red wigglers and peat moss/worm inn

This is probably a really dumb question but do red wigglers eat peat moss? My guess is not. Is that right?

Do any of you have any experience with the Worm Inn? Here is a link to the picture:


http://www.rockymountainworms.com/ecom-prodshow/worminn.html

They make it seem like it's virtually work-free.
I'm wanting to start my own worm composting with red wigglers but don't have a lot of time to spend hours harvesting them one by one. Or do you guys find it really doesn't take that long?
What is your favorite set up for vermicomposting?


Thanks!
Shelly

I don't know if they actually ingest peat moss, but they certainly thrive in it as bedding. Since the rule of thumb is that a redworm will eat "anything that has grown and will rot" and peat moss fits that description, it is possible they do eat it.

Look up the thread titled "Wiggler Hilton" -- lots of great information.

So the worm Inn doesn't sound like it work to well as far as I can tell...the wiggler Hilton sounds like a better set up for collecting tea and other things as well.

One more question for who ever can answer it...

Is there any difference in the final product of compost between that from the worms and that of what you make outside in a compost bin? In other words, if I fed my worms the same ingrediants as I put in my outside large composting heap, would the final product be the same?

If it is, then could the worm compost be the final product (besides peat moss and vermiculite) that we put in our Mel's mix? Or are worm castings still only supposed to make up 1/5 of our total compost ingrediants?

Besides mushroom and worm castings what other three ingrediants produce a good compost mix?

Sorry about 1 million questions but I really want to succeed with all this!

Thanks!

As dnpower says, worm bedding (castings) is quite different from regular cook-a-pile compost. One significant difference is the amount of salts you may have in the castings. An material that has passed through the digestive system of an animal or is an animal product will contain some salt. As I understand it, the concentration of salts in a worm bed can be greater than that of an ordinary compost pile unless said pile contains large amounts of animal waste (manure or urine). Even if manure has been used in creating a compost pile, because the pile is usually exposed to the elements over a period of time, much of the salts will leach out. A worm bed may drain, but it's not usually open to the rain, so the salts don't get washed out as much. None of this is bad, but it's a good reason to mix vermicompost with regular compost, and if you put worm tea on your plants, dilute it first to the color of weak tea.

Another much more fun difference is that the wormies don't always eat seeds, and because the vermicompost doesn't cook, seeds are not killed. So you never know what's going to germinate from your castings! I have two tomato plants that germinated from some vermicompost I left out in the yard in a bucket for a week or so. It rained, and the next thing I knew, there be plants! They're now in one of my 2x4 beds and going gangbusters. Both appear to be determinate, and one is a plum.

Now I know why there were tomato plants growing in my compost bucket his week. They didn't digest the tomato seeds.
I had filled the bucket a few weeks ago and put it aside. When I went to use it to side-dress some melons and make compost tea, there were tomato seedlings starting in the compost. Unfortunately I couldn't use them this late in the season nor did I have a space for them.
The vermicompost is rich and dark and composts more completely than my compost barrel.

Here's my latest bucket of rich vermicompost.
I have the Can0Worms setup since I couldn't make my own container and it seemed the easier system for me and I love it.

Its here for the summer in the shade of some trees but in the winter I keep it in my bathroom. No odors if fed properly. There are 2 more condo units to put on top if I need them.

DMPOWER, do you know how many gallon container you are using? I bought "Worms eat my garbage" and feel like I have read every site on the net about vermicomposting but can't decide what size bin to buy to make my own. I keep my cat's litter box in our unused shower stall and want to put the bin next to it, so there's plenty of room for it. I just keep getting all confused about what size to buy.

I even bought bins one time but then used them to organize some other stuff. :-)