1,000 worms on their way....

Thanks, Quiltbea and Llamamomma! I just cut up a concoction of spinach, banana peels, and bell pepper and will let it sit until Wednesday, which is the day they are supposed to arrive. Yay! I can hardly wait. Surely, if I've raised to children without killing them, I can raise 1,000 red wigglers. LOL

Llamamomma, I know those Skype times must be very special to you. My son is only 5 hrs. away at college and it just about kills me. I can't imagine how you must feel with yours being in Japan. I'm anxious to hear how your worms liked to oatmeal and peanuts.

Thanks both of you!

Lee Anne

The handle is always pointed to the 'time' on the clock where I last fed them. If I tucked the food in where 2 o'clock was 2 days ago, today I would add them in at 4 or 5 o'clock, slowly moving around the 'clock' at each feeding so the new feed is very close to the last food.

Why is important to feed them at a different spot each time?

Thanks!

Lee Anne

LeeAnne

I'm going to guess she keeps exact track of the food so worms can easily find the latest food source. She could also easily find the prior meal in case gross leftovers need removed(?).

I wish my son was only 5 hours away like yours! It took some time for this mother's heart to get use to him in Japan. Adjustment was inevitable. Skype is wonderful. Still, the cartoon in my head reaches over there and yanks him back to this country. Any state would be so much closer!

This is all so exciting, I sure wish my experience had been the same. I bought a lb of worms about a month ago and within a few days it seems that many of them disappeared
I have worked at doing everything right and it seems as though there are tons of baby worms now and so likely a month or so from now my stock will be up again.
I just got the book "worms eat my garbage" in the mail today. (it was suggested by someone on this forum).
I have found that bringing home bags of shredded paper from my office seems to work well instead of newspapers. I do not have a source of newspapers.
I feel that I am growing more pepper plants in my worm farm than worms, but I am sure it will improve.
SO great to see so many fellow worm farmers

oh the reason to keep moving the food is because the worms always need a place to escape from the heat, and when the food starts to compost it heats up.

Escape the heat of decomposition, of course! That makes sense. Maybe I can help you with this -- they won't touch seeds, they seem to know not to touch things that can come alive again, like seeds, carrot tops, potato eyes, etc.

I've been "nursing" a large kitty litter container of worms that I discovered alive in finished/curing compost from last autumn. It was in the garage and moved it inside next to the new worm bin. No ventilation holes either, it does get a daily gentle stir from this nosy momma and her trowel. Anyway it was looking pretty wet and the earthworms were not moving around so much anymore. I read that their own castings have a toxicity towards themselves. I added a bunch of newspaper strips and cut up cardboard. Today the worms are lively and there is a bunch of babies and looking closer there is a load of cocoons straw colored and darker.
At least I hope they are worm cocoons....

If you can stand one more observation, I'm sitting here slightly grossed out as I realize the nice bowl of quinoa sitting in front of me now looks way too much like those worm cocoons. This stinks!

WORM cocoons..... LOL
I did manage to find one cocoon and set it up on a piece of wet paper towel so I could watch the progress, and then my ever efficient husband turned it all over....burying the cocoon.
I have been feeding lots of mushrooms, an entire avocado, apple cores, tomato ends, coffee grinds, lots of celery ends, pepper guts.....

I had a worm farm in the past that just showed up in my compost bin 2 months after my husband dropped a big pile of sawdust in it.
THen I lived in zone 9 and it never froze. I am looking forward to finding worms in my garden once the ground thaws.

The worms I have now I bought at a worm store. I am too embarrassed to go back and get more because i am sure the guy will ask what happened to the first ones

The following is a progress report:
Worm bin is one week old today. Feeding very little and paying more attention to understanding bedding moisture and keeping the bedding about 8" thick yet fluffy for oxygen exchange. Eight inches of dampened bedding covered with dry, may switch out all the dry strips and go with one sheet of cardboard instead. They fattened up even with barely 5 oz. of food the last seven days. They supposedly can go for weeks without any food and consume newspapers and cardboard. With that idea I'm (mostly) leaving them alone to acclimate to their new surroundings. It sounded good to me. During the week added a little weight to the box lid. Had 2 get out, one died after traveling 5 feet away on tiled floor and another died right outside the box. One night there were half dozen up on the lid. So far those are the only ones that have roamed around, the rest staying down in the bedding.

A large website I like: www.RedWormComposting.com The guys name is Bentley Christie, what a world of info.
Another one is by an extension agent out of NC Univ: http://www.bae.ncsu.edu/people/professionals/sherman/
Have you seen these and what do you think?

I freely admit that I have read absolutely zero about composting from worms. Sooo, are these the same as the live worms that can be purchased to use as fish bait? Night crawlers? Can worms be added directly into a SFG or am I going to infest my entire neighborhood?

A fun book of worm experiments: Backyard Scientist's Exploring Earthworms with Me. I think it's for ages up to 12yo. (I can't read my writing for the youngest age recommendation because I had the light off.)

Ilama Momma I like Bentley's site. Another worthwhile site is http://vermicomposters.ning.com/

Laurie Lou Bentley had a beginning video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSO39i0PXL0&feature=player_embedded#!

He like flow thru bins but for my purpose rubber maid bins work just fine.

Ooh, Thanks so much for these links. I've bookmarked them all!

Lee Anne

GWN
I am sure the worm store would have no problem selling you more worms! It makes them money, don't be embarrassed. Or you could have a friend go in for you to make the purchase....just a thought.

LauriLou
You could ask what fish bait places sell. I wouldn't know. Redworms are eisenia fetida or something close to that spelling. They are not natives. The red worms are the composting ones that produce a lot, at least what I'm learning they out-produce regular ol earthworms and thrive in bins and such. Regular earthworm varieties I guess have different behavior needs like tunneling and others actually eat dirt. Those are better left in the garden.

Boz
I had not seen that video of Bentley Christie, that was good. I can see he doesn't totally favor worm bins except as a starting point. I hope my bin will be successful. At this point I'm not ready to try another system til I prove to myself that I can keep them alive and producing.

If there are worm sites you really like please share.

Your Welcome LeeAnne12!

You know Llama mama
There are some people here who have posted with very successful worm farms from the worms they found either in their garden Or some other place in their yard.
Josh in his little presentation on his worm farm said he had obtained all of his starter worms from his SFG.
I have read that night crawlers do not like the regular worm farms because they are too shallow, but I have been hopeful that I can "replenish" my stocks with the stray worms I find while digging. I do not think I have night crawlers here anyways.

You are right. Got so much to learn. I too have a container with leftover outdoor compost with backyard earthworms, cocoons and babies. So many kinds of worms, epigeic stay more on the surface, endogeic I think are the ones that come up then need to tunnel back down as much as 6 ft below, and the third type is, well, I forget something like ageic, that might be the red worms(?) well again there is a lot to learn. I don't even know what variety nightcrawlers are. Who knows if the bait store people know either. In the end I'm comfortable with keeping my red worms indoors and set loose the other earthworms into my boxes where they would naturally occur anyway.

LeeAnne,

Remember you were wondering if worms like oatmeal? Mine devoured a couple tablespoons of moistened old fashion oatmeal in about 2 -1/2 days. It looks like they didn't even wait for microbes to break it down. Looks like they certainly wanted their protein!

that's good to know as I buried some banana in my table top and the coons now have discovered it. I dobut they will be so interested in oat meal.

Evil nasty creatures... I hope now that they've discovered your garden they don't return repeatedly in the hopes of digging something else up. A pair of them totally trashed a new lawn (sodded, not seeded) last year to the point that the entire yard died and had to be removed. They kept digging it up looking for grubs and other "goodies". They also decimated the entire population of our koi pond and dug around in the veggie garden, stole tomatoes and nearly trashed one area of that too.

After reading this you will be asking yourself: Is this old man nuts, or is he just new to SFG. Well, the answer is yes to the second part and the first is still up for debate. I've read ever post on here about worms and worm castings but haven't seen an answer to why the worms are just not placed directly into the garden? Also, I've read that compost is harvested from the worms about twice a year, but no mention of the quantity. I know there is a simple answer to both questions, but old people are easily confused.

Grandpop.....I read that the Red Wigglers bred for the home compost bin will not thrive in the garden. In fact, they will die come winter.

I think an important reason not to put worms directly in your garden is that they will go off elsewhere to find food if they don't have anything in your beds, and except for roots of your crops, there usually isn't. You don't want to put peelings and kitchen scraps directly in with your plants because while those are deteriorating, they are using up your soil amendments. So the little guys will range far and deep to get food and not necessarily remain where you want their castings, which will be minimal anyway and not in amounts to be considered a compost amendment.

That's why I keep mine in their condo and reap a lot of rich castings at one time.

Grandpop wrote:After reading this you will be asking yourself: Is this old man nuts, or is he just new to SFG. Well, the answer is yes to the second part and the first is still up for debate. I've read ever post on here about worms and worm castings but haven't seen an answer to why the worms are just not placed directly into the garden? Also, I've read that compost is harvested from the worms about twice a year, but no mention of the quantity. I know there is a simple answer to both questions, but old people are easily confused.

Here is how Josh did it. And he is a certified SFG teacher.

https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t1603-worm-tube-for-the-sfg

good question grandpop .. good news your not crazy either.

Here is my take on things.



There are two main types of worms ....those that eat the products coming off newly decaying vegetable matter and the other which are deep tunnelling creatures that actually pass particles of soil & well decayed matter through themselves both have their place in the gardens of both SFG x MM and natural soil.

I would give you the latin names but my head is not fully with me today , ( is it ever ...I ask of you ? ).. They are something like estina foetid ( red wriggley one that eat foetid food residues and estina dobrenda the big long pinkish worm that bores the big holes & eats well decayed stuff



The poop out the red worms that eat the newly decaying matter products is high in useful plant nutrients , lots of people do have them in ther SFG beds in the guise of worm tubes that keep the decaying matter contained in one place .. this allows a reasonable continous production and placing of red worm casts as you move the worm tubes around the bed .

I don't have any worm tubes as yet but continually find a couple of red worms here and there when I irritate the top few inches of a square . I suspect they are eating newly rotting fine capillary root fibres left there when something ( veg or fruit ) has been pulled out on harvesting it..

The bigger worms that are deep down most of the time do come up to the surface and help aireate the deeper levels of soil if you have them they also make for drainage of surface water that runs down their boreholes they eat second stage decayed plant matter tha has given up its mould & bacterial production .

As has been said if you do not contain the food for the red worms in a small locality you run the risk of introducing unwanted bacterial decay in the plants in your bed when their roots touch it. Containing it in a worm tube means , the worms go in there and feast on the residues first .

Once it has passed through the worm it no longer causes problems in the bed . The fully fed worms vacate the feeder tube and go walk-about in the whole bed , not eating any living plant matter , they clean up the odd bit of dead root products etc , when they get hungry they make a beeline for the scent of the decaying matter in the feeder , pooping all the way from and back to it thus spreading the fertilizer around the bed , as you now know , it's beneficial to the plants .



I don't go with the red worm being killed off by a hard freeze up .. if thes were true our cold climate areas would be devoid of worms. My beds were frozen soolid to a depth of 8 inches for over 10 days .. as they thawed I started to dig them over with a trowel and there were hunderds of tiny red worms frozen solid .. They reactivated when the sun warmed them enough to thaw them .. I think that like some of the sea bed worms that exist on the shore lines , they have a natural antifreeze that will protect them to a fair degree as they exist in the upper part of the soil but the bigger worms might well not for they can tunnel down below the frost level.

To my thinking table top SFG's may present a need for having a worm tube & worms in them as they will not have naturally occuring worms in them .

Ask and ye shall receive! Thanks for the responses. Now I have more to think about while I wait until our last frost date here in West Tn. I already have onion varieties, lettuce, potatoes, and garlic coming up and can't wait to put in my other vegetables. Because I have problems getting around for a long time period, the SFG has me excited. Come On Summer!

Grandpop wrote:Ask and ye shall receive! Thanks for the responses. Now I have more to think about while I wait until our last frost date here in West Tn. I already have onion varieties, lettuce, potatoes, and garlic coming up and can't wait to put in my other vegetables. Because I have problems getting around for a long time period, the SFG has me excited. Come On Summer!

I would like to add one more thing, ok two more things. Red wigglers are not native to north america and we realy don't need another invasive speices so please don't put them where they can ecsape and second I have them right in my 4x6 bed, it is a table top with a plywood bottom lined with window screen. They seem very happy. I tuck a little bit of kitchen scraps under the MM in different areas now and then.

There is more than 1 variety of redworm and the one we use for composting, Eisenia fetida is not the variety causing the forest invasive problem. Below is the email I recently received from Bentley Christey, he has a very large wormery website:

Since we started exploring the topic of "vermi-gardening" in
the last Brief, I thought it would probably be a good idea to
look at the topic of composting worms as "invasive" species
as a follow-up.

There has been quite a lot of concern in recent years about
the introduction of non-native earthworm species into sensitive
(often "northern forest") environments. Considerable academic
research has found that certain species are having a negative
impact on these natural ecosystems (many of them having had
few or NO native earthworms to begin with).

Naturally, various composting species have taken some heat as
potential threats - leading me to spend some time looking into
the issue a lot more seriously.

According to various researchers I've been in contact with,
and the research papers I've read, the consensus seems to be
that Red Worms (Eisenia fetida) have not demonstrated themselves
to be a threat to natural ecosystems. Some cite their inability
to survive cold winters as their main limitation, while others
point out the fact that they are not really "wild" worms at
all - being found to thrive primarily in very rich organic
matter (manure heaps, compost piles etc) closely associated
with human habitation.

The OTHER "Red Worm", Lumbricus rubellus - which, thankfully,
is relatively easy to tell apart from E. fetida (and is not
used in vermicomposting nearly as much), IS in fact one of the
species known to create real issues in some of these ecosystems.

Here are a couple of posts I've written on the blog (I highly
recommend reading the first one, in particular, if this is a
topic of interest):

Do Composting Worms Pose a Threat as Invasive Species?
http://www.redwormcomposting.com/general-commentary/do-composting-worms-pose-a-threat-as-invasive-species/

Releasing Worms Into the Wild
http://www.redwormcomposting.com/reader-questions/releasing-worms-into-the-wild/

My "bottom-line" recommendation here is to DEFINITELY educate
yourself about this topic if you are planning to use composting
worms outdoors.

Please DON'T simply join the "earthworms are bad" crowd, who
are often basing their views on relatively limited information.
It's also important to remember that some of these worms (such
as L. rubellus) have been well-established in densely-populated
regions for ages (although, don't assume that's necessarily
the case for your own region).

Needless to say, I DON'T recommend ever releasing worms into
the wild (dumping your bait cup, tossing your composting worms
etc), but using Red Worms (E. fetida) in your backyard composting
(vermi-gardening etc) systems, in most cases, is not going to
be an issue, in my humble opinion.


Talk soon!

Bentley




Red Worm Composting
"WAY too much fun with worms!"
http://www.RedWormComposting.com


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Suite #291
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