After reading the article on vermicomposting in the last issue , I put together a 4ft x 2 ft bin and stocked it with two fishing cups of red wigglers (about 50 worms). Instead of using a warm area to store it by, I lay a waterbed heater in the bin to warm the topsoil layer and help hold moisture in the bedding . Now I have enough new stock to start another bin . Instead of burying the scraps, I run them through my food grinder to make a minced slurry , then scape the topsoil back and layer it then cover it with the topsoil again. The bedding stays moist enough from the veggie juices mostly, however as fresh greens get scarce next month, I plan to feed them on old cornmeal and water. Hope next year to start a bait supply with the fringe benifit of topsoil.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), November 23, 2000

Answers

I hope it works for you...mine started to suffocate from too much cornmeal and moisture and staged a mass stampede out of the corral all over my basement. I was scraping up half-dried out worms off the linoleum with a pancake turner, and disassembling the electrical fan stored down there that they'd crawled into to get the mass of living hamburger out. Then there were the damn flies that started to breed along with them, and take over the house...no more livestock in the house after this...

-- Julie Froelich (firefly1@nnex.net), November 23, 2000.

Julie, I was told to feed them the chopped veg slurry, no extra water, turn the bedding if it becomes too moist. When using the cornmeal, mix with 1 cup of sand and 1cup top soil. At this time I am not trying to make compost, but trying to raise worms. Hope to increase my "herd" by about 1000% over the next 6 months. If I can get these wigglers done, next I want to try night crawlers, they are in more demand. I have thought that a good way to avoid using the corn meal will be to bin up all the cull collard greens I have left. I am just playing this one by ear. Invested $2 orig in the worms, everything else from the junk building. One thing I like about it is that playing with the bins makes me feel like I'm still in the garden. A little therapy against the winter blues.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), November 24, 2000.

If you are running low on veggie scraps, make friends with your local produce manager and see about getting dibs on thrown out veggies, or at the very least, check out the dumpster behind your local food stores. There will always be more than enough to feed your worms, and maybe some left over for the other livestock.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), November 24, 2000.

Now, is there something BAD about cornmeal with red worms? I thought they'd eat all kinds of organic scraps! Despite Julie's bad experience (and mine, I was there at the time and got to help in the clean up), I have been contemplating getting the "Can O' Worms" worm composting system and dumping my "cornmeal scraps" in there.

You see, I have tropical birds (parrots, cockatiels, etc.), who get a cornbread based diet for breakfast. They are very messy, wasteful birds, and I thought that getting worms to compost it for me would be a good idea. I compost it outside now, but wanted to get those great worm castings for fertilizer (I've bought the bagged stuff -- works GREAT!). Red worms can't winter outdoors in this climate, so they'd have to be inside.

When Julie and I have discussed this before, she thought that it was the sheer volume of cornmeal scraps that caused the problem (and poor box design that allowed the Great Escape). Now you all have me wondering if cornmeal is somehow BAD to put in the worm bins?

On the other hand, Jay, maybe you WANT to feed them cornmeal. Julie's certainly had a population explosion . . . .

-- Joy Froelich (dragnfly@chorus.net), November 24, 2000.

Jay, I am jelouses, my worms in my rabbit barn got eaten by the roof rats!The heat is a great idea ! I think it would work great for night crawlers as they are hard to grow because they need constant heat. my worms loved rabbit food.good luck.

-- kathy h (ckhart@earthlink.net), November 24, 2000.

I may be courting disaster here, but today I got 2 dozen night crawlers and bedded them down in 2 large igloo coolers. What I have been reading on them, the crawlers do better in a cooler enviroment (35 to 45 deg f.), so this way I can lay freezer paks of ice inside to help keep the temp down. As big as the crawler are, I think they should process more compost.

Regarding the "great escape", I elected to use coolers and large storage tubs with snap on lids and drainage tubes along one side and sit at a 15 degree angle to facilitate flow to the drains. I drilled a pattern of 1/8 in holes in the lids for ventilation and feed the bins daily, watering when neccessary. I have used worms for years in potted plants in my home to promote root viability. Learned early on worms with food and moderate water will stay in the habitat. A possible answer to your great escape could be due to innadiquate drainage. Worms will only migrate generally due to flooding or oversoaking to avoid drowning. Since they breath through their skin membrane, soggy medium is enough to put them on the move. I try to maintain my medium moisture to be consistant with that of a bait box from a bait shop.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), November 24, 2000.

Jay, I read too that nightcrawlers & earthworms like the cooler temps too. I don't think they eat the table scraps though -- more like leaf mold and such. Not sure. I know there are websites about it.

Those worms of Julie's were just BIZARRE. I was trying to take care of them, as she was quite sick at the time -- and I was not very knowledgeable about them. Because of the things you cited, and in consultation with Julie, I set up a new box for them -- entirely new bedding, carefully wetted to be damp, not soggy, and with only a small amount of "scraps" for them to eat. The new box was a garbage can. The lid was a good 20-24" ABOVE the top of the bedding. I moved the worms to the new bin, and in less than 24 hours, they had all crawled UP the sides of the garbage can and were clustered in a wriggling mass on the underside of the lid. I have no idea how they were able to do that, nor why they wouldn't accept the new bedding. They were not behaving the way worms were supposed to, according to the books. No one I have told about this can explain their behavior after moving to the new box/bedding.

It had gotten warm outside, the ground had thawed, so I finally dumped them outside in soft dirt and provided plenty of bedding for insulation. But then the temps dropped again, and the worms all died. I felt a bit guilty but not much. I think they were alien worms, and it's better that they didn't reproduce and take over the world. ;-)

-- Joy Froelich (dragnfly@chorus.net), November 24, 2000.

Joy, I have conducted some limited experimentation with worms in school and such. Something that may have been contributing to could be co2. If the bin doesn,t have ample ventilation of the soil, co2 levels will rise, triggering a migration due to suffocation. I drill 1/16 air hole patterns aprox. 2 in above the drain holes. Something else I have been considering is connecting an aquarium aerator to the drain holes to force air through the bedding medium. Maybe the fresh air will improve their appetites. Of course, I like your explanation of the migration that the "mother ship " was calling. If you try again, consider putting the bins on cheap painters dropcloth to protect the area in case they truck again. I have my bins in our living room and sun porch and use a drop cloth to protect the carpets.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), November 25, 2000.