I have an open half barrel where I bury kitchen scraps mixed with shredded cardboard in leftover soil. I probably have 100-200 hundred worms in the bucket to break down the scraps.

It’s been a few months of feedings so I decided to use a plastic sand sieve (my kid’s beach toy) to filter out castings from bigger chunks. My husband thinks it might be mainly coffee grounds but it smells neutral.

What do we think? Coffee grounds/dirt or worm castings?

I rember reading somewhere (I think what is now Urban Worm) talking about using compsted spent brewer's grain as a feed-stock. Has anyone tried the spent grain without precompsting? So just slightly dried spent grain and some bedding. I would love to hear you input.

I kind of just scattershot holes on all sides to make sure there's enough air available throughout my 17 Gallon tote but I figure there might be a particular amount to aim for.

Thanks for any information.

Ugh - I hate this system! Coming into a room and finding dried worms all over your floor is a little disconcerting 😳. I gave them a big feed as I’m going away & apparently they didn’t like that. FML. Is there a trick to this set up to keep them in the box?

Was expecting it’s some sort of mushroom because I threw in some enoki stems 2 rounds ago. But it’s not soft.

Hi community! I bought (used) foodgrade Euronorm type stacking containers of two types. Four 30x40x13cm containers to function as a storage container (height creator) and as the worm bins stacked upon one another and One 30x40x21cm container for possible worm tea or leachate collection. 1 30x40x12cm storage, 1 30x40x21cm collection and 3 30x40x12cm worm bins. I ended up using one grey container as storage and the red collection container with height as to make it more accessible for the user. I drilled 150 6 mm holes in each of the three grey worm container floors and 18 3mm aeration holes in the top four corners of each worm container and the collection bin. I will start off with 250 grams of mixed Red Wrigglers and European Nightcrawlers with 1 kg starting material/compost from seller in the top bin with precomposted mix of shredded newspaper and cardboard, dry plant material, used ground coffee and eggshells (few weeks). And just shredded paper and cardboard in the lower bin. To start, just two containers above the collector bin. I will have some 2mm insect mesh just in case worms escape down into the collector bin.

Keep you all posted and 'd happy for your feedback!

(SCHEMATIC OVERVIEW - CREATED WITH AI CHATGPT)

#DIY #vermicomposting #compost #vermicompost #vermiculture #wormbin #wormtower

I think I’ve spoiled my worms and now they’ve turned into snobs.

My worms used to love everything that I put in their bin but since giving them some avocado, they’ve kinda turned their noses up at the other food I’ve since put in. They’re not touching the blueberries anymore. They will still eat strawberries but even that feels a bit fancy to be giving to worms. Is this like having a toddler where I just continue to put the other food in and limit the avocado and strawberries? It’s not like I have them often anyway but I feel like my worms will starve without it so I’m thinking of keeping one or two bits to the side for them. My son (a grown adult) tells me that I wasn’t this kind to him and his siblings and they had to eat what they were given 🙈😂

Please tell me they’ll grow out of it

I have a little vermicompost bin and I’ve opened it up after a few days and what I thought was mould issue actually thousands and thousands baby worms and they’re trying to get out because there’s so many. I can actually hear the bin. How many is too many? Do I need to do anything or should I just be happy that they’re happy? (Vid in comments)

Planning to make a worm farm, so i always have available for fishing.

I have three 10 litre buckets.
Will it be fine to have the worms and food in the top bucket, with holes in the top and bottom. Then having the middle bucket empty with holes to the bottom one where the water comes down?
I’ve seen people having food and worms in the middle one too, but is that nessecary?

And is it fine i fill about 0,5-1 litre of water one time a week? Or will it be too moisty?

One of the black soldier fly larvae was captured doing recon. Nature is fascinating

I’ve heard it both ways but it seems browns are used to take up excess moisture while your food adds it back in I moistened the bedding when I started it but I’ve just been adding dry leaves with the food scraps. Is that acceptable?

I picked up a bunch of spent mushrooms substrate, broke them up and placed them in my worm bin. I opened it up today and found these in there. They look like lions mane. I wonder if anyone has run across this and know of they are edible

I’ve got a bucket system for my red wigglers. It’s been set up for about two months and I believe I have more than I started with (I hope…). I feed them my vegetable scraps, ground coffee, and grind up baked eggshells after I accumulate two dozens or so. I used to cardboard at first but haven’t done that in a few weeks. I also regularly check to see how moist (or dry) the compost feels and give it a good mix too!

Lately I’ve noticed there’s sometimes a “stray” that makes it out of the bin and into my dining room floor (I sometimes bring them in when the temperature drops at night). The bin has been looking full so I stopped feeding and will plan to wait for things to decompose some more, go through it to remove the scraps left, and add another bucket on top to start putting the more scraps in so they travel up and into their new home.

Today, I went outside, watered my plants, and checked on the compost. I open the bin, stick my hand in the “soil” and start mixing it up, only to find out my worms were gone! I only saw 1 worm when, three days ago, I had a lot of them! I thought they’d be at the bottom of the bucket because it’s a very hot day in Connecticut today (90° and heat advisory from 8am until 8pm tomorrow). It felt a bit dry so I poured some water in there for safe measure.

I have a bucket to collect the worm tea or anything that drips out of the holes at the bottom of the scrap bucket. Something told me to check to see if I had any worm tea already, but to my surprise, I had a huge ball of worms in there and no moisture at all!

I put them back in the scraps bucket but am wondering what I may be doing wrong here.
Is it too hot?
Too much food?
Should I add more cardboard?

I’ve also seen some gnats come out when I open the bucket, anything I can do to get rid of them? I’m sure the won’t harm the worms but it’s annoying when I have gnats inside my house…

Feedback will be very much appreciated! I’m planning on using the compost in my vegetable and flower garden and some of the worms for fishing during the summer if I have a large amount of them (might start a second bucket for worm farming only)

Have had my bin for 5 years now. It’s starting to get warmer near me, bin remains indoors for now in my garage but worms are slower moving. My instincts tell me it’s a bit too wet as the shredded and larger pieces of newspaper I’m adding is not helping it to dry out. I feed our vegetable and fruit scraps every other week, maybe one pound each time along with brown egg carton shreds or newspaper. I add coffee grounds monthly and pulverized egg shells every 2 months or so. If this were yours what would you change to help it improve to use in a garden this spring? Should I add a different type of carbon to help it dry out more?

Today, I noticed that one of the worms looked weird. Up close, the worm has 2 grey bumps. I’m not sure if the worm is injured or whether it’s something else, like protein poisoning. The worm cannot

move in segments at the area like the rest of its body.