Hi Charlie,
There's a vermicomposting forum here at GardenWeb. You're best bet is to post there.

Hi Charlie,
About 10 years ago I started 2 compost bins that were basically big totes with some small patches of screening in the bottom to allow any liquid to drain out. I tried one with a pound of red wigglers and one with a pound of Africand nightcrawlers. Both reproduced, although the red wigglers reproduced faster.

I kept these in my unheated basement so colder than the African Nightcrawlers would like and they definitely slowed down their composting/reproducing over the winter. The red wigglers slowed down as well, but not as much.

They made great compost and took care of most of our kitchen scraps. We did not add a ton of other stuff like lawn clippings, etc., but if I had more bins that would have probably helped increase the production of compost. I didn't have any of those expensive worm composting setups since that seemed crazy to spend all that money just to get some compost... but maybe they are worth the investment. The bins seemed to work fine and I started them out with shredded newspapers and a little dirt from my backyard. That mixture was soaked and I immediately tossed in a few banana peels which I had heard were among their favorites. I kept a layer of wet newspapers (for example the Washingtpost Metro section or classifieds) on top to keep them somewhat contained. I had heard the African Nightcrawlers can wander off, but between the paper on top plus putting the cover on the bin (with some screening glued over a few holes) seemed to keep them content to "stay home."

Besides bananas, watermelon rinds were also a big success, but they basically consumed most everything once it had rotted for a while. I also dropped my coffee grinds with some water into the blender with egg shells whenever I had eggs and just poured that in under the top later of wet newspaper. Whenever I had something to add I just stuffed it in under the newspaper, moving each "deposit" a little further around the circumference so the worms could basically run laps around the bin as the ate the more decomposed content.

Over time I grew a bit tired of it and hadn't really expanded the number of tubs which I should have done if I wanted more compost. I had chosen the African Nightcrawlers to possibly use for fishing since they are bigger, but I should probably have just focused on the composting side since I think the red wigglers or ensenias are more efficient. At the time I was very busy with other stuff and not as much into gardening, so I eventually dumped the worms in my compost bin since I had lost interest.

Right now I'm thinking of starting again with 2 tubs of either red wigglers or possibly the compost mix from www.bestbuyworms.com which is where I originally got the worms all those years ago. But because of shipping it isn't very cost effective to just buy a pound of worms, so if you are interested in ordering let me know and perhaps we can put in an order and share the cost. I'm in Arlington, VA.

Best,

Walter - Sounds like a plan, I am in Fairfax. I have some questions, 1) How did you harvest the compost? I have seen bins/setups that I have not yet understoodhow they work where there are 3 levels of bins, top one for the bedding and food, 2nd one for compost and third one for worm tea. 2) Did you use the "worm tea" or drainage for your plants and is so was there a significant amount? By the way I saw a source on the internet in Virginia which sells a pound of red wrigglers for $9.95. Most are around $30.

1) When I harvested (only a couple of times since it does take a while to make enough to be worth harvesting), I would usually stop feeding the one bin I was planning to harvest for about a week and just feed the other bin. After a week I would loosely sift through the bin with my hands (fingers spread) and put anything "chunky" toward the side I was going to keep feeding and leave most of the the castings on the side I intended to harvest.

Then, for a week, I would just feed at the one side I wasn't going to harvest, making sure to include some banana peels since they seemed to really like these. After about a week of not feeding the one side, the other side with most of the castings was pretty much worm-free so I just scooped it out and used it. By spreading the harvest process out over a couple weeks you have the benefit of having some of the worm eggs in the castings still having time to hatch and the baby worms make it to the other side. If you just sift a bin instead, you not only risk harming the worms but also create the possibility of loosing all of the unhatched eggs since they'll just sift in with the castings.

It wasn't perfect, but seemed to work pretty well.

2) I was surprised that I didn't have any significant amount of liquid ever leak out through the mesh sections I had on the bottom of the bin and the material in the bins never seemed overly moist. But that may have been since we were eating out or eating quick, per-prepared meals then and not doing as much real cooking so didn't have tons of kitchen scraps. Either way, I didn't really have much in the way of tea to consider using. I could have made some from the castings, but chose to just add them to the small raised beds I had.

Again, there are probably better ways, but I just did it as a simple process so I wasn't wasting kitchen scraps and was getting something good for the garden. I think I'll probably keep it simple this time around as well. But maybe I'll go to 3 or 4 bins since I'm on more of a veg and fruit diet these days and should be able to keep more worms fat and happy.

Here's how I made my worm composter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlGdGHq_cs8

Hope that's helpful.