Way to go Steve. I love to hear about experiments. I plan to try a kelp and cardboard bin soon. I'll establish the herd a little and then force feed kelp and maybe some UCG for grit - eat or die!

UCG is not grit its greens. I know it looks like grit or finished compost but it is still a green. You will still need your carbon browns.

any updates on this experiment?

i have a small indoor bin (a bit larger than shoe box, not more than 100 worms thrown in) set up just before winter that is probably 90% UGC and tea bags. cardboard & paper bedding, some veg scraps put in at most once a week. i've been purposely neglecting it, but checked the other day and saw a LOT of coccoons, and the worms seem fine.

I got a bunch of UCG from Starbucks. Having had success with UCG before, I put a BUNCH in my 2 bins. 2 weeks later, the worms are still avoiding the UCG and the side of the bin where I fed the UCG is covered in fungus. I am hoping that the fungus will break down the UCG and the worms will finally move in.

I checked on the remaining UCG, which I left on the deck where the winter weather is acting as a natural refrigerant. It is starting to grow fungus as well.

well, i'm not exactly sure how much of the UCG my worms are getting to given that i find it hard to differentiate finished vc from the UCG. if they are going through it, it might be due to the fact that some rotting veg matter is interspersed throughout the UCG. lots of mites in my bin also.

Hi all, just a 2 month update. Worms are doing fine. It was slow going at first. The coffee grounds are slow to decay in that environment. I had put some pretty thick on my garden soil, under some leaves, and those were molding and breaking down pretty fast. Attracting worms too. I guess a combination of the earth underneath and the leaves above made them start to mold and decay faster than they do in the bin situation. The worms are pooping good in the bin though and everything is going well. It's just slower than I thought it would be. I have seen cocoons in there but I really won't be able to tell you much about reproduction until I really get in there and dig around next month. I have just recently started to add the coffee filters to the mix. It just seems so much easier than putting the grounds in and then saving the filter in the other worm food. Well that is about it for now. Is this going to be a success? I think so, but it is slower going than I thought it would be. steve

stevesd: how do you differentiate VC from UGC in your bin? just by how granulated it looks?