New - Better Worms for Composting !

My little guys are doing very well - I finally saw the little cocoons that Brad (from Colorado Earthworms) was telling me to watch for. He said, "The cocoons are very small and look kind of like a lemon, once you start to see those you will notice little guys everywhere, the worms will lay an egg a week and each on can hold several young. Once they get to that point you are going to notice your compost disappearing a little faster." I was shy about disturbing the mass in my working tray and just wasn't sure what I was looking for but now I see them! And I see lots of little new wigglers!



Now, here's something interesting. Brad has been experimenting with European Crawlers, another type of worm. They are much larger, and really go to town on the compost. He started a little experiment with 300 worms in a bucket to see how much they will consume in a month. I told him to let me know the results, and I just heard back - sounds like these are a very good composting worm!

Brad says "I just checked on my little test, Amazing! Those little guys turned 12 cups of peat moss into castings in 2 weeks! I still need to sift it out but at first glance all the worms look fat and happy and the castings have replaced most of the contents of the bucket. I think if someone is looking to just make castings for the garden this is the way to do it. I bet if I took 10 buckets of peat moss I could have 10-20 pounds of castings in a very short time. Neat stuff."

Feeding My Worms

I'm very happy and have to say that things are going better than expected with the Worm Factory! MORE importantly, my little worm buddies are very happy! Happy worms mean productive worms, and that means worms that STAY IN THEIR BIN!

I have read (several times) cover to cover the great booklet that came with my Worm Factory (from Colorado Earthworms). It's very informative and most importantly, tells you just what you need to do in order to get a good result. No more, no less. If you want to dive into worm living and worm breeding and worm history, you can find much more in the book "Worms Eat My Garbage"



One interesting thing I learned this week - I read online that worms don't like vibration and they won't be happy if they're kept in a heavy vibration area. Ah - that makes sense. Anyone who enjoyed the cult classic movie, 'Tremors', knows about worms and vibrations!

I was pretty concerned at first after reading repeated warnings to not overfeed, to keep the tray moist but not too wet or you'll drown the poor little worms. It seemed there was quite alot that could go wrong, so I peeked in once or twice a day and I hovered.

It's a good thing to chop up food into small pieces, but I don't take extra time or much effort to do this. I did put my egg shells on a cookie sheet for a little while in the oven to dry out and then ran a rolling pin across them. I used to do this regularly to feed my chicken flock, so it's fun to return to this habit. It allows the eggshells to break down easier and to be more easily processed.

We eat quite a few grapefruit and I was a bit sad to read that citrus is a no-no for worms. There is an ingredient that will kill the little wigglers, so the citrus has to go elsewhere. I've read conflicting views on coffee and tea... mostly coffee grounds and tea leaves are seen as perfect worm food but one source says it will cause the worm bin to become too acidic. I've been adding my jasmine green tea leaves daily and so far they're being received well.

A few other no-no foods - No dairy or meat, and although I've read that processed food is acceptable I would think it can't be very good for worms. It's not good for humans, and adding a bunch of chemical food additives to our nice, organic worm bin seems counter-productive. So I'm sticking to veggies trimmings and scraps, tea leaves, banana peels, a little leftover oatmeal. Along with leaves, some strips of junk mail paper, a few moistened paper towels. I have noticed that I'm throwing less away.

Here are my findings that have reassured me All is Well in my worm bin.

- The first couple of piles of food are obviously decomposing and the worms are actively involved in them.

- I added some nice old leaves from under the trees, moistened. Those seem to be well received. There have been a few worm parties in the leaves so far.

- There is no odor from the bin, or even when I open it to peek in. A nice damp earthy smell is all.

- The worms are active, they've burrowed down and are hardly visible at all, and I think I heard singing.

So far so good!

Update - 5/15/09 - Worms are bigger, more of them, happy. I believe I'm creating a Super Worm colony since I put alot of Jasmine Green Tea leaves in every day out of my teapot! Wooohooo!

Adding Worms to the Vermicomposter

(Vermicomposter is a fancy word for Worm Bin. I thought I'd try to look smart today....)

They're here! Today the worms arrived to their new home!

I lifted the lid and pulled back the layer of moist newspaper that is on top of the tray.


Looks nice and moist and there's been significant breakdown of the veggie scraps and chopped banana peel that I added a week ago.










We slowly placed the worms on the bedding.








The booklet says it can take a week or so for them to adapt to their new environment.




A big pile of wiggly worms! Now our only concern is - will they get out?? eeek. I've been researching the possibilities and here's what I've learned:

Worms like it dark and hate the light. So leave a light on in the room and they won't venture out of the vermicomposter. That's what they say anyway. If I come into my kitchen some morning to find worms dangling from the ceiling, you'll hear me yell from coast to coast, and I'm not usually frightened by these things. I just would prefer that they stay put!

Choosing the right kind of worm seems to be essential. An antecdote in the booklet tells of a man who collected earthworms from his garden to put into his vermicomposter, and they just refused to stay inside. Earthworms require a different habitat and different food, so there was nothing there to make them want to stay around.

I bought my vermicomposter AND live worms from Colorado Earthworms. They sold me red wigglers - also known as Eisenia Fetida, which is a stout little species that's most suitable for the vermicomposter. It processes vast amounts of food, has a rapid reproduction cycle, and hopefully has a charming personality. From the ones I spoke with as I was adding them to their new home, I'd say they do.

Stuff I've learned already that surprised me:

- First is the different species of worms (see above) and realizing that these little guys are better for the vermicomposter but won't be as happy being set free in the garden. Earthworms burrow in the soil and do much better out there.

- Every 3 months red wigglers in the vermicomposter are expected to double in population! Each tray can hold about 3 pounds of worms, or about 3,000 worms. It's really better to not think about that. Since they're inside the house and all...

- Worms don't eat garbage directly. More like bacteria and oxidation breaks down the food matter, and when the particles are small enough, worms suck the food through their mouth.

- It takes some time to create good, useable compost tea and or worm compost from this system. Approx 3 - 6 months before one tray may be ready to add nice dark compost to the garden.

- Worms don't eat as much food as we'd originally thought. I had hoped the vermicomposter would use up my veggie scraps and tea leaves, etc on a daily basis. Instead I will be adding 2 handfuls of food scraps at a time to each working tray, most likely every 3 days or so. That means alot of scraps will still need to go outside into the usual compost pile.



"Are you SERIOUSLY going to keep these worms

INSIDE

the

HOUSE???"