Beginner Questions!

I started with a large rubber tub set inside another of the same size with bricks on the bottom to raise the worm house slightly off the bottom (to catch moisture). The YouTube video I watched was very helpful. I loaded it up with oak leaves, cardboard and newspaper moistened, added shredded garden veggies then added a 1/2 lb. of red wigglers purchased locally - although it seems to me like the package contained a lesser number of worms than I expected for the price. I had a 5 lb. container of Rockie's Worm Castings, purchased locally (light bulb goes off here), that I screened - adding the rescued worms to the bin!

All this sounded so very simple - now I have observations and questions:

1) It seems to be too damp at the bottom, not sopping, just compacted - is this normal? No moisture is leaking from the bin.

2) Just how much food needs to be added and how often, especially when you don't know how many worms you have? If too much, do you add more worms or just cut back on the food?

3) How can you tell if you're starving your worms? Do you ever "go digging" to check the number and size?

4) How often do you add more bedding material to the bin?

Oh...my bin is the house now cause outside temps are brutally hot - 100+ degrees!

Thanks,

Ms. Jo

Ms. Jo, once you have established a pattern of feeding the process does become simpler and more routine. Your technique is a bit different from mine; however no two systems are exactly the same. I use four bins which are kept in the garage at a fairly constant temperature, with peat moss as my media and I feed blended vegetable and fruit scraps along with egg shells about every third day in the warmer months, less in the winter. You should have some residual food when you feed, keeping the worms in place so to speak. If your food is dried or chunky it will take longer for the worms to digest than if you blend the food with a couple of cups of water. I dig two parallel trenches into the top one-half of the media for 'feeding troughs' and cover the food with about two inches of media.

Since I don't drill holes in the bottom of my bins I have learned how much water to add when feeding the worms so the media remains at the moisture level I desire. Some people like it drier than others, while others want moisture coming out of the bottom of the bins, which quite frankly I don't understand why. The media on the bottom will be more compacted on top and should be turned occasionally. I don't use any rule of thumb here on turning the medial, but I don't like it to get overly compacted and red wigglers are not as finicky as other types of worms about being disturbed.

As for adding new media I do that when I feed by adding a couple of hand trowels full of peat moss to each trench. I always soak my peat moss overnight and drain the excess moisture with an aquarium net to cut down on acidity. The soaked and drained peat moss acts as a sponge as well, absorbing excess moisture so I rarely have problems with too much moisture which tends to drive the worms to the corners of the bin as well as causing a sour smell like fermentation which is not desirable.

Your media of choice may be a bit difficult to get a handle on at first. I have tried similar media and quite frankly I found them a pain to work with, while peat moss on the other hand is simpler once you get the hang of it. I keep a two bulb, four foot florescent lamp over the top of my four bins and it stays on constantly. When I feed the worms I remove about 1/2 inch of the dried, spent media from the top of each bin and save it for germination and potting mixes as well as placing a cottage cheese container full of damp media, including the worms, in the holes in dig for my tomato, squash and cucumber plants. I purchase two 3.8 cubic foot bails of peat moss yearly (140 lbs) which I have no trouble using up in gardening procedures.

As for the number of worms, I never worry about this. I am constantly thinning out the population which keeps them in pretty much of a 'growth phase' and they seem to reproduce at a rate which is satisfactory to my needs. I realize that comment seems arbitrary, but after over forty years of raising red wigglers I have developed a system which works well for me. I have made a number of stupid mistakes in experimenting around but these red wigglers are tough critters and always seem to bounce back.

Hope this helps.