Vermicoast

The long awaited and exciting day has finally come! Your worms have arrived, the bin is ready, but  what do you do next?

After you have opened the box and packing materials the worms arrived in, you will first  inspect the worms. Are they alive, well and active? They should be wiggling around and ready for their new bin. If not, you have a problem. Perhaps they lingered too long on a hot loading dock and have been delivered to you DOA. This is not a happy thought and you will need to take action, by contacting the seller and either receiving a refund or more worms. Rest assured that a reputable worm breeder will make good on your order and/or refund your money or send you live worms ASAP.

OK, let’s think happy thoughts here about your new worms: they are alive and ready for your well prepared bin. Open the bin, pull back the bedding in one corner and ease them out of their large baggie and into the bin.  It is always a good idea to rinse the baggie at least twice into the bin. This ensures that you have all the worms, cocoons and new hatchling’s in your bin and that all the baggie contents have been transferred,  and not one worm is left behind.  I hope you have a bright sunny day to do this transfer.Worms can’t tolerate sunlight as it dries out their entire outer body which they breathe through. Knowing this you will see them dive into the bedding as fast as they can. If the day is dull and overcast you can use either a goose neck lamp in your garage or a flashlight to get them to make their dive.

Since the worms don’t tolerate travel well because they don’t like vibrations, please allow them at least 3 days to adjust to their new home before you feed them the wastes from your kitchen. It is also a good idea to place the bin in an area which doesn’t have vibrations around it. Some of these might be a dryer that tumbles around a lot with that lone tennis shoe in it.  Another place  the worms will not care for is by loud and or constant throbbing music.

It is time to start feeding the worms on the third day you have the worm bin in the location you have picked out for them.  I have found the best way to do this is in a rotation method. If you can, put numbers on the top with a marking pen, outside and on top of the lid. I use 1 through 8 in a  rectangular circle. You can use a clock face method, if that works better for you.  I feed them first in the spot marked 1 and wait 3 days, then feed in space 2 next. I start with 1 to 2 cups of the kitchen waste. When you have fed the worms in spaces 1,2,3 and 4 you are at space 5, pull back the bedding and see if the wastes have been eaten in space 1. If they have eaten the wastes, the worms are keeping up with your feeding schedule and over time you will be able to add more wastes at one time. If the food wastes are not gone you will want to wait another 3 days before you challenge them again with food. The precaution you are taking here for this is the number one reason that worms die in their bin. Over feeding the worm bin can cause the food waste to heat up, hot compost and since the worms have no where to escape to, they die. Not a happy event for your new worms.

One other tactic  you can do to ensure that the worm bin’s health is in order is to sprinkle inexpensive birdseed over the top of the bin. This does several good things in the bin. The seeds will sprout and send down roots to the bottom of the bin. This will introduce the needed oxygen into the bin. Worms, like cows, make methane gas. This can foul the worm’s environment and cause them to not work well or perish. The seedlings that will sprout in your bin will allow for a free exchange of oxygen and CO2, making sure the worms have a healthy bin. Once the seeds are too tall for the bin, you can turn them under, using them as food for the worms. Do add more seeds as  they are eaten by your worms once you have turned them under.

I feel you will find that keeping a worm bin and the worms is simple and easy to do. I have found that worms are the most forgiving of all pets. Once you have harvested your bin in 4 to 6 months, the worms will have doubled their numbers and you will be ready to either start another bin or invite a neighbor over and give them a worm bin as a gift. It is always a good idea to have already talked about the ease of keeping worms with this neighbor or friend in advance!

Nice work. You now have a working worm bin and the gift of their casts for your garden will be never ending!

I hope to see you back here in another few days.

~Shel