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harry757

Your very first worms

harry757
9 years ago

Just curious as to where most of you fellow wormers got your first batch of worms? Did you buy them online, find them in your compost, in a manure pile, or get them from another gardener?
For me, I was just starting to become more interested in the composting aspect of gardening. Got a 2'x2'x4'high plastic composting bin from the city. Set it up in an out-of-the-way spot, criss-crossed some pieces of bamboo across the bottom(really the ground because the bin has no "floor") then started adding yard wastes and even kitchen scraps. After about one year I started to notice lots of worms when I dug around a bit. The more good kichen stuff I added the more worms I got! Started to do a little online research and voila!... I was hooked.(sorry worms). The rest as they say.... is history.
Harry
P.S. I'm always curious to know where you different wormers are from but when I check your "my page" info. it usually just says the U.S. Are you people just shy or what? I thought us Canucks were supposed to be the shy ones. Maybe you think I'm some sort of weird worm groupy! Just a neighbour to your north(or S,E,W).
Later eh,
Harry

Comments (24)

  • nexev - Zone 8b
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I Bought mine from Uncle Jims. First time around got 500 EH/European Nightcrawlers and added the offer of 500 more for an additional $20. They did not go nearly as far as I had hoped as I played Jonny Appleworm with them spreading them in the gardens, lawn and around the trees.

    Right after that I made my second order, this one for 1000 (2x500) plus the additional 1000 for $40 more (2x$20).

    So that was right about $150 for 3000 worms. The worms were well packaged and I have no doubts the count was good on them.

    Second batch went mainly into the worm pile, greenhouse and lawn. This was June of last year so really just getting going here. So far through the winter they seem to be doing fine in the pile. I feed in 5 gallon buckets that have holes in the bottom and are packed to the top in straw from the chicken coop.

    The worms both find their way into the buckets and are through the straw and in the soil of the pile which was our earth tilled compost area where we used to bury scraps and yard waste. Now our scraps go into the buckets along with crumpled wet cardboard and yard waste into above ground compost piles.

    Location, we are in the Sierra Mountains in the eastern middle of California. Our elevation is 3000' above sea level and our environment is sometimes described as Mediterranean though I call it high desert with the predominate vegetation being sagebrush and joshua trees. Soil here is sand for the most part though there is some loam to it but little organic matter, rainfall is somewhere in the low to mid teens of inches.

  • mendopete
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I got my first worms from Paul, owner of the Thanksgiving Coffee Company. What a nice guy! He had a worm bed about 40' x 10' covered with carpet. He also owned a bakery/restaurant and fed the herd with lots of scraps. I heard he would give away worms, so I walked in and asked. Got a nice tour and about 2 gallons of his bedrun, with maybe a pound of wigglers. Volunteer wild worms have also joined in over the years.

    I live on the northern California coast, about 2 miles from the shore and a 4 hour drive north of SF. It is a mild damp climate.

  • PRO
    equinoxequinox
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    harry57,

    "I was hooked." Actually the first time I have heard that in a bunch of years reading vermi posts.

    "Maybe you think I'm some sort of weird worm groupy!" LOL vermicomposting really haaaas become Wicked... Pop - u - lar. While I will admit those of us with way cool vermicomposting abilities can be very attractive people. I'm not quite sure we are at that level of molecular destruction yet.

    "where you different wormers are from" It is interesting how much the inside of the worm bin and the debate around it resembles:
    a dimension "beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone." I am not sure of the planet of some of our most valued posters.

    Beach sand here. Many years ago the public library had a worm talk for children. My children each came home with a cup with maybe seven worms in. These may have dried up or may have made it to the compost pile. The pile probably had the same or similar worms in it. Years later not wanting to spend a whole lot on worms I dug through the pile and harvested a few. These struggled in my cold cellar various home made bin style incantations and possibly mostly died not breeding much if at all. I did harvest a generous quantity and give them away for free to a person who set them free after a few months. !! This had been the bulk of my worm population. This may have been an error. I had figured I could rebuild. I built back up a bit. I sold 100 worms at a fish hobby auction for maybe $14. I did not want to gyp a buyer and knowing 100 worms feels like 10, I counted and put 212 in the container to give the purchaser a good deal. The worms were in some sort of newer comfortable bedding. The container was see through and bidders looking pre auction flipping it over saw 100% alive worm meat. It was winter so everybody wanted live food. (Forgive me chuckieboo2, I knew not what I was doing.) Wanting to feed them up I next experienced string of pearls and learned from that. Better to learn this early before the worm population has built up. These worms may be still in the cellar or perhaps I put them outside and started fresh when I... From Bently's site I purchased a Worm Inn fully convinced it was the cat's meow of bins. I ordered a pound of worms. He has somebody in the US that mails worms to the US. I believe it was a full pound of worms as I was alert to that. I was happy with my purchase results. I would like to think I still have a pound of worms and they have increased in population. There is not a lot of heat in the cellar. Possibly I have less than a pound now. I should at some point harvest everything and weight. I do now see cocoons and babies. I also see breeders. I am well enough happy. Some of my population lives in five gallon buckets. I am not convinced the Worm Inn flows through. Sometimes I get buckets and empty it from the top to see what is going on in there. I like the net that keeps fruit flies in. I open only when there are no fruit flies left. Then I put in more food and bedding.

    I have a five gallon bucket of beautiful vermicompost that has no visible kitchen scraps or bedding. It looks like nice planting material.

    I am concerned there may be seeds that may the second this material sees the light and warmth of the sun will spout. I want to let this happen and then flip the material.

    I also want to use this material to winter plant seeds into milk jugs.

    When child one left for college I replaced with vermicomposting. With child two I have replaced with naturally fermenting vegetables.

    This post was edited by equinoxequinox on Sat, Jan 17, 15 at 16:30

  • groomie2
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I got my first (very small) batch of worms at a bait store vending machine. I put them in a "Can of Worms" where they did very well for many years until one day I put way too many pears in it, and killed them all. Not a very pleasant thing since the COW was in my basement. That took me a very long time to get over, so I packed up the COW and put it away for a very long time. One day I got the urge to start worming again, got the COW out, set it up again, and got a new batch of worms from my compost heap. They are still going strong, and I still keep it in my basement.
    I live in Pennsylvania.

  • sbryce_gw
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Well, there are actually four answers to your question.

    When I was a young teen, maybe 14, I came across a book on how to raise red worms in sewer sludge. An avid fisherman (I think I went maybe once in the previous year, then quit altogether soon after), I was intrigued with the idea of raising my own bait, especially living in the pacific northwest where all one has to do is kick up some of the top soil to find worms. There was a bog near my house, and a box under the deck that had originally been intended to hold a compost pile. Not understanding the difference between sewer sludge and bog soil, I filled the box with bog soil and whatever worms I could find under rocks and other debris in the nearby forest in one afternoon. The worms were supplemented by a gift from a fisherman who found that trout would not bite on the worms he had purchased for bait. I cleaned out the refrigerator weekly and fed the worms, not really noticing that the worms preferred living in the pockets of decaying leftovers than the bog soil. That fall, in an effort to insulate the worms from the winter cold, I raked up all of our leaves and piled them on top of the worm bin. I lost interest in the whole operation about a year later and the consequent neglect led to a bin full of the finest soil that never made its way into the garden.

    Fast forward a LONG way, and I am a homeowner in an area with very heavy clay soil with lots of large trees in the yard. In an effort to grow tomatoes, I started composting everything I could get my hands on, even taking grass clippings from other people's garbage cans the night before trash pickup and loading the back of my station wagon from the city's leaf collection bins in the fall. In an effort to learn more, I went on line and joined a composting forum. They also had a worm composting forum, and I wound up spending more time there than on the conventional composting forum. I made a rather ambitious attempt to create a bin large enough to handle my large family's kitchen waste in hopes that I could produce enough VC to fertilize the entire yard. I learned the hard way why people advise others to start small and learn as you go. My 5 lbs of worms for that failed project came from the Kazarie worm farm via the internet.

    Fast forward again, and I am no longer a home owner, but an apartment dweller who wants to give the worm growing thing another shot. Worms for my homemade RM bin, this time only one pound, again came from Kazarie. The one bin turned into two RM bins and a homemade flow through. I was having trouble keeping the mess down, the fungus gnats under control and the psuedoscorpions from bothering my daughter when she slept over. To avoid trouble with my landlord, I put the worms on Freecycle. I hope they are still happy.

    Fast forward again, and I am again a homeowner, this time in an area with no trees but soil, if one dares call it that, composed of sand, clay and rocks. In an effort to get a jump on next spring's composting, I made another RM bin and bought worms on line from Swan's Organics. I am drooling over the Worm Wigwam, but can't afford it, and seriously doubt that my worms, now estimated at two pounds, will be a large enough herd for a starter population in a bin that large by next spring.

  • barbararose21101
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hooray ! I yam glad sbryce perseveres.
    My Opinion, Never Humble is :

    Use Pete's model !

    Of all the DIY bins I've seen, his looks to me to be the most manageable and most likely to succeed: almost fail safe.
    Open bottom, plenty of air, no pre prep necessary but still possible, and, best of all, neglectable.

    Maybe check Craigslist Free Stuff for Horse Manure.
    IMnhO HM is worth a drive.

  • nexev - Zone 8b
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Barbara, my Daughter connected me with a Wild Horse rescue thats about 15 miles from us. Its a bit of driving but they will load a trailer so only heavy work on my end. They have anywhere from 20 to 60 horses at any given time so they have plenty of manure to get rid of. I am going to start hauling and wont quit as long as I can afford the gas and time.

    I agree with you though all the way, Pete's manure beds are the way to go for large scale processing without the infrastructure of a commercial size flow through system.

  • barbararose21101
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Nexev, my HM source is 15 miles away -- also.

    Has everyone heard the story about the optimist/pessimist twins ?
    I think I posted that here some time ago.

    Apparently Reagan liked this story.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Optimist or Pessimist ?

  • nexev - Zone 8b
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    That was great Barbara, I shared it aloud with the Wife. Unrelated, I have twin Nieces that were born premature, a month apart and in different states.

  • charitycomposter
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I've only been vermicomposting for about 7 months so I'm a newbe. Was looking for a hobby that was very different from my job. Honestly can't remember how I stumbled onto this online but when I did I was hooked. I saw how I could decrease my food waste stream, improve my garden, and possibly generate some money to give away to help people in need. Got my first worms from Uncle Jim online. I doubt it was really a pound (1000 worms) but I didn't count them so who knows.

    Started small with one 10 gallon plastic bin from Walmart and lots of reading and research here and on other wormy websites. Been learning best practices and making my newbe mistakes while small. Harvested first bin and transferred the whole verd to a new bin in hopes of having a much more dense population. About to begin second harvest and will split the verd into two bins. Have plans to eventually increase to 44 bins (what my garage wall will hold) and connect with some local restaurants for their food waste. If I'm able to identify buyers for the vermicompost as I grow from 1 to 44 bins I'll be able to generate lots of $$$ to give more people a hand up.

    I live in Oklahoma (USA).

  • harry757
    Original Author
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Wow!
    Lots of great stories out there! I wasn't expecting such variety. Got the feeling you people enjoyed looking back to your roots(ha ha....roots......I like that one.)
    Keep those stories coming.
    Harry

  • rayzone7
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    My HOA doesnt allow compost piles. To be sneaky, I would put kitchen waste in bottomless rubbermaid totes, and bury it with a bit of soil, layering it to the top. Compost? What compost? That is a container garden. Anyway, I filled a couple this way over the winter and planted tomatoes and such in them when spring rolled around. Come fall, I dumped out the contents. Lo and behold, there was nothing but dark, rich soil teeming with thousands of whatever native species I have. That sparked my interest and I have been playing with EF and Euros ever since.

  • PRO
    equinoxequinox
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    charitycomposter, a pound of worms is about the size of a small grapefruit. Or the same size as a pound of hamburger. Those picking up their worms at the post office can ask the to weight the box for you.

  • hummersteve
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Yes I got my second batch of worms from "Jims Worms" and they were in good shape. The reason I say that is because I cant remember who I ordered my first batch of worms from, but those worms were in bad shape and did not look like anywhere near 1000 worms as expected. 1 lb = about 1000 worms.

  • harry757
    Original Author
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    RayZone, excuse my ignorance here but what does HOA stand for? Most abbreviations I can figure out but that one has me scratching my head.
    Harry

  • rayzone7
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Sorry..homeowners association. Nothing worm related, though they are a bunch of slimy creatures that are often found under rocks

  • harry757
    Original Author
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Rayzone, up here in the Great Frozen North a lot of people refer to the HOA as the "Home-Moaners-Association" because of all the rules forever being put in place. My mother-in-law wasn't even allowed to hang Christmas lights on her deck railing, and she was on the top floor!! I say live and let live! Don't people have anything better to do.....like tend to their worm bins. Maybe then they would be too busy enjoying themselves to worry about what kind of festive lights someone else is putting up for Christmas. Thank goodness I don't have to deal with that stuff!!
    Harry the Happy Worm Dude

  • bassopotamus
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I got a supposedly function set up from somebody who works with my wife, but couldn't confirm that there were more than about 2 worms in it, and they didn't seem to be amorous. I got a Worm Factory and then ordered 2000 red wigglers from Uncle Jim's

  • rayzone7
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Harry--The HOA and I do go 'round and 'round on occasion. Much to their chagrin, I understand contract law and can usually argue until they leave me alone. We live on this suburban postage stamp because the schools are decent. But, my "real" garden is out in the country where no one bothers me. I would say I look forward to the kids being out of school, so we can build out in the country but I know that day will come far too quickly. Until then, I enjoy my kids, enjoy my weekend farm, and endure the dreaded HOA.

  • Priswell
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I had been reading a lot of books about raising earthworms, mostly as a business. I wasn't sure I wanted the business part, but it occurred to me that keeping worms for composting might not be a bad idea. I had no idea how to get worms by the pound, so I bought the pittance of 200 worms from a pet store. The worms were probably meant to be food for someone's pets, not the worms as pets.

    I put them in a redwood planter filled with potting soil, and despite me, they lived and multiplied. As time went on, The worms got better digs, and I became a better caretaker, until they finally got some prime real estate up against the house in the shade, where they do very, very well. Opening up the back door the toss something to the worms is built in, even if the weather is bad. You just suck it up and go out to feed the worms.

    In return, our garbage output has been reduced by half, and there is no such thing as going through our trash to steal private information, because the worms eat it all. Also, every once in a while, I sell a pound or two.

  • Jon Biddenback
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    My lady was having a bad day, and I brought home a live potted mini-rose in an effort to cheer her up. She decided she wanted to plant it, and we ended up starting to garden... in summer... on thoroughly compacted, sometimes poisoned, tool-breaking Georgia red clay... with nearly no money, spare time to labor, or energy.

    I knew compost is an excellent soil ammendment because my grandmother's been making it for decades (and it's a pity she's about 2,500 miles away, or I'd ask for a sample from her ancient, worm-infested compost bin), and I started doing my research to see if I could figure it out and bring that unmanageable clay to cooperative life. I discovered vermicomposting while educating myself about other kinds of composting (which is still ongoing), and found plans for a DIY stacking bin system from five gallon buckets. I had a couple of cat litter buckets, one with an intact lid, and plenty of paper waste and a small power drill, so I made one for myself.

    There's not much worm presence on my property (though there must be SOME worms, else the worm predator planarians wouldn't be here), so I went to a fishing supply shop and spent about $7 on two cups of roughly two dozen red wigglers apiece, and put them in the bin. This was about two months ago. So far, my worms are still alive... maybe I'll be one of the few that actually doesn't kill their first set of worms by accident.

    Because of the tiny population I started with, right now my project is more vermiculture than vermicomposting. I've seen some cocoons, and a few baby worms now and then, they're most definitely breeding in there. There is a lot more soil in there than I started with, and it looks a heck of a lot better than what I put in at the beginning. I feed them now and then, knowing they can just eat their bedding, but wanting the food to be plentiful enough to encourage lots of meeting and breeding. I do keep an eye (and my nose) on things to make sure the bin doesn't go too nasty and maybe harm the worms by overfeeding.

    I figure by the time the worms have expanded their population enough to be ideal for the size of the bucket they live in, most of the bedding will be converted to casts, hopefully with many cocoons waiting to hatch. I'll prep and set the second bucket, give the worms time to migrate upwards to new bedding and food, then take the vermicompost from the bottom bucket. I'll take a few handfuls to seed my outdoor composting areas with microbes, cocoons, and any straggler worms, and give the rest to my lady for her existing plot and container gardens.

    I hope to eventually have rich, fluffy black loam in place of this hard, sticky red clay (to the one who implied it couldn't be done: Challenge Accepted), a thick carpet of living mulch that continuously breaks down to nourish the plants while it insulates the soil and keeps it moist, bumper crops of fruit and veggies to supplement the household diet with cheaper, healthier fare, drastically reduced trash output, and unlimited free bait for fishing when those rare opportunities arise. If I can arrange to sell some surplus at the farmer's market, or engineer a self-cleaning cat litter box, or find any other ways to put the worms to work, that'll be a nice bonus. But, life is dynamic and ever-changing. Don't try too hard to predict it, just go with it and see what happens.

  • armoured
    8 years ago

    My parents used to keep red worms in the basement when they moved into their first place too small to have a compost pit, which was only about reducing waste to the landfill. It just drove my mother nuts to throw stuff out that could be used again (this was decades before anyone talked about recycling). That was just natural for farm folk. My dad got very into it though; he worked on the proportions and all that. I mainly thought they were mildly embarrassing.


    Fast foreard many uears: I hated the waste and got my first non-city place. I knew eventually everything would compost and had a pile; the previous owner had a pile for yard waste too. The works populated both with little encouragement. Have kept going since then by mostly letting outdoor piles alone, and the worms do their work. Anything indoor is strictly entertainment; I lik letting the yard do the work most of the time.

  • worldcomposting
    8 years ago

    My first batch was from Uncle Jims and I was really excited to get them. I placed them in my bin with a light on for the first few weeks although it was hard to find them in the bin as it was 27 gallons and for only a pound of worms. After a few weeks I figured they were settled in and turned the light off. Next morning all the worms were dead on the floor outside the bin and I still have no idea why.

    My next purchase I went local to Veteran Compost and picked up 3 lbs of worms along with 10 lbs of compost for free that they could live in. It took a six months for them to process the compost before they really started on the food scraps but I have since sold multiple lbs online and split from one bin into 7. The worms seem to do well and I have never had to put a light on them to keep them calm.

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