my rolling cart is now a bin with worms

14 years ago

I had posted a picture of my rolling cart a week or so and thanks to all for advice. I lined the inside with a 6 mill reinforced pollyethelene sheeting and glued it in nice and tight. took a trip to a simi local worm farmer and that was not only impressive but very educational from a growers prospective reproducing worms ( he claims to have 1 million worms) and I don't doubt is with the # of bins ..

he advised me to section off about 12" of my bin to start and fill it up with a 1/2 peat moss and 1/2 black cow manure. I also added a few layers of shreaded white paper and added a good amount of water. my soil mixture was mighty dry when I got it, he also advised me to leave overhead lighting on and cover the top with landscape fabric. so far seems good only 2 days now but soil is a good looking moisutre level to me.. and I did put a few lettuce leaves in there in case they might get hungry. oh I bought 1 pound. all worms went down under when i looked the next morning... I think monday I am going to put in some of my finished and partial finished from my ground compost pile... oh the room the bin is in is about 65 degrees.. am I doing anything wrong?

Comments (4)

sbryce_gw
14 years ago
It all sounds good to me. If you used cow manure for bedding, the worms will not be getting hungry any time soon. If you add partially finished compost, the worms will think they are in wormy heaven.

I am assuming the cow manure is not packaged steer manure from the home improvement store, but the real deal from a local dairy.

The only thing I think I would have done different is to use shredded cardboard in place of the peat moss, but only because I can't see buying bedding for the worms when so many things they like to live in are free.
hhiii
Original Author
14 years ago
yeah black com manure from home improvement store I know not recycling but I needed it in a hurry.. it will not be harmful will it? so worms like eating manure huh.. well damn I guess a good idea to get established bin going but sound slike the kitchen scraps won't be needed for a while huh.. when will ai know when to put in some veggies, coffee grounds etc?

thanks
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plumiebear
14 years ago
Sounds like a good start, Harrison. I suggest you start a scrap bucket and throw in choice kitchen scraps so they can start to decay a little. Or...since you've partitioned only 1 ft. of your cart, you could just dump the scraps in the next 1 ft. of the cart and bury it with material from your compost pile. The worms will move there when they think it's good enough to feed on. By the time you get to the end of the cart, the first 1' section should be ready to harvest and you start all over again.

Fresh manure will be better than the bagged stuff from the store, but you will want to watch the temps carefully. Get a cheap probe thermometer and stick it in the bedding. I just got a big pile of horse manure yesterday and it's 115F today...too hot for the worms, but it'll be great after it breaks down a bit.

Andrew
cathd66
14 years ago
You can start feeding your bin, but stick to surface feeding or just lightly covering your new food with bedding. You have a good supply of safe bedding for the worms to live in, but they will investigate any new source of food. And the microbes in the manure will encourage your new food to break down. Don't cover more than half the surface with food at any one time, no more than an inch deep, well chopped, and wait until the worms have moved into the new food layer before feeding again.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.wormslovewaste.com/