and healthy before I killed it...poor worm...

The wiedest thing happened: I blended together some old parsley with coffee grounds and tea leaves and left them a few days in a feta cheese container to rot a bit. When I opened the container it had a very strong smell of overripe banana! That was just bizarre! The worms seem to like it just fine, even though I found it overwhelming.