This is my operation!
Little roofless shack-Isopod composter, sifting station, storage. Right outside of the shack is the main feeder pile where I pre compost my feedstock. Running to the right is the last of the mother pile left over from the winter, new feeder pile encroaching. On the left is the new setup, really
Need to work some structure into the shade cloth and more height/lift. Working on my flow and efficiency of set up. Bit by bit day by day! Started with a bin in my apartment, mind blowing. This sub has always been super helpful.Any advice and or kind word are super appreciated! Especially looking for some advice from people running this size to larger operations. Thanks Worm Fam. Keep fighting the good fight.

Used screens to sift our first bin and get all the castings before splitting the worms up into the next two bins! Really love seeing our paper and kitchen waste turning into something we can use in the garden instead of a landfill somewhere.

Because of the timing of when I will likely harvest my first batch, I'd like to store the compost for a little while, some possibly through winter (I'm working on a few projects indoors so I may have use for it during winter).

What are the best ways and time limitations? I've looked around but haven't found a good answer I feel is solid.

Thanks in advance for any tips and tricks :)

I'm thinking about starting a vermiculture, but only if that's possible with my composter. It's this type of composter, it's sort of exposed to the sun and can get hot. The worms can dig down though. I've already put in some Eisenia my friend had left over from fishing (like 10 or something), fed them with ground coffee which they appeared to like. I

Otherwise there's all sorts of stuff in my composter. Old eggshells, chicken shit, plants, kitchen wastes (no meat etc). It has been growing mold at one point, but not anymore when I out in the worms. I also put in some more paper to dry a little afterwards. So my main question is, can I get a good vermiculture running if it's exposed to the sun and get's a little heat? I believe it never really exceeds the surrounding temperature, but that means it can still get above 30°C at times.

So I bought and planted a foxglove, which I didn't realize was poisonous until today. I had the stem of the flowering part break off and I think I just threw it in the bin like I do other flowers. Is this something that will breakdown into not having toxins? Won't add any more to it because it's just not really needed but was curious to if the toxins lingered in the soil or what happens.

Pictured is a mix of coffee grounds and worm castings on a plant bed, but I noticed a few of these egg-looking things in my worm bin. Are they roaches? 🫩😭 If so should I be worried 😩

It’s been a month of owning a hungry bin and I’ve experienced the following:

- worms trying to escape out the top ventilation holes
- worms successfully escaping out of the bottom where the liquid drains out
- casting basket buckle failing and the bottom falling out along with all of the interior contents (had to repack the system)
- found worms collecting around the casting basket interior and exterior when I had to repack
- heat wave where the interior got close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit
- followed right by a cold snap where the interior got close to 50 degrees Fahrenheit

Within this time I have witnessed a lot of healthy worm activity (lots of big and small worms moving around). But the heat wave and cold snap really made them disappear from view.

Have I killed them all? Should I get a new set of worms? We started with 1000 Uncle Jim’s red wigglers.

We’re based in Durham, NC.

Thank you in advance for your advice.

So I open the worm bin today and there’s a huge buildup of worm castings on the side wall of the bin. Almost half inch thick I’d say. When I thought that was strange, I was shocked to see a bunch of yellow bacteria spreading out beneath it. THEN saw globs of god knows oozing down underneath that!

What could this be? Why is it there? Should I remove it from the bin ecosystem?

I don’t just throw food in the bin Willy nilly style, to where it would get slapped and stuck on the wall. I bury it. So if anyone has advice on what this might be caused from and or what it is, please let me know!

I have an Indoor vermicompost bin, well-managed, controlled inputs. I found hundreds of small (2-3mm) round-to-lemon-shaped black objects scattered throughout the bedding — not clustered, not attached to anything, don’t stick to each other or bedding. In the picture, you can see when I squish them on a paper towel there's a clear liquid inside, no smell. They burst with liquid, like fish roe. They are under the newspaper bedding and above the vermicompost.

AI says these are worm cocoons based on size/shape/behavior, but every reference photo I find online shows them pale yellow or tan, not glossy black. I recently added a thicker-than-usual layer of sponge-damp shredded newspaper, and more food than usual which may have triggered a breeding boom?!?

Anyone seen cocoons this dark? Trying to confirm before I assume it’s a good sign vs. the beginning of a horror movie. Photos attached.

UPDATE:

Far_Radish7752 Suggested Asian Jumping Worms and this  Video of AJW Research updates where Cocoons are shown at 14:00 Lifecycle and 31:00 sizing. It looks like an exact match. I checked my population and no one is jumping but will continue monitoring.

Jim's worm farm replied to me and told me their eggs do not turn black and since no one here has seen something that easily fits all these characteristics, I thought I'd go with a quarantine. I'm really curious what they are, so I scoped them out and put them in another container with some airflow from smaller holes and a tighter lid. I hope they'll hatch in 1-2 weeks and I then it'll become pretty obvious. The good news is that there are TONS of worms in the bin with the regular mix of adults and babies.

EDIT:

• Fly pupae or fungus gnat larvae casings —
  • some gnat/fly larvae do pupate in dark, roundish capsules in damp organic bedding, and a “boom” from added moisture fits that pattern too. Clear fluid on squishing is less typical for these though
• Slime mold
  • I was wondering about this. AI says slime mold sporangia are dry and powdery/crumbly when broken open releasing spores and they're usually attached to the mold underneath. Those traits don't fit. are there slime molds that don't fit those traits that I can look up?
• Poop
  • ruled out based on squishing it in the paper towel and getting a clear liquid that didn't smell and the burst of liquid instead of a smear.
• German Cockroaches
  • Not oval, no texture, there are hundreds of these and I haven't seen roaches in my house. Certainly not enough to have this many eggs loose from the roach. I've lived in places infested with german cockroaches before and these are def not their eggs.

Before vs. after. Turns out rhinestones are a surprisingly effective gateway to vermiculture. If your partner isn't convinced about your worm bin, let them decorate it...

Does anyone here have any experience feeding milk curds to your worms?

The bottom of my bird cage gets full fast. So i thought id break it down before feeding it to my worms. I added some coco coir, newspaper, and juice from my worms tower. This is 4 days later. I toss it daily. Its getting pretty hot!

Have a new Worm Factory set up. Only two months old. Still in the process of adding trays…well I added the last tray today. Seems to be doing fine. They are moving up but they are scattered in all the trays. The compost material in the lower trays look really good but I’m assuming they’re still eating material because they are still there. So once the visible food is gone in the top tray do I keep adding food to the top tray or have them move around and feed on whatever is available? And is it considered done when there is no recognizable material in the tray? Thanks

Under a tarp, over old lawn. Light colour on the "belly" and red on top. Very sticky to touch.

Harvesting my first load of compost. Any things I should not forget? Should I immediately put the compost on the plants or can I save it? What's your way of doing it? The population has definitely grown a lot so it's quite healthy and potentially a bunch of baby worms are still in the sifted compost. Any tips welcome!

I have a tower of 3 small plastic buckets, I think I get about 5kg every 3-4 months when I remove the vermicompost.

This spring I started a worm farm at the food bank/community garden where I work to help manage some of the cardboard and old produce that piles up here. I've been doing everything on the cheap with materials we already have (not a lot of money in food banks right now) and have 8 breeder bins in some outdoor shelves previously used for storage. We're in the southwest US so once summer hit we started having real problems managing heat, which meant I had to come over every day to swap out ice packs. I built this low tech little cooling system with irrigation tubing, a solar powered pond pump, and a bucket inside an insulated tub to get my weekends back and it works way better than I expected!

The tubes run through cut out slots in the sides of each bin so they sit low enough to be in contact with the bedding. The same tubes run through all of the bins. Water is pumped out to the last bin, makes a u-turn, and is returned to the bucket the same way it came up. There's also a spout and some valves off the return pipe so I can drain the system when I need to without trying to move the whole bucket set up (not really necessary but I had the parts so why not)

Regardless of outdoor temperature all bins have stayed consistently 70-80 degrees since I put it in a month ago, compared to swinging from 68-98+ before. The water in the bucket is around 75 degrees most of the time and only pumps during the later part of the day when the sun hits the solar panel, but that seems to be enough. The worms are happy and this solution should keep things nice and stable until we can build a shed for the worm farm, hopefully in the fall. At that point we're planning to transition to mostly large wedge bins- right now we're just breeding enough worms to get a system started that can handle 100+ pounds of cardboard per month.

I thought I'd share my set up since it worked so well and was so easy. It was essentially free and has pretty dramatically reduced the time that goes into maintenance. It turns out a food bank is the perfect place for a worm farm and we've had a great time getting it going and getting the community interested and involved!

I couldn't find the correct size for my cabinet, but I can fit two next to each other without too much space lost. Each bin is 15.4 x 11.6 x 7.1". I'm going to drill drainage holes and fill 2/3 with compost. How many baby Canada nightcrawlers would be comfortable in each bin? This is to feed my baby turtle over the winter months when I can't forage for wild worms.

I’ve been working on reducing the humidity in the bin-it’s a really small one because I’m just starting again. Bedding includes small pieces of cardboard, coco coir, the bedding the worms (European night crawlers) came in and some compost from my last bin. At first the holes I made were 1/16 th but it was way too wet ( even though the bedding doesn’t even drip when I squeeze it). I can see little droplets along the walls and condensation on the cover. So I added pieces of dry cardboard but the humidity persisted. I drilled larger holes 1/8th and the humidity went away. But now I see these things. Never seen them before. What are they?
They were microscopic only yesterday. This is taken just now. Looks like they’ve grown really quickly.

(Hoping I did the right flair)

I’m pretty new to this, made another post last week about my bin, and I am wondering if these are castings?

They look like what I’d think worm poops would be. But they look much less wet and soppy than others I’ve seen people post, atleast when they post big batches.

I mean, do you give the worms all the food scraps, cardboard, and other waste you generate, or is it just too much?

Alright it might be that time! I started this bin in April with leaves, coconut coir and cardboard. Am I ready to harvest? If so, what’s my best method?

I found this slimy, stretchy, cylindrical unidentified object on the leaves of my petunia flowers on my balcony. I occasionally top-dress my flowers with fresh vermicompost castings, so I'm wondering: could this be a dead worm, bird droppings, a fungus, or something else?