Comments on: Worm Factory 360 – My New Toy

By: Zeldar

Zeldar — Sun, 08 Dec 2013 18:57:01 +0000

I have had my WF 360 for over 4 years now and have never had a die-off. Here what I do:

I dump all of my fruit and vegetable waste, along with some coffee grounds and filters, into a large stainless bucket with a charcoal filter vented lid. Sometimes it takes many weeks for it to fill up due to the decomposition that occurs in the pail. Once it gets full, it’s usually a pretty gooey mess. I drain most of the liquid out in the back yard and dump the material into the WF 360. I usually alternate between halves of the top tray for how I distribute it in the WF. I then flatten it out and cover up the material with about an inch of shredded newspaper from my office cross-cut shredder. Note: Once I started using the shredded newspaper (instead of moistened sheets of newspaper, which is what the instructions say), my fruit fly problems ended. The only nuisances I have now are an occasional slug and some fungus on and off (mostly not a problem). I don’t add any water to keep the trays moist, they are just naturally about right. I think the coffee grounds help the moisture level. I don’t get a whole lot of worm tea, especially in summer, but when I do my plants love it. The WF 360 is in the storage space under our house (in northern CA) where the temperature ranges from 42 degrees in the coldest days of winter to 75 degrees in the hottest days of summer. Humidity is fairly high under there, which also probably helps. It is generally dark under there, but the worms do not try to leave. They seem very happy in their home. The only problem I have had is when I want to distribute the castings from the bottom bin, there are still worms in there. Even if the tray has been under other trays for months, some of the worms still hang out down there. Not a big problem. I take out what worms I can and put them into the top tray. The rest find their way into the planting beds. There is one other notable difference in how I operate the WF 360, I use a square of landscape fabric in the bottom of the bottom tray to prevent the soil from falling out of the bottom tray into the tea reservoir. This means that when I rotate trays, I have to turn the remaining trays upside down and move the landscape fabric into the bottom of the new bottom tray. The worms may find this somewhat disorienting, but it doesn’t seem to pose any problem. I have done it many times and everything is still working like a Swiss clock. Well, that’s my two cents.

By: Rocco

Rocco — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 22:34:31 +0000

I’ve had my Worm Factory 360 for about 6 – 7 weeks. At first I set it up all wrong with lots of coarse newspaper and not enough real bedding. As you can imagine the worms hated it and tried to leave in droves. I corrected the problem by using all the coir that was provided vs. half (recommended) and finely shredded newspaper – I used my paper shredder! that solved things. They have settled down and now My worms are migrating up, but still occupy all trays. I am recently getting a lot of “worm tea” and the lower trays seem rather wet all the time. I added more shredded paper and this seems to help. I keep the WF in the garage so the fruit flys dont bother me too much. But come winter, when I have to move them inside, I may have to try the freezing trick for scraps that so many of you refer to. Stay tuned – this is an interesting adventure.

By: Christopher Fausz

Christopher Fausz — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 04:22:07 +0000

Is it a good idea to purchase a moisture meter to tell me what moisture content is and would a ph meter be a good thing to purchase also

By: Christopher Fausz

Christopher Fausz — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 04:09:29 +0000

ok melody I tryed put tray in top of other tray with shredded paper and they still where trying to climb out of the bin so I took the bin off and put dry paper in the first bin where the worms actually are. like i said a good majority of the worms are staying in the bin. from what I have read is that worms are very restless for the first 1 to 2 weeks and that when they get use to there enviroment they will be fine. just trying to tell my wife to be patient because she is starting to hate stepping on worms

By: Melody Silverberg

Melody Silverberg — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 21:12:59 +0000

In my experience, worms like a lot of cover to hide in. If things are too thin around them, they go looking for another place to hide. I have a small business, and all my plain paper is shredded for use in the bin. I even keep one tray on top with nothing in it but shredded paper, that way the lid can be off to improve circulation. I had great success with my worms from Uncle Jim’s, but time of year and temperature can really impact the condition your worms are in when they arrive. A few months after starting my bin, I was able to give worms to some friends who wanted to start composting with worms. I continue to get very good results from my Worm Factory system, and now that I am keeping it a little drier through use of more paper, the fungus gnat problem has disappeared. I would suggest you limit the really acidic foods in your system until you build up enough volume to help neutralize the acids. I don’t feed them citrus at all, and limit the tomatoes, too.

By: Christopher Fausz

Christopher Fausz — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:22:17 +0000

I recently purchased a worm factory 360 and iam not for sure if i like it or not yet since im new to the world of composting. My wife says iam a tree hugger oh well between recycling and composting iam hoping to eliminate if not to at least reduce my overall trash that I place by the curb every week. as far as my com poster goes I tried ordering worms from uncle jim,s worm farm via internet and it was not a pleasant experience the worms had a extremely foul odor so i got rid of them and found a worm breeder locally and purchased a 1 1/2 pound of red wigglers. the problem iam having is the worms are trying to climb out of the bin until I take the lid off then they try to burrow again can anyone tell me how long do they try to escape so far I checked temp and its 70 degrees as far as food so far I have gave them one tomato cut up small, shredded newspaper, dryer lint , a little bit of corn meal and piece of card board which is laying on top of compost pile

By: Mary Phillips

Mary Phillips — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 03:27:55 +0000

This is a great page! Just got my new worm factory 360 up and running a couple of days before Christmas with 1000 worms. They seem very tiny and don’t eat half of what they should. I am buildng up quite an over suppy of food for them.
I keep them in my bedroom but found in order to keep the temprature down to even 70 F I need to keep the room door closed and the window open a crack. (16 F outside) In the summer I will have to keep them in the cold room in the basement to keep them cool enough. I found a couple of worms climbing up the sides today. Hope they don’t escape!
I like to process the food before feeding. It says on the instructions to feed them about 1/2 lb of food per day but was wondering if I could feed them less often til the worms reproduce more.
The only minor problem I have is that the top layer of damp newspaper stinks. (The worms don’t seem to mind)
I am so excited to be able to actually watch them and see how things develop over the next few months.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:38:50 +0000

Yep, that’s exactly what I prescribed, as this happened to me with my first worm composting experiments… you taught me well!

By: Bentley

Bentley — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:11:16 +0000

Hi Tyler – that’s cool.
I haven’t been getting much liquid down in the reservoir yet, to be totally honest – so certainly no spigot issues at this time.
Sounds like your friend might want to start adding more dry, absorbent bedding materials, and perhaps hold off on feeding for a little while.

By: tyler

tyler — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:49:44 +0000

yoyoyo bentley,

i was out at a friend’s house a few days ago and he wanted me to take a look at his worm system… it was indeed a 360.

Dude, I was pretty surprised. Mainly because there were flies everywhere, leachate all over the floor all around it, but every one of those trays had some killer castings in it. I definitely noticed the worms bucked the trend and just ate stuff from whatever tray and seemed to jump around…but nonetheless the system was productive, and he had it since springtime.

Have you noticed the spigot clogging up yet? That was my friend’s major concern…and the flies.