How many worms ???

If you had a box that was 4x4 how long would it take a batch of worms to fill the box with their castings

Be nice to me if this is a bad question because what you have here is a newbie and I'm not starting my beds till next year .... I am going to spend this winter reading and re-reading the "All New Square Foot Gardening" book I have ordered and get my stuff layout for next year. and

I'll give you my experience. A successful indoor worm bin with purchased compost redworms, say a thousand (roughtly a pound) can give you nearly 12 pounds of castings in 5 months. Worms castings are best added to your compost at tops of 15-20%. More is not better there is a salinity issue that will stunt plants.

If you are talking about outdoor worms from the soil, these are a Whole Different breed of worm, don't think there is an answer for you. Some of those worms travel up and down the soil some several feet, how you would keep them corraled and producing casts? Your compost may well indeed attract worms to your box but you say you want to fill your box with casts in some timeframe. So I don't think there is a concrete answer for you.

I had a successful worm tube but in my limited experience they stayed bunched up in the tube where the food was added. Did not find them all that often travelling around the box. Again, one person's experience.

llama momma wrote:I'll give you my experience. A successful indoor worm bin with purchased compost redworms, say a thousand (roughtly a pound) can give you nearly 12 pounds of castings in 5 months. Worms castings are best added to your compost at tops of 15-20%. More is not better there is a salinity issue that will stunt plants.

that is what I needed to know

Yay, glad to help out. If you like check out several worm threads on this forum, Wiggler Hilton is one, mine is called 1,000 worms on their way. Just put it in the white wearch box above. And Happy worming.

larry.
I am a newbie with regard to worms so if you type in www.redworm.com that gives you an awesome site to browse through.
I have only been at it for about three weeks after I discovered that I had hundreds of red worms in my compost heap, so I harvested them and made a Wiggler Hilton from the instructions so I have started with a money outlay of about $20.00. I looked today to find my worms happily wiggling away.

for the welcome Kelejan, and was the link you wrote in your post the right one for worms because it did not come up that way for me

larry wrote: for the welcome Kelejan, and was the link you wrote in your post the right one for worms because it did not come up that way for me

Sorry larry: www.redwormcomposting.com
Hope you get it this time. I missed out the composting bit.

Kelejan, worked fine and now I will have some more good reading to do along with "Wiggler Hilton" & "1,000 worms on their way" that llama momma told me about.

I have spent hours on that site so far, larry. I am reading all the posts right from the beginning and so far I have completed 2007, 2007, and halfway though 2009.
I found the site a bit overwhelming until I got the hang of it. Bentley sounds such a nice guy, full if enthusiasm and happy to share it. I love his experiments.