Just started my first worm bin

Gumdrawp · Oct 24, 2017

So basically all of my knowledge of this comes from 2 articles and what I read on the unconventional farmer.

Any tips or tricks that you guys care to share? Or are there some typical new guy mistakes I should be aware of?

I've been trying to look into if feeding them a special diet will result in better ewc but havent found any specifics other than better diets give better castings.

For now I put about 250 red worms from Wal-Mart in some coco and rice hulls left over from repotting gave it a little bit of water and buried the worms and their castings on one end and a handful or two of small trimmings I buried on the opposite end. Should be a fun little project. What uses does the leachate have from the collection bin? Can I foliar with it or throw it in when I water?

Richard Drysift · Oct 24, 2017

Congratulations you've made the best move a soil grower can make IMO. The best worm bin hack I've learned thus far is to freeze their food. I feed them mostly fruit and veggies scraps, dry cannabis leaves, crushed eggshells, shredded egg cartons, and coffee grounds. What I do is let's say the old lady makes a salad and has scraps of carrot, tomato ends, and some browned lettuce leaves leftover. I will scrape it into a baggie and place in the freezer until feeding time. Then I take it out and thaw it for 12-24 hrs before giving it to the worms. You don't want freezing or even very cold food in the bin it needs to be room temp. Freezing sort of breaks down the tissue turning it to a soft mush which the worms quickly gobble up. If you want fatass worms sprinkle in some ground corn meal; they love it. Alfalfa meal is also good to add to their food along with a bit of crushed oyster shell for grindage; helps them clean out their digestive system.
You want to avoid giving them tubers like potatoes and onion skins; they don't like onion or grapes for some reason. Worms will eat potato but they can attract black soldier flies and gnats because they take so long to be consumed.
Worms disregard their shit and are content to exist in it so don't worry about separating them until you harvest the castings. They will migrate upward as food becomes scarce. They like to have plenty of airflow; add perlite or some other means of aeration to each new tray.
I started out with 250 worms too but I didn't even know Walmart had them. It will take about 6-8 months before your bin is fully populated but once it is you will be pulling a tray every few weeks or so.
Use horticulture grade coco coir; the stuff they sell in most pet shops is full of salts. Botanicare coco grow is a good sodium free bedding plus you can add it to your mix if it ever gets compacted from heavy EWCs. Worm leacheate is chock full of goodies but I've read you don't want to use it on any plant you intend to consume as it can harbor pathogens. I assume that also goes for plants you smoke (or make cannabutter out of) but leacheate does absolute wonders for my flower garden and houseplants. I have been feeding my house plants only leacheate and water for years now and they are super healthy and lush. People come over and say my what do you feed these? Worm piss of course. I have a monster aloe plant that my wife has renamed Audrey 2. It has split into several new plants and I need to transplant it soon before it eats the children. Another use of leacheate is to dilute it with water and fill up a garden sprayer to feed the lawn. Works great!

Gumdrawp · Oct 24, 2017

Richard Drysift said:
Congratulations you've made the best move a soil grower can make IMO. The best worm bin hack I've learned thus far is to freeze their food. I feed them mostly fruit and veggies scraps, dry cannabis leaves, crushed eggshells, shredded egg cartons, and coffee grounds. What I do is let's say the old lady makes a salad and has scraps of carrot, tomato ends, and some browned lettuce leaves leftover. I will scrape it into a baggie and place in the freezer until feeding time. Then I take it out and thaw it for 12-24 hrs before giving it to the worms. You don't want freezing or even very cold food in the bin it needs to be room temp. Freezing sort of breaks down the tissue turning it to a soft mush which the worms quickly gobble up. If you want fatass worms sprinkle in some ground corn meal; they love it. Alfalfa meal is also good to add to their food along with a bit of crushed oyster shell for grindage; helps them clean out their digestive system.
You want to avoid giving them tubers like potatoes and onion skins; they don't like onion or grapes for some reason. Worms will eat potato but they can attract black soldier flies and gnats because they take so long to be consumed.
Worms disregard their shit and are content to exist in it so don't worry about separating them until you harvest the castings. They will migrate upward as food becomes scarce. They like to have plenty of airflow; add perlite or some other means of aeration to each new tray.
I started out with 250 worms too but I didn't even know Walmart had them. It will take about 6-8 months before your bin is fully populated but once it is you will be pulling a tray every few weeks or so.
Use horticulture grade coco coir; the stuff they sell in most pet shops is full of salts. Botanicare coco grow is a good sodium free bedding plus you can add it to your mix if it ever gets compacted from heavy EWCs. Worm leacheate is chock full of goodies but I've read you don't want to use it on any plant you intend to consume as it can harbor pathogens. I assume that also goes for plants you smoke (or make cannabutter out of) but leacheate does absolute wonders for my flower garden and houseplants. I have been feeding my house plants only leacheate and water for years now and they are super healthy and lush. People come over and say my what do you feed these? Worm piss of course. I have a monster aloe plant that my wife has renamed Audrey 2. It has split into several new plants and I need to transplant it soon before it eats the children. Another use of leacheate is to dilute it with water and fill up a garden sprayer to feed the lawn. Works great!

Thanks for the tip on freezing. It makes a lot of sense since veggies that aren't blanched turn into mush when frozen. Good to know about the leachate, my front lawns gonna look nice next year for sure. I have an old bottle of superthrive from before I knew about aloe and coconut water I was planning on diluting and spraying with next year. I'm using like maybe a third of a roots organic coco brick, with rice hulls as aeration, but now that I'm thinking of it I'm not sure if they will eat the hulls or not.

Edit: Wal-Mart has eisenea hortensis, which isn't exactly the red wiggler but I read that they were the second most common composting worm, I did a quick Google search because they had like 10 cups for a buck a piece since its basically out of season right now. They're probably sad half dead worms, but my first harvest came from sad half dead plants until about week 3 of flower and it was pretty fire so I'm hoping I can get a repeat lol. Nature seems to be forgiving if you're patient with it.

Tyleb173rd · Oct 24, 2017

Not only do I freeze food trim but I then put it in my Vita-Mix Blender and make a purée out of it. I then layer it with bedding. I do a layer of rinsed coco, shredded paper, purée, a bit of perlite then repeat the layers.

I use Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm. It is a stackable system. It works very well for me.

Gumdrawp · Oct 24, 2017

Tyleb173rd said:
Not only do I freeze food trim but I then put it in my Vita-Mix Blender and make a purée out of it. I then layer it with bedding. I do a layer of rinsed coco, shredded paper, purée, a bit of perlite then repeat the layers.

I use Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm. It is a stackable system. It works very well for me.

For right now I'm just using a few black storage totes with bricks as spacers in my leachate bin, the puree doesn't soak too far down in your bedding? I thought you wanted the food to be pretty much all at the top?

Tyleb173rd · Oct 25, 2017

Gumdrawp said:
For right now I'm just using a few black storage totes with bricks as spacers in my leachate bin, the puree doesn't soak too far down in your bedding? I thought you wanted the food to be pretty much all at the top?

The purée is so thick but the worms don’t seem to mine. Maybe the food should be at the top but this seems to work.

Uncle Reefer · Oct 25, 2017

egg shells coffee and bananas. YOu can "play with your worms a bit by burying different food in different spots as seeing what they go to. Never use pineapple it will melt your worms.

chemphlegm · Oct 25, 2017

my 100k worms ate only some paper and the dried scraps from the mj garden.
My worms were managed inside of my grow rooms, and NO kitchen scraps ever improved anything here.
feed according to which pests you wish to breed in the bins

Uncle Reefer · Oct 25, 2017

chemphlegm said:
my 100k worms ate only some paper and the dried scraps from the mj garden.
My worms were managed inside of my grow rooms, and NO kitchen scraps ever improved anything here.
feed according to which pests you wish to breed in the bins

Your reply made me think of Joe Rogan and his Ketogenic diet and insane workout schedule
Sure its better but are you really living? Give the poor worms some banana peels.

But I know nothing really, I bought 25 worms for 12 bucks a couple months ago. I am sure I would be lucky if I had 50 now

Gumdrawp · Oct 25, 2017

Uncle Reefer said:
Your reply made me think of Joe Rogan and his Ketogenic diet and insane workout schedule
Sure its better but are you really living? Give the poor worms some banana peels.

But I know nothing really, I bought 25 worms for 12 bucks a couple months ago. I am sure I would be lucky if I had 50 now

What he's saying is pretty true actually. Worms don't actually eat the food scraps but the microbes that grow on them as they decompose. He's not starving them, wet newspaper grows plenty of bacteria and whatnot to sustain worms I would assume. So if he's feeding to grow bacteria/fungi and not the worms its the same thing as feeding the worms I'm pretty sure.

Uncle Reefer · Oct 25, 2017

Gumdrawp said:
What he's saying is pretty true actually. Worms don't actually eat the food scraps but the microbes that grow on them as they decompose. He's not starving them, wet newspaper grows plenty of bacteria and whatnot to sustain worms I would assume. So if he's feeding to grow bacteria/fungi and not the worms its the same thing as feeding the worms I'm pretty sure.

Then I guess I am saying give those poor worms some banana peel slime. Lol. One thing I know first had is that fruit flies love coffee grounds for breeding.
Also time flies like an arrow
and fruit flies like a banana

Tyleb173rd · Oct 25, 2017

I’d like to do Worm bins, or make castings, like a casting company but just on a smaller scale. Any suggestions?

Wetdog · Oct 25, 2017

Yes, go to redwormcomposting.com and pick the subject that interest you.

Not only does he supply worms, he also experiments and blogs about it. Big bins, little bins, inside, outside, different food sources, methods, whatever.

If you have a question, it's likely been asked and answered, or at least tried. This is where I got info and pics on making my first bin around 8 years ago. I have 6 going ATM.

Gumdrawp · Oct 25, 2017

Wetdog said:
Yes, go to redwormcomposting.com and pick the subject that interest you.

Not only does he supply worms, he also experiments and blogs about it. Big bins, little bins, inside, outside, different food sources, methods, whatever.

If you have a question, it's likely been asked and answered, or at least tried. This is where I got info and pics on making my first bin around 8 years ago. I have 6 going ATM.

Thanks, I haven't seen this site yet. Lots of good information it looks like.

Rob Roy · Oct 26, 2017

Uncle Reefer said:
egg shells coffee and bananas. YOu can "play with your worms a bit by burying different food in different spots as seeing what they go to. Never use pineapple it will melt your worms.

I've also heard that citrus is not good for worms, so I've avoided putting orange and grapefruit peels in the worm bins etc.

Gumdrawp · Oct 26, 2017

Rob Roy said:
I've also heard that citrus is not good for worms, so I've avoided putting orange and grapefruit peels in the worm bins etc.

Yeah that seems to be the case, everything read about it says extreme moderation, and that apparently mangoes and pineapples may contain enzymes that actually digest your worms instead of the other way around.

I crushed up some eggshells into small bits but they're definitely not powdered should I dig it out? Also I mixed a little bit of oyster shell flour, kelp and alfalfa meal in the bin since calcium and kelp usually stimulate microbial growth and the alfalfa just put a little bit of food sprinkled over the side I buried their food on. Figured it would give them a little bit of a head start and since I'm planning on buying more worms in the next few days I'm not worried about it getting too nasty in there.

So I was reading more about using the eisenia hortensis vs the eisenia fetida, I found a local worm farm and emailed the guy about getting a pound of red wiggler but I'm really considering buying another 250 or so of these as well. Apparently they're more susceptible to bad conditions such as heat because they burrow deeper and can be found at any level in the bed. But that also means that they eat stuff I accidentally bury too deep so I think even if the population is significantly lower, 500 or so would probably be a good addition to keeping my bin cleaner.

They reproduce a lot slower and are more particular about breeding so I don't think that overpopulation will be much of an issue, although starting a second bin would be a bonus, I wouldnt mind using my own castings in the veggie garden in the spring.

whitebb2727 · Oct 26, 2017

Gumdrawp said:
What he's saying is pretty true actually. Worms don't actually eat the food scraps but the microbes that grow on them as they decompose. He's not starving them, wet newspaper grows plenty of bacteria and whatnot to sustain worms I would assume. So if he's feeding to grow bacteria/fungi and not the worms its the same thing as feeding the worms I'm pretty sure.

Worm castings from paper products are nowhere near as nutritious as castings from worms that eat scraps.

If you get gnats or other pest its because of doing something wrong. I built mine and I use screen over where the air flows. Keeps gnats out. Too much moisture draws gnats.

Wetdog · Oct 27, 2017

@Gumdrawp

Going to hit a couple of things real quick that may, or may not, help.

Don't worry about the eggshells AFA digging them out. They won't hurt anything and over time you'll see for yourself just how they do or don't break down.

AFA the Euros and RWs, I've run both for years with no issues. Our local worm supplier announced a couple of years ago that he was discontinuing Red Wrigglers and running only Euros because, he said, that the Euros did better in our climate (zone 7A). I noticed the exact same thing in my bins with the Euros making up most of the population over time. No worries as I kinda prefer the Euros anyway. My bins (totes), are on the deep side and the Euros work all levels, not just the top.

But they do self regulate their populations, so it all works out over time with no help from us. But, having both in the same bins works really well. Has for me anyway.

I don't bury food, not anymore. I did when first starting, but problems from miscalculations ended that practice in short order. I now do a 'lasagna' type deal where it's 2 or 3 surface feedings then a layer of bedding. This is added when the surface food is consumed, or at least 90% consumed. Again, this is in a tote 18" deep. IDK how well this would work in tray type bins that are much shallower. No experience there.

Hope this helps some.

Gumdrawp · Oct 27, 2017

Wetdog said:
@Gumdrawp

Going to hit a couple of things real quick that may, or may not, help.

Don't worry about the eggshells AFA digging them out. They won't hurt anything and over time you'll see for yourself just how they do or don't break down.

AFA the Euros and RWs, I've run both for years with no issues. Our local worm supplier announced a couple of years ago that he was discontinuing Red Wrigglers and running only Euros because, he said, that the Euros did better in our climate (zone 7A). I noticed the exact same thing in my bins with the Euros making up most of the population over time. No worries as I kinda prefer the Euros anyway. My bins (totes), are on the deep side and the Euros work all levels, not just the top.

But they do self regulate their populations, so it all works out over time with no help from us. But, having both in the same bins works really well. Has for me anyway.

I don't bury food, not anymore. I did when first starting, but problems from miscalculations ended that practice in short order. I now do a 'lasagna' type deal where it's 2 or 3 surface feedings then a layer of bedding. This is added when the surface food is consumed, or at least 90% consumed. Again, this is in a tote 18" deep. IDK how well this would work in tray type bins that are much shallower. No experience there.

Hope this helps some.

Helps greatly actually. I'm using deep 18 gallon totes right now, but i think I might switch over to different containers sooner or later. I saw a few 3x2.5' bins at the store the other day and just didn't grab them yet. Those are only about a foot deep opposed to 2 feet.

I'm also in some 6b so that's Good to know about the euros, I'll probably buy about 100 and throw them in each 50 gallon pot I put out in the veggie garden next year

Richard Drysift · Oct 27, 2017

Gumdrawp said:
Yeah that seems to be the case, everything read about it says extreme moderation, and that apparently mangoes and pineapples may contain enzymes that actually digest your worms instead of the other way around.

I crushed up some eggshells into small bits but they're definitely not powdered should I dig it out? Also I mixed a little bit of oyster shell flour, kelp and alfalfa meal in the bin since calcium and kelp usually stimulate microbial growth and the alfalfa just put a little bit of food sprinkled over the side I buried their food on. Figured it would give them a little bit of a head start and since I'm planning on buying more worms in the next few days I'm not worried about it getting too nasty in there.

So I was reading more about using the eisenia hortensis vs the eisenia fetida, I found a local worm farm and emailed the guy about getting a pound of red wiggler but I'm really considering buying another 250 or so of these as well. Apparently they're more susceptible to bad conditions such as heat because they burrow deeper and can be found at any level in the bed. But that also means that they eat stuff I accidentally bury too deep so I think even if the population is significantly lower, 500 or so would probably be a good addition to keeping my bin cleaner.

They reproduce a lot slower and are more particular about breeding so I don't think that overpopulation will be much of an issue, although starting a second bin would be a bonus, I wouldnt mind using my own castings in the veggie garden in the spring.

A super ez way to process raw eggshell (after breakfast of course) is to place them on a paper plate and nuke in the microwave for at least a minute. Then roll the paper plate up and crush the shells to tiny bits; I add them to a bag in the freezer along with whatever else I plan to feed them. The paper plate can be shredded and added to their food. Eggshells do take a very long time to break down but they contain so much good once they finally do.

Just started my first worm bin

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