new worm bins

11 years ago

Im buying 2 # of european nightcrawlers i was thinking about only feeding it with shreded newspaper and using worm chow in 1 of the bins and the other the regular way will this work.And how many euros should i put into a 10 gal tote with 8 inches of bedding.
I know i should use bigger totes but i have parkinsons and they are the right sizefor me.
What do you think of putting in a small amount of dolimite before i put in worms or should i wait and see if i have problems.
Thank You Jim

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Comments (3)

sbryce_gw
11 years ago
Shredded newspaper is not the best bedding. If it is what you have, then use it, but if you have alternatives, use them instead of or along with the newspaper.

Don't buy worm chow. Buying food for worms that eat garbage is kinda silly. There are too many things that can be fed to worms for free. You should never have to buy food for them.

1 pound of worms will do very well in a 10 gallon bin.

Dolomite is not necessary. The worms may not even respond well to it. I say leave it out. Odds are, you will never need it.

http://www.redwormcomposting.com/reader-questions/different-kinds-of-lime/
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equinoxequinox
11 years ago
A ten gallon tote should be fine. I use a 5 gallon and even a 4 gallon container. Like with beehives how much weight do we want to be lifting? Less is better.

Have you no kitchen scraps, tea bags or spent coffee grounds?

How about egg cartons (the compressed paper ones not the plastic Styrofoam ones) to tear into pieces for bedding. Or cardboard coffee trays. Or paper towel tubes.

Shredded newspaper works for a while and for some vermicomposters but the posts we get that say my bin went sour seem to be vermicomposters that use newspaper or even office paper.

I have never added or needed to add dolomite. I do add crushed eggs shells only because I have them and the worm bin is a great place for them to be sent to. I have never tested for pH.

Starting a bin is the hardest part because the safety reserve of a bit of built up vermicompost and vermicastings is not there yet. Many problems can be solved or pre-empted by sprinkling on some vermicompost that was harvest but needs a bit of aging. Or is just waiting for spring. Vermicompost can get the new bedding and food scraps "dirty" or microbe charged and get the process going. I have never used worm chow. Maybe people use that who are not composting kitchen waste but who want fishing worms on hand?
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billthewormman
11 years ago
Figured I'd chime in on this one, I have an experiment going on right now with euros in a mix of shredded paper and cardboard and am only feeding them a worm chow type mix I made myself. The worms are doing very well in a mix like this, I'm pretty sure I have 1/2 pound in a 10 gal bucket but it could easily handle 1 lb. I have found the Euro's to be as good or better than reds when it comes to processing waste, and their castings are very nice. I would post a link to my blog post about this but I don't want intrude.