When there's a break in the weather, I run out to the backyard and grab some leaves stored by the compost bins - the worms really like those, and I get a pleasant "foresty" scent for a few days while they work the leaves over.

Some people make friends with their local Star Bucks and come home with buckets full of coffee grounds to add to their vermicompost bins or piles.

Most any kind of manure is great in outdoor bins with some hay, ground leaves, or grass mixed in.

I will stick to peat moss for my indoor bins. Choir works just as well.

But kioni, I save the toily and paper towel rolls for toot-ta-doos...my favorite band instrument when I was a kid. We were poor! Seriously though kioni,this is a good point. Tossing cardboard, newspaper, coffee filters, etc., in the trash is a pure waste. I live in a neighborhood which has trash barrels overflowing every week, and one home has two trash barrels. I can get by a month without putting mine out if I so choose, unless the wind blows. Then I spend a day picking up the neighbor's trash to put in my container. I asked the wife this question just the other day..."Where do you suppose all that trash comes from?" Her answer, "Probably from grocery store packaging!"
What do you think?

Oh, for the worms. Right:

So far, I gotta say that the hay and pine needle mix I got from the Christmas tree lot is working awesome. It can absorb a lot of water so it doesn't dry out, but still allows lots of airflow. I have not seen it glom together at all like the shredded cardboard used to. It also has not turned smelly like the coconut coir did. I also feel better because it did not cost me anything, it is diverting material from the landfill (not the recycling stream) and it is not slowly wearing out my mom's shredder behind her back. LOVE IT. Next year I'm gonna buy a silo or something and collect from all pumpkin patches and Christmas tree lots in town.

It's almost sad in a way :). Due to having a good and high participation recycling program here it's that much harder to scavange. I didn't get one pumpkin because everyone bashed theirs up and put it in the green bin (green organic recycle, blue regular recycle) and I'm not raiding those lol. Can't complain though, my apartment building went from 8 large trash bins (those 6'' high square forklift monsters) of garbage a week to 1 a week and the rest being recycled.

Anyway I've only ever used crosscut shredded newsprint and some torn up egg cartons or corrugated . This is for all three months of my bins.

Worms4Tracy: That sounds like bedding for my zone 4 more than bedding for southern California.

But I think my wormies like corrugated cardboard and shredded leaves best.

i set up the summer bin lined with those cardboard egg cartons with the shiny paper labels torn off. then i pile on the leaves-straw and they are good for a couple of months.

I have tried like the dickens to get rice hulls--they are also supposed to be a great amendment for clay soil, but I believe the availability is regional. Since I live in corn country and not rice country, I'd need to buy a tractor-trailer load to make the shipping costs work out less than the product.

I'm sure that they would be great for worms though.

Sometimes if I work with a local garden store, I can get them to bring in bulk bags of mixes or fertilizers that I want for free freight (it comes on their regular truck). The last time I checked, the owner didn't know what rice hulls were. But maybe they're getting more popular now.

I love Tracy's idea of a silo for collecting all that nice bedding material and worm food!

I guess my favorite would be a cardboard/coir mixture.