Wormies, take 3

 

Okay let's do a worm blog.
 

Six months ago (almost exactly), I restarted my vermicompost hobby for the third time. 

First time, Melbourne, one year.

    short version: Purchased a Worm Factory from the council for ~$40-60
    LOVED it.
    Hot summer, lots of water to cool it down.
    Harvested once using piles, terrible way to harvest.
    Left it behind when I moved.
    Used this for a for a Chinese speech contest (someday I'll update this post with a picture)
 

Second time, Ithaca, between 1-2 years.

    Purchased a bin from a green store. Don't remember where the worms came from.
    My classmate decided to name (ALL) the worms after himself. So I had worms named Byron 1-1000.
    Lived inside our mostly unused pantry closet, and was largely neglected after a start.
    Eventually gave away all the worms and compost to an enthusiast off the internet, so there were plenty even after the neglect. Kept the bin. It sat outdoors, sadly unused, in the California sun for years. Left it behind in my last cross-country.

Third time, mid-September 2020. 

    Got a huge sticker shock-- $150!! No chance. So for the first time I made my own bin, and they were $4 each, and I planned to use 3 of them. I've got the small 7 gallon black plastic tubs / yellow lids from Big Orange. Drilled holes (not enough, in retrospect). Wanted local worms, but there seemed to only be one place in the world still selling them, the same place everyone else gets worms, so I paid an exorbitant amount for 250 worms, the least amount I could. 1000 worms is approx 1 lb of worms. That means 250 is about 1/4 lb. Worms eat about half their weight every day. So 250... can eat about 1 lb of food in a week. Let's do some math.

If a pair of worms lay 1-3 cocoons a week, and each cocoon yields three worms?
I'm going to be ultra conservative, and say that there will be 150 cocoons each week.
21 days to hatch, and another 42 days to maturity. 63 days.
So, starting mid-November, I would have 250 worms + 150 each following week.
That seems optimistic...?
Because even geometric growth, and discounting exponential growth....
600 worms each month from December to now. 3.5 months.
It would mean around 2000 worms. 2 lbs of worms.
and I could start feeding it 7 lbs of food a week. 

Pretty sure I don't have 2000 worms.
Hm. The most likely factor here is that winter slowed down reproduction.

Anyway, got distracted.
I made the bin, saved up some food and cardboard, and got worms.
I put them all together, and came up to mistake number 1.
I had some old rice that had gone bad but I didn't want to throw it out, so I put it in the bin.
When I came back to check it out a week or so later, the rice had clumped up and gone all green with mold. Upon review, starches are not recommended for beginner bins at all.  

After checking with my favorite blogger, I restrained myself from messing with it even more, and decided to try and just relax. 

Coincidentally, I also stopped cooking much around this time, so I didn't overfeed the worms (another common problem for beginners, and overenthusiastic me.) I'll get back to that in a minute but first a sidenote.

We have friends who have a compost tumbler, and near the end of October, she gave me a large ziploc bag full of compost, which we presumed had worms inside. Unfortunately we totally forgot about doing this until it was dark, so no idea if there were worms in the group she gave me. But anyway there are tons of little local microbes in her compost so I was grateful to have this to start off the bin. I suspect however, with further observation, that there may not be worms in her compost tumbler. Or maybe they were all cocoons at the time. And I'm not sure worms really enjoy being tumbled...?

This is my third year with composting worms so I have enough experience, but sometimes you still need refreshers. I've been voraciously consuming (ha) worm blogs and forums, all the general knowledge is familiar, so not learning much except when I need specific help like the starches. My next issue happened when I put in the old cabbage that was in the freezer. I didn't want to freeze off the worms so after I crushed it up, and let it sit outside for a bit, I then put it inside a pizza breadsticks box and then another bag. I figured by the time the worms got inside to the cabbage it'd be room temp.

When I went back to check, the pizza box was almost gone but there was an EXPLOSION of little red mites. Ugh. My favorite worm blogger recommends chilling about mites. After all, they are part of the eco system and are doing their part to break down the food in the bin. 

That said, ideal conditions for mites are usually not-ideal conditions for worms. Too moist, not enough air. So I tore up a ton of cardboard, and I've taken to taking the worms outside and opening the lid on sunny days to help air flow and dry things out.

One potential issue I'm having is the human element. I loooove getting my hands in there, and digging around, and seeing what's up with the wormies. It's really interesting how warm it is in the middle of the bin. But I also know that optimal conditions include not disturbing the worms too much and they'd be happier and more productively munching on food if left alone.

I'm pretty sure it's okay to occasionally go through and toss the bin a little bit for air. And might be good for lessening the mite population. Where does the line cross from "annoying" the worms to "disturbing / stressing" the worms? I'm still trying to figure that out.

This past month, though, I've been laying low on the food. I've been wanting to harvest the worm compost, and I've been thinking over and over how to do it. As mentioned with the first worm bin above, I did the sunshine and piles method, and it was annoying and I didn't want to repeat that. From other readings, I suspect that the migration of worms to upper bins is probably also not all it's cracked up to be--- sounds like typical enthusiastic overfeeding and worms never migrate up. 

But I finally think I've hit upon a good combination. Apparently the stacking bins have an actual recommended way to harvest castings, and it looks good to me. It's difficult to explain so the pictures here are easier. Something like switching up the bins to harvest, and forcing the worms to dig and burrow until they move to a lower bin.

And before doing that, a forum poster had added his video on horizontal harvesting.

So I think I'll start with setting a food trap / attractor and collecting all of the uncomposted food and cardboard scraps, and all the worms and eggs I can find, and letting the rest of the mostly finished compost sit on the other side, so that the migration can happen. Then I'll set up the other bin, and try to get all the remaining worms to move, using the stacking bins method above.

And in other news, I'm a bit late on starting my germinating seeds for my cherry tomatoes.

Thanks for hanging out with me and my wormies, y'all.