1. You can buy a plastic box, use one you have at home, get one at a garage sale or second hand store. Try to get an old one, so you are recycling! You can build a wooden box, but I have found that they are heavy and can have chemicals in them the worms do not like. Plastic is lighter, lasts longer and you can the lid it comes with. If using an old bin without a lid use the top of a cardboard box or a piece of plywood with a rock or brick on the cover it to keep the birds out.

2. Drill ¼ ‘’ holes in the bottom of your bin for drainage (worms cannot swim) Place the holes 6” apart or so. I usually put about nine holes in the bottom of a plastic, Rubbermaid dishpan. If your holes are too large in the bottom, the worms will escape. Put the bin on  three 2 x 4’s for drainage and on a tray for drips.

3. Take your soaked, shredded newspaper; make sure it comes up to 1” of the top of your bin. Soak it overnight this releases the Chlorine that is in our water, and when it evaporates, it is safe bedding for your worms.

4. Take a very thick piece of cardboard and use this to line the bottom of your bin. Have it conform to your bin’s base and come up two inches on all sides.

5. Put in a little regular soil on top of the newspaper. There is a reason for this. The worms will need this to aide in their digestion, as they have a crop and gizzard. Add some inexpensive birdseed as the very last item on the shredded paper. This will sprout and allow the methane gas the worms can make to exchange for oxygen lower down in your bin.

6. Put in the worms, following the instructions, which came with your bin, if you ordered one. Give them a day or two getting used to the bedding and then start feeding them. You can keep a small container in the freezer for your scraps, if you are worried about fruit flies, a small amount of vinegar in a cup or jar next to the bin will entice the fruit flies to drown themselves

7. The way to go away for 2-3-4 weeks and still come home to a healthy worm population is to freeze their food as you did in #6 and bury it in one end of the bin, using a thin layer of soil to cover the food, or have a neighbor get involved.

8. The waste that you no longer need the garbage disposal for, this is now worm food. When it thaws in the bin, it will give the worms all the moisture they will require, unless you live in a VERY HOT CLIMATE, and if you do and feel the worms need water, put some in a container over night, to release the chlorine and add water sparingly. THEY ONLY NEED ENOUGH MOISTURE TO SLIDE BY EACH OTHER TO REPRODUCE. You should always see sheen on the underside of the bin’s lid. This condensation tells you the bin has between 55% to 75% moisture, what they need to do their best work for you.

9. The red wigglers that you have purchased, or been given are top feeders, meaning that in the wild they do their feeding along the top of the soil. They do this at night, as they are nocturnal. You will notice when you uncover them to feed, they will try to dive for cover, avoiding light. In fact, sunlight will take away their body moisture and they will die in a very short period, 2 to 10 minutes depending on the intensity of the sun. This is because they breathe through their outer body.

10. Worms need Calcium to reproduce, just as we do. Add it in a number of ways. Keep your egg shells in a brown bag as you use them, and when you have some go over them with a rolling pin, so they are very finely ground. Add a teaspoon or so every couple of weeks. I grind up Tums and give it to them. Mine like the flavored ones!

11. In about 4 months, you will need to think about harvesting your bin. If you do not do this, the worms will foul their environment and eventually die.  Since you have put in the time and effort, it will best to harvest them at 6 months at the very latest.  The castings are a safe nontoxic, nutrient rich, time-release fertilizer. You can use this as a potting soil: nine parts soil to one-part castings. If you want a wonderful liquid fertilizer, put 1-cup castings to 1 gallon of water tied up in an old pillowcase; soak overnight or a few days and use as you would a commercial brand. Agitate it and use within 24 to 48 hours.

12. a) To harvest: take an old tarp or sheet and put it on the ground. Dump the bin contents on this, making 4 to 5 cone shaped stacks. Clean the bin, having done the newspaper the night before and reline with the cloth, then add the newspaper, wringing it out. About every 20 minutes or so take the top 2” off your stacks and put into a pail. You can use any flat-sided stick to level off the top, getting the castings into your pail. Find other garden things to do in between your 20-minute scrapings. When you are down to the bottom 2” it will be all worms! As worms reproduce about every 45 to 60 days and can hatch 2-20 babies you will have quite a harvest of worms! You will want to put about 2 lbs of worms back into the bin to start over. With the rest of the worms, you have options: you can have a friend primed and ready to get started (have them bring over their bin on harvest day).  This is a wonderful gift for everyone and lets them see first hand how they can also affect our waste problem and have a great source of soil amendment/fertilizer, or you can start a second bin, or let the worms go in your garden. Try to do this let it be at night, into a pre-watered area. You may want to weigh your castings and see what you and your worms have done. You may also want to weigh the worms and keep a journal of your worm binning! Either way, you will enjoy the fact of very little effort you gave, to get back all of this.

12. b) Passive migration is the technique I use here with all, but two of the bins, I raise worms in and it has proven, over the years, to be the most effective for me.

I start with a new bin or one, which is in need of harvesting. If it is a bin, which I will be harvesting, I move all the bedding and the worms to one end of the bin. This means I have one end open with nothing in it. After two weeks or less, I put the organic wastes from the kitchen into the empty end and add new fresh bedding that I have soaked for at least a week into the other end. Then I add, over the top of the bedding, a light sprinkling of birdseed to keep the bin healthy. After two weeks, the worms will move out of the old bedding, which are almost entirely worm castings. I can simply scoop out the castings and use them right way in the garden, make worm tea to using it in no more than 24 to 48 hours, or cure the casts for 2 weeks or a month. Curing allows all the worms left in the casts to eat all the remaining bedding. If I place a rind, of any kind on the top, all the worms in the covered pail will come to the top to feed and when the peel is just a skin-like thin sheet, I will scoop the worms out and place them back into a bin. Them I will use those casts in the garden here at home.

13. The worms digest organic matter & excrete it in the form of castings, or vermicompost. The black granular, humus rich material is useful in your soil. The castings are 1.5 – 2.2% nitrogen, 1-8 – 2.2% phosphorus and 1.0 – 1.5% Potassium, this can vary with the worm’s diet. The castings continue to release nutrients into the soil for up to 5 years. This is a low cost alternative to chemical fertilizers, which you will use in your garden. Vermicompost sells for up to twice as much as regular compost and has a good reputation with growers. By adding worms to your compost efforts, you are increasing your soil plant health.

JUST THINK YOU MAY NEVER AGAIN USE YOUR GARBAGE DISPOSAL! YOU WILL SAVE ALL THAT WATER THAT WOULD HAVE GONE DOWN

YOUR DRAIN! YOUR ELECTRIC BILL WILL BE LOWER. YOU WILL NOT HAVE TO USE COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS! IN ADDITION, YOUR

INITIAL COSTS WILL BE RETURNED TO YOU FOR AT LEAST FIVE YEARS TO COME! MOREOVER, YOU HAVE GIVEN A 

POUND OF WORMS A VERY HAPPY HOME. THE ENVIRONMENT IS A BETTER WORLD FOR WHAT YOU HAVE DONE. YOU HAVE DONE A VERY GOOD JOB, WELL DONE!

Almost all are adult, breeding red worms in size.

Enjoy your worms. They have much to teach us.

~Shel

Passive migration is the technique I use here with all, but two of the bins, I raise worms in and it has proven, over the years, to be the most effective for me.

I start with a new bin or one which needs to be harvested. If it is one, which I will be harvesting, I move all the bedding and the worms to one end of the bin. This means I have one end open with nothing in it. After two weeks or less, I put the organic wastes from the kitchen into the empty end and add new fresh bedding that I have soaked for at least a week into the other end. Then I add, over the top of the bedding, a light sprinkling of bird seed to keep the bin healthy. After two weeks the worms will move out of the old bedding, which is almost entirely worm castings. I can simply scoop out the castings and use them right way in the garden, make worm tea to be used in 24 to 48 hours, or cure the casts for 2 weeks or a month. Curing allows all the worms left in the casts to eat all the the remaining bedding. If I place a rind, of any kind on the top, all the worms in the covered pail will come to the top to feed and when the peel is just a skin-like thin sheet, I will scoop the worms out and place them back into a bin. Them I will use those casts in the garden here at home.

I will add a photo here to show you just what Passive Migration looks like.

I hope this helps you and your worm bin efforts.
Enjoy your worms!
~Shel

You can see the bedding on the right side and the casts I will lift out and use, as mentioned in this post.

Plums and Apricots from my mini orchard.

Due to the unseasonably mild weather in the fall, and for most of the winter, the red worms have been very busy here making more worms!

I am offering the worms for sale at $15.00/lb and the second pound for $10.00 to the same buyer. This is a considerable decrease in the cost of the worms, which as generally $25.00/lb. This price adjustment will be in effect until the end of Earth Month, which is April.

For 24 years, I have been raising and selling worms to the local home gardeners.  The gardeners wanted to improve their soil to aid in their plants health. Whether it was for flowers, vegetables or to reduce the organic waste stream, they have let worms eat their organic waste. In doing so they have, saved tons of waste, which other wise would be in our landfills. The by-product is the castings, which are so valuable to amend their soil.

The castings contain rich microbiologic life, which when placed around the plants drip line, are watered in go to the plants root zone. The roots take up the nutrients of castings and thrive. The castings help ward off diseases, such as white fly and aphids. The castings also nourish the plants feeding them their requirements necessary to thrive.

In the soil of a vegetable garden bed, the ratio of castings to garden soil is best at 9:1. This means one-part castings to nine parts bed soil.

If you are going to directing sow seeds into your vegetable bed, you accomplish this with one inch of casts at the base of your furrow, covered with one half inch of soil. Cover the seeds as directed on your packet to equal the best result for a fast germination of your seeds.

To begin with a new shrub planting, such as a rose bush, dig the hole as directed on the bag. Add two handfuls of mulch or regular compost at the base and fill with water. Once the water has been absorbed toss in one to two cups of castings and re-water. Plant your new bush and watch it thrive!

For established planting use the drip line of them. Circle the drip line with two inches of castings and water them in well. Cover the casts with mulch, so it will be easy for you to know when you last placed the casts. This will ensure bountiful crops on your fruit trees and very few, if any pests. I use this system in the spring, when the trees in the mini-orchard as just coming into bud. I repeat this once the fruit has set. Mid summer, I will repeat the process to guarantee the plants over-wintering health.

I have total turf reduction here at home. However, should you still have grass or a lawn area broadcasting the casts, once they are workable, by the handful over your grassy areas will give you a vibrant green lawn. Be sure to water them in well for the best results.

I hope you are all enjoying your worm bins!

If you know of anyone, a friend, neighbor or co-worker please let him or her know about your gardening successes with the help of your worm bin and the uses of the castings.

Enjoy your worms, as they have much to teach us all.

~Shel

One of the reasons to begin a worm bin now is that we will all have loads of organic wastes to give the worms.  Think of the pumpkins that abound now.  Those rinds are the type of food the worms love.  They can directly eat the fleshy parts of them.  Instant worm food!

On my travels around town from now, until the end of the month, I will carry a pair of gardening gloves, a trowel and a large pail.  It happens every year that some mischievous elves will take pumpkins from front steps and toss them onto the streets.  I am at the ready.  I safely park the car and gather up my tools to scrape off all I can, from the streets for the worms.  I know anyone going by will wonder what on earth I am doing.  But, if they take a look at my car and see the Vermicoast signs, they will certainly know my reasons.

Fall is also a time to be thankful for all that we do have in our lives.  I am thankful and grateful for all the wonderful people I meet, who come to buy their worms from me.  We have a chance to chat about their new adventure into the worm bin world.  I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to them, answer any questions and let them know that I am always here to help with any questions or concerns they might have concerning their newly purchased worms.  Once the conversation has begun, it can go on as long as there is a question.  I make sure they know to call or email me if they have something I can help answer for them about their bin.

I hope you all enjoy this wonderful time of year.  I bet you have those Fall gardens all planted and be ready for bountiful crops.  All this is possible because of the worm castings you are adding to your soil.

Have safe and peaceful Holidays.  I will be thinking of you and your worms.

~Shel

Despite the fact I shall be away my housemate, Ken will be able to fill the orders you will have for Vermicoast.

Here is what you will find at Vermicoast once you have placed your order (or even if you have not had the time to do so):

The 1 lb of worms comes with 1 lb of their own bedding, to ease their transition into your bin.

The worms, which are already bagged up and ready for pick up are on the front porch, up the winding pathway and a few steps.  The holding bin is on your left as you face the front door.  Lift the lid on their holding bin and take the bag with your name on a post-it note.   Any bag without a name on it is for sale. Above that bin is a rack with small brown envelopes.  They are for your payment.  Once you have payment in it, there is a wooden box to the right of the rack, with a slot in it and you drop the envelope in there. Please call ahead a day before you want to pick them up.

If you have not called ahead before you arrive, please follow the same guidelines above and write your name on your envelope, as there are pens for your use.

The goal here is never have anyone arrive and not have worms for their bin when they go home!

I suggest that you place your worms in your bin on the day pick them up for the best results.  If not, put them on the floor of your garage, with both bags tops wide open to the air and transfer them into your new bin the next day.

Please make sure the top of both bags are wide open!  This way the worms can breathe!

The worms are available 7 days a week.  Pick up of your order at Vermicoast is during the hours of 9am to 6pm.  The seller is also the author of a best selling book on worm bin use: Recycle with Earthworms and its companion DVD, 53 minutes long, Recycle with Earthworms.  Ongoing online support will always available to help you. See web site for links to seller and other valuable informational links on waste reduction: www.vermicoast.com. Please call after 9am and before 5pm.

Please  leave a message on the house phone and Ken will return your calls and fill your worm needs.  All calls will be returned within 24 hours.  Call 760.434.4223 and leave a message.

The address is 1387 Basswood Avenue, Carlsbad, CA 92008

Please  leave a message on the house phone and Ken will return your calls and fill your worm needs.

I hope you are all able to take a holiday this year.   It is great to get away!   It is also wonderful to come back refreshed and renewed.   I know the worms will miss me, but not all that much.  I will also need to tend them once I am home again.

I will be back here to post again, once I am home.  I hope you have a good month.

~Shel

Unless your bin has lots and I mean lots of soaked, damp, shredded and wrung out bedding paper, the worms will suffer.  What happens when they do not?   They have no where to escape to like we do, to the beach, pool or a cool shower.  They become sluggish and do not do their best work for you.  Your organic food wastes will linger for too long and your bin may become anaerobic, meaning without enough air.  It will start to smell.  This is not a healthy situation for the worms.  If it is anaerobic try freezing the waste in plastic freezer containers and bury them into the bin once you have added enough of the bedding paper to make the worms comfortable.  This will melt slowly, adding moisture to the bin.  Freezing also hastens the breakdown of the waste, meaning the worms will consume it faster.

To fix this make sure you always have that shredded and soaking paper on hand.  Do check your worms at least every other day.  This way you can monitor the worms and the bins health.  Add lots of that paper if you feel, when you place you gloved hand into the bedding, it is too warm or there is not enough to insulate them against the heat.

I hope you have taken my advice on sprinkling that inexpensive birdseed over the top of the bedding.   It will send down roots and make for a good exchange of CO2 for O2  keeping your worms and bin healthy.   Cut it off when it is too tall for your cover.  Either place the cuttings into your bin, or if there are too many and they will heat up the bin, just put them into your regular compost bin.

All of this post is about the heat wave and how to stave off bin problems during one.  The other item to mention here, because I do receive many emails and calls about it is the creatures of the bin.  They supposed to be there.  The first, second and third degree de-composers are many and varied.  From the ones you can see like pill bugs, rolly pollys to the microscopic one you  will not see, to the molds and fungi which, will take the form of flashes of color around the inner sides of the bin.  They can be red, green, yellow and red.  We have to keep in mind that some of the goals of the worm bin is, yes to produce castings for your garden’s health, also reduce your food waste going to the landfills, but to have the helpers in your bin reduce the size of the food waste down to the worms microscopic mouth.

I hope this helps you and your worms enjoy a longer and hotter summer!

~Shel

I will look forward to seeing you at the fair.  Between now and then I am using all my energies to get all the bins here in shape for the amount of time I will need to devote to the fair.  I will also be harvesting more of the bins for the sale of the worms, which always happens after or during the fair!

I look forward to hearing from you, either here or via email with your questions or concerns about your bin or worms.

Enjoy your worms.

I look forward to seeing  you at the Fair.

~Shel

I would like to let you know that I will be speaking and presenting at two venues, which you may have the chance to attend.

I will be in Oceanside on April 28th for their Green Week,  just south of the pier  and at the band shell area.  This will be from 9am to 4pm.  I will have a show and tell worm bin, handouts, books and my DVD with me.  Look for my velvet worm and you will find me.

I will also he at the San Diego County Fair again this year on the Flower and Garden Stage.  The dates for that are Saturday, June 23 at 11.30 am and July 1st at 11.30am. I look forward the fair every year, meeting all the people who are there and answering their questions, which are amazingly varied!

Earth Month has been a busy time for me here at Vermicoast.  If I have not been back to you on your comments here please bear with me.  I know I will have time once the Fair is over and done.  If it is a pressing matter about your bin, you can always call me or email from the site and I will help out.

We are entering the peak breeding season for your red worms and mine.  I know this because it happens every year from May through September.  Some years when we have a warmish spell in April this event happens even sooner!  As I have been harvesting large orders of 20 lbs of worms, or more,  I have noted all the hatchlings.  There have been so many at times when,  I have had to be very careful to just take the adults and leave those tender new and fragile worms alone.  We all need to be very aware of just how fragile they are and the fact they are your next generation of worms for your bin.  Do take care of them and wear your gloves while working in the bin!

Enjoy your worms!

~Shel

This bin has a potato growing in it to provide oxygen at the base of the bin..

Q. Why is the paper bedding so important to the worm’s bin ?

I will be leaving on the 22nd and back late on the 27th.  I will leave 6lbs of worms ( bagged up in 1lb bags each)  in the bin by the front door on your left as you face it, before I go.

The house sitter will be in and out daily, but not taking phone orders.

For those of you who have been here before you know how to leave your payment.

To you who have not been here, it is simple.

Above the bin, which is on the left side of the front door as you face it are the worms, bagged up and ready to go.   Each of the bags has a lb of worms and a lb of their own bedding in it.   Above them are small brown envelopes.  That is what your payment goes into.  There is wooden box to the right of that with a slot for the envelope.   Just drop it in there.
Welcome to my world: the world of organic waste reduction through the team effort of red wiggler worms and YOU! Keeping worms is simple. I have clients in second grade, who do this for their science projects and then take it home and introduce it to their parents, grandparents and friends. What better use of our organic wastes, than to amend the soil that feeds us?  Either with either flowers, to feast the eyes and spirit or crops from your vegetable garden?  Worm binning will work for you as it has for countless others.  After 23 years of raising worms, I can say this: I was green when green was just a color!

I hope this helps you with your holiday shopping and that you all have a safe and wonderful holiday season.

I will see you back here in the New Year!

~Shel