Compost Worms are not Dirt Worms...

Okay - so - next question...

How many worms should I get for 4 worm tubes? I only meant to make 2 of them, but had to buy the whole 10-foot length of pipe at the hardware store, so now I get 4 worm tubes - yippee!

Half a pound? A pound? I have two 5 x 6' raised beds and was going to put one tube in each, an then the other 2 tubes out at the edges of a couple regular flower beds to help them and the lawn...

Opinions?

Thanks!

These guys are in Chilliwack

Thanks a lot, the other place was WAY more expensive
I am nearer to Kamloops, but never get in there, so Chilliwack would be a great alternative, I have to go through there.
Thanks a lot. I do not know much about the towers, I only read about Joshes worm bins, but am curious

Here's the link to Josh's worm towers... (You have to add the www at the front - I'll be glad when I can post links...)

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

I saw encapulated earthworms for sale on the net. They intended them for lawns. Very reasonable price. Up to 20 per capsule?

One of the plotters told me he was growing endive, and it did two things to his clay soil: broke it up, made it black, and full of big earthworms. Now 1/3 of his plot is gorgeous loam.

When I was transplanting a fennel in my patio rose side (perfect greens for a vase!), I found an earthworm! Long, fatter, slower, grayer than a wiggler (think of a giant wiggler that was never exposed to light!). I was digging deep, because fennel have such deep tap roots!

Anyways, I threw (okay, gently placed) him/it into it's VERY OWN TRAY. It will be interesting to see how it does!

When I was digging out the 12 inches of tree mulch at the garden to plant a succulent, I found 3 nightcrawlers (REALLY BIG, LONG and VERY WIGGLY). I put them into one of my boxes.

I have had a worm farm for years, in my big plastic compost bin
It all started quite accidentally, my DH put a whole bunch of sawdust in my com poster and I sort of left it for 6 months, went back and it was like spaghetti
They worked wonders they ate through whatever I put in there.
It very very rarely froze down there in Oregon, they were large wigglers.

Here in the winter no worms.... so bought some.

I find many many worms in my garden these days that look just like red wigglers, but with this thread, I have not put any more in my worm farm, but the few that I did put in there really seemed to set it off and get it started
I HAVE read that night crawlers do not do very well in worm farms because they tend to live so very deep in the soil that they die in the very shallow worm farms ....not really sure but I would not put those big night crawlers in unless it is very deep

Interesting! What kind did you find in your sawdust?

My boxes are 10" of dirt, with no weed cover, on hard pack. They've got room to dig, if they want. I found them about 6" down in mulched tree bark that is all over the walkways of the garden. They were only 4" in from the hard edge where the mulch meet border fence and city sidewalk.


I was cleaning up my patio the other night, and found a plast bag of un-worked dirt that must be from the my plot in the garden (based on all the tree mulch). As I worked my hands through it, every wet clump I found was full of pale, slow moving, long fat worms (and babies). I think they must be regular earth worms. I found about 15 and put them in their own tray.



Which caused me to look in on my red wigglers. They are happily occupying the center of their tray. (After the thunderstorms last weekend I did find one half way in and half way out of the lid. Even being skinny he didn't want to go through either direction. I hope I didn't hurt him getting him free and back into the nest!)

to be honest apart from the night crawlers all of them look the same to me.
10 inches of dirt would likely be enough for night crawlers.
I had to move my worm farm down into my basement yesterday WAY too hot in the greenhouse.
They were trying to escape on the lowest level, so I decided to make the higher level more comfortable for them.

IF I PUT DIRT WORMS INTO 12'' HIGH RAISED BEDS WILL THEY DO OK AND RETURN FOR NEXT SEASON?

Oh sure! My first sf garden bed was 12 inches high and yes, 2 years later earthworms and cocoons are in there. The bottom has hardware cloth so they come and go as they want and they are probably still working the compost and any leftover tiny dead roots, plus making babies, etc. You want to encourage them even more? Go to the white search box above and put in worm tubes.