Four Worm Update – 02-16-10

Julie
#1. February 17th, 2010, at 12:09 AM.

I really enjoy reading your articles and love to follow up on your many projects.

I’m totally brand new to worm composting (1 month since I started my own bin!), but since I had a lot of food waste to go through (too much for 1 bin) and since I was inspired by your many articles, I decided to start a second bin with a few worms, just like you did.

And I just came to the same conclusion about bin size. It’s just too big, and all I do is displace all the litter and I’m not sure I am finding all the worms, or seeing them twice. Also, I’m still very unsure about the environment conditions, if it’s too wet, too dry, too cold or hot, too little food, etc… I am sure something else could impede the progress of my own experiment.

So, I started a 2L ice cream bucket mini-composting with a few worms. This might be the opposite and way too small, but at least not as difficult to see the worm population’s progress. I just hope I don’t kill them in that tiny environment, or bother them too much by looking in on them often.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue following your experiments , I enjoy the clarity and simple explanations and the pictures always help.
Thanks for all the info.

Julie
#3. February 24th, 2010, at 9:38 PM.

Thanks for the response.

I did start that ice cream container, and the worms seem right at home. Now that they are in there, it seems a bit small I doubt they’ll grow much, but they do seem happy. They are staying right at the top in the first inch of bedding and feeding pretty hungrily on a small amount of food. It’s still early so things could still go wrong at some point or other. I’m still keeping the rubbermaid bin to see if it’ll still grow as well.

David
#4. March 18th, 2010, at 2:28 AM.

I new to this and I have large bin which I start about 10 days ago with composting materials and just go my worms today and placed them in the bin. I want to know if when I see condensation on the inside of the lid is that a sign of something I need to deal with or is that normal?

Thanks,
David

Julie
#6. March 22nd, 2010, at 1:22 AM.

Hi David,

I’m just a beginner like yourself, I don’t have much experience. I don’t really know if condensation is good or bad, or indicative or something, but I just thought I’d share what I have seen since I started my bin just 3 months ago, until someone else with more knowledge can answer you.

I don’t know what your “large bin” is, and how much condensation you have, or what the content of your bin is – what kind of bedding , paper or cardboard or leaves… My own bin is a rubbermaid container (plastic storing box from a large store) in which I drilled lots of small holes on the sides and in the lid itself, and filled with shredded newspaper, with a layer of whole newspaper on top as a “cover”.

I did notice a little bit (very fine) misty condensation under the lid of my composting bin on some days. I opened it up every day, to look into it, I suppose it helped with air flow. It didn’t seem to be too much condensation so I didn’t worry about it. Also, my newspaper bedding was always staying kind of dry on the top, so I added water frequently, and so I knew it wasn’t too humid in the bin.

My worms have done well since then, so the very small amount of condensation has not been a problem for me. I just assumed it was something due to it being a cheap plastic container after all I did check inside the bin almost every day to see how it was progressing , so I haven’t had a big problem, yet.

Julie
#7. March 22nd, 2010, at 1:31 AM.

hehe, someone with more knowledge did beat me by a few minutes with the answer