So the point of my rant’s: thanks to this site I learned how and what to do and that itself I say saved my life. I stop using chemical fertilizers and eating my own super grown produce. Happy to say I have been in remission for two years, when I was told I only had months. I started bodybuilding, finished my degree and looking at medical schools. By the way I was able to do this in a one bedroom apartment with the tiniest property. I grow my vegetable in a 6X6 raised garden and only use my self made soil.

Last thing, the way I control the tempature in the summer. I soak the compost and turn it with a shovel. In the winter I add a compost bacteria from the home depot and add only a fraction of what it suggest and use grass clippings on top. So the decomposing creates heat that keeps the compost warm, but not over 88 degrees.

Once again thank you.

I ordered my first batch of e. hortensis worms, and they did well in a “large” plastic tote (they could get 18″ of bedding easily) with a few holes drilled at the bottom for drainage. Their color was (and still is) a rather pale color, something akin to my own very pale skin color, with a distinct red stripe down their backs. I kept them in the shed attached to my house (it’s unheated. and faces south), but their bedding was/is raked-up fall leaves that I double-bag and store under my deck (they LOVE the acorns–it’s adorable to see little worm butts sticking out of acorns as they chow down the inside of it!). As I have gotten more educated about worms, I noticed that the worms my supplier said were hortensis are actually much lighter in color than redworms (more on that later). They are certainly larger than redworms. When it was time to sell them at the spring farmer’s market and I didn’t have enough worms, I made a mistake and didn’t buy from the same supplier, and got e. fetidas instead of e. hortensis. I made some calls to people who had been kind to a beginner, and despite my description of the two kinds of worms, I was told that my ORIGINAL ones were actually fetidas, and they could be put together without any problems, since the people I spoke to said they were the same kind of worm.

It’s been two years now since that mix-up and my lack of knowlege about worms, and I have made some interesting observations. The first year, the smaller, darker worms seemed to take over my tubs (I have 5 now–three in the shed, and two outdoors in a shady area; the outdoor tubs do not have any holes drilled in the bottom, and I don’t do much more than throw food scraps and bedding in the tubs). During the hot summer in the southeast, ALL of the worms seemed to die off. I thought that I was done with worms when fall was in full force, but much to my surprise, I had a SLEW of the pale worms in all of my tubs, and they seem to like the corners of the tubs the best (perhaps it’s drier there?). I can’t find many of the smaller redworms at all, yet I have so many of the pale worms, I am giving them away to friends and neighbors, as well as putting them in my yard. My flowers are GORGEOUS and HUGE since I began putting both live worms and castings around the roots; even the area where I throw my black oil sunflower seeds for the birds has dozens of sunflowers sprouts now (I had so many worms, I put them in that area, hoping to get some good potting soil, as well as giving the birds a treat to eat, something that broke my heart to do, but for the good of the whole colony, I had to do SOMETHING and reduce the tub populations). Whatever the species the pale worms are, they seem to dominate my tubs and survive the harsh summers we have, provided I keep them well hydrated (they are the Godzillas of my worm tubs). I contacted the seller of these pale worms, and was told they were e. hortensis. Since the introduction of the fetidas, I noticed that a lot of the worms turned a grey-ish color, and the grey ones are shorter and fatter than the pale worms–this coloring could be from the food they get once in a while (“Moo-nure” from Home Depot), although there always seems to be a fair amount of these very strong and wiggly worms in my tubs. Like many other worm stewards, I feed my worms pieces of corrugated cardboard, and they LOVE it–I often find them inside the corrugations, so I have started calling the cardboard “A feel and a meal” (also, a great slogan to add to “Great Roots Bring Great Fruits”)! I read the info left by Edwards, and it does seem that the cocoons only have 1, and OCCASIONALLY 2, wormlets in them. I contacted the supplier of the pale worms, and he informed me that they were indeed e. hortensis.

Wendy Y. wanted to know about the manure she bought from Home Depot (is it “Moo-nure”?)? If so, it’s mainly mulch with a little bit of cow manure mixed in. My worms seem to like it a lot, and even though there is not much manure in there, they seem to like the dirt in the bottom of the tubs. I get horse manure from a fellow down the street whenever I have the energy to go get it. When my tubs seem to have a lot of worms in them and are filled close to the top with bedding and dirt/castings, I simply divide whatever is in the tubs in half and spread whatever is in the trowel in places that need some help growing. So much for my story on mixing two species of worms together. As a biology lover, watching what happens in my worm tubs has been utterly fascinating. I’m still befuddled about which species of worm I actually have, but I know they eat A LOT. As worms are wont to do, they are always mating, but I have yet to find two dissimilar worms “exchanging fluids” (AKA “having hermaphroditic sex”). If anyone has anything to add to this (the grey color, the change in size of some of the worms, the loss of my redworms (or have I actually lost most of the European Nightcrawlers???), please post a comment.

Love your detailed comment, but just a few questions from me. It sounds like you don’t even use the lids that comes with the tubs from the retail stores you’ve mentioned. Also, what’s the approximate size on the drainage holes you make on the bottom? My last question is my most curious one. How in the world are your worms able to get at acorns? This is a first for me. Please enlighten. I’m loving my relatively new vermiculture hobby. Thanks.

Kevin

I keep my worms in storage tubs that you buy at Target, Wal Mart, Home Depot, etc., and drill 5 or 6 holes in the bottom to let excess moisture out. I raise one corner of the tub with a shim so most of the water comes out of one hole, and I collect that water in small buckets for use on my house plants (I store it in milk cartons or clear juice cartons–recycling/reusing those plastic items saves me money!); it’s essentially liquid castings.

I live in NC, so the weather is temperate during the winter, and I accept that worms will die during the hot summers. Since the tubs I keep my worms in are about 24″ deep, I make sure that they are full during the winter and there is plenty of rotting mattter in them. If I poke around in the tub, I usually find a “worm ball” in the middle of the tub, which is the warmest place. When two worms find each other, mating happens, so by the time spring rolls around, I have too many worms. It is the perfect time of the year to divide the contents of the tub in half (I usually move the top leaves away and just take worms and built-up castings from the bottom), and fertilize my plants.

I rake up tree leaves in the fall and double or triple bag them, and that is their bedding & main food all year long. My neighbor gives me his coffee grinds, and I throw whatever appropriate food scraps into the bins when I have them. I learned that my worms LOVE acorns, melons of all kinds, grits, oatmeal, outdated cornbread mix, outdated bread, the paper from my shredder (not shiny paper, just regular paper) and corrugated cardboard torn into 1″ squares (I call the cardboard “a feel and a meal”, since the smaller worms like to get inside the corrugations. They will eat many other things too, provided it is small enough to decompose quickly. For some reason, my worms HATE potatoes–go figure. . .

Since my “worm room” is a shed attached to my house, I have problems with rats getting in for food and making nests because food is readily available. I bought some heavy-duty metal grating at Home Depot, and my neighbor cut it so each piece is a bit bigger than the top of the tubs on all edges. In the summer, I cover the metal grating with cheesecloth to keep flying insects out, and I ALWAYS place a brick on each of the four corners of the tubs to keep the rats out of them. It doesn’t hurt to put some rat poison in the room, nor to make sure that liquid doesn’t accumulate–rats will driink just about anything, so I keep the “worm tea” buckets empty, except when I’m watching them fill up.

I have also learned that if I keep a compact fluorescent bulb burning all the time (40 watts is fine), the worms stay in their tubs. As long as they have enough loose bedding, packed bedding, and food everywhere they go, they will stay in their tubs. The only time I find worms on the concrete floor is when they “go rogue” and wriggle out through the drainage holes. If you keep the tubs off the ground, they are less likely to escape this way.

One more item, and I’ll stop writing. Wherever you get your “seed” worms from, always buy additional worms from that same supplier. If you don’t, the worms get mixed and it’s virtually impossible to separate them. If you MUST have two different species of worms, keep two sets of tools (one set per species), and never let them touch each other or use the tools for one species in the tub(s) of the other–baby worms and/or cocoons can cling to a trowel or a spade very easily.

I keep a Zip-Lock plastic bag next to my sink at all times so I can just pop food scraps in it for the worms. It’s not worth it to try to wash the bags out after they are full; I’m all for recycling and reusing, but you waste more water cleaning a bag as opposed to throwing it out. If you can rinse it once and it’s clean enough to recycle or reuse, then do that by all means do it, but I find that there is usually so much nasty stuff stuck to the inside that I prefer to start with a clean bag.

I hope my “on-the-job-training” helps somebody else. There is soooo much to learn about worms, and I had to learn most of it on my own. I sincerely hope that this info will help someone else. Do your best, but remember–you can’t save EVERY SINGLE WORM.

Keep up the good work, Bentley!

I do think I have seen cocoons and some of my worms are very fat. I am sure they are multiplying all over the place.

I live in Southern New Mexico and I keep the worms in my garage. I bought a window air conditioner for summer and a floor heater for winter. I am maintaining about a 70-75 degree air temperature for them. I do not use anything but newspaper and food scraps. I have added sand and also corn meal every so often because my earlier readings said those were good for the digestive properties of the worms.

I have innoculated a lot of my house plants with worm castings and possibly cocoons. The house plants are doing much better and I have vowed not to get any more containers, so as the population increases, I put them in the garden, in the yard and under my pecan trees. Everything is going gang busters. I am having fun and my worms seem happy;
Thanks again for all the information.!!
Crystal

On a different topic, your information about worms not liking a certain food and wanting to escape makes so much sense now. My worms seem to LOVE coffee grounds, but it also makes them climb up the sides of the tubs (thank goodness for lids and screens!) to the point where I will find 5 or 6 worms on each handle inside! They are multiplying very well on a diet of leaves and cow manure compost, and they seem to love bananas (not the peels) and instant potato flakes. I wondered why all three bins had the worms trying to “escape” at the same time, and now I know it’s because of the food I put in each and every bin. They do settle down after a few days, regardless of what I feed them. I wonder if the coffee grounds “speed them up” the way coffee affects humans (I don’t drink caffeine, so I know the feeling if some gets slipped my way), and that’s why they want to climb, but I don’t pour water over the grounds and bathe them in it–the seem to BATTLE to come to the surface for that coffee. I still can’t believe how quickly all the worms come up and munch on coffee grounds, then want to climb all over the place. They are like children–you have to watch EVERYTHING you feed them!

I’m interested to learn more about the corrugated cardboard method of housing/feeding them, as it sounds as if it would be easier to collect the castings that way. I seem to have the best luck with keeping my worms happy if I put in crabgrass roots that I pull out of my yard (I cut off the leaves since they don’t like them). They just LOVE to eat the dirt and nestle in the roots. I don’t like the crabgrass in my yard, so we are all happy. I will look for the cocoons the next time I change the bedding. Your advice about keeping them in the same bedding that they are used to is invaluable, but not all worm farmers tell you what kind of bedding to use when you get your new “friends”. Personally, I don’t like using peat, as it takes 500 years to make it. Another worm farmer suggested using shredded coconut shells and leaves, but that isn’t available where I live. Next year, I will make sure I keep my leaves instead of having them hauled away by the city. I do find it difficult to separate the castings from leaves and cow manure compost. Do you have any suggestions (I haven’t read your whole site yet, so I apologize if you have answered this already)? I got a “worm harvester” that makes it MUCH easier to get the worms out, since I have to go through ALL the bedding a little at a time, and it’s almost impossible to miss an adult/growing worm that way, but there were almost zero castings in the bottom of the tub. I have some ideas of how to make something similar, yet easier to use, and I’ll try to get it made at Home Depot (I lack all the tools needed for such work). Are baby redworms tiny pink-ish versions of adult worms? I use a plastic kiddie swimming pool to make the pyramids and I find little “worm-lets” coming to the tops of them. They look like worms, they move like worms, and they have a tiny pink “vein” going down their back. I would think that a worm would not want to come to the top, though, but would attempt to dig deeper into the pyramid, which makes me wonder if these are really worms, or if they are still young and stupid! I had a maggot infestation in one of my tubs because flies could get through the air holes, but some screening taped to the outside of the lids put a stop to that very quickly. I wonder if those little white things are actually maggots, not baby worms, but maggots have a yellow-ish tint to them and a black dot on their mouth, plus they are rounder than these little pinkish things.

I want to look over your website to see if you have a photo of two worms mating. THAT would be a very educational bit of information, especially since the children next door (my helpers) don’t quite understand how a worm can be both male and female. I’m sure they are mating all the time, but when you move the bedding, they are pulled apart. A photo would still be of great usefulness, and I hope you have one. Children have a hard enough time understanding human sexuality, much less worm sexuality!

Thank you so much for helping us newbies–I have been in your position on other issues, and it feels good to help someone else do the right thing for themselves or for another living creature.

Right now I live in Tri-cities WA and I am keeping my bin in the garage. I am concerned about regulating the temperature. We’ve had some chilly nights so the temperature in the garage was at least above 30, but probably too cold for the worms and they were a bit sluggish. I noticed that they “perk up” when the temperature gets warmer. But we really get some hot weather here beginning in May or so. When the temperatures climb to above 90 deg (too hot in the garage), I’ll have to move the bin outside in the shade. Then in the winter, I’m thinking an electric blanket at low temperature to take the chill off. Any other ideas on regulating the temperature without alot of expensive equipment (aside from bringing the bin inside the house)?