Glad to hear and good luck with this batch. Sadly you're not the first to get short changed on your worms.

Now just lots of bedding, keep moist, feed amounts that they can eat and willpower not to look in on them every 30 minutes (can be the hardest one lol ;) ).

Congrats, Minderella! When watering, feed or adding anything to the bin just remember "only a touch" and the worms will be very happy. If they like it and want more, they'll make it obvious!

bon

Where did you order from?

Moni

Compost guy

slightly damp cardboard never killed a worm :-)
Enjoy the new partnership.

Just an update. These new worms are eating ALOT! I can't believe how I fretted for a whole year and in just a month I have hardly any left over stuff.

LOL, very glad to hear. Now you understand why I was kind of freaking out and asking all those questions, couldn't figure how it could be so slow ;).

Have fun, they'll eat you out of house and home!!! :)

Hi folks, I am a newbie and am nervous about my first worm bed. I will tell you what I did and I invite any suggestions, corrections, ideas, etc.
I tore up some cardboard and newspaper put it in a plastic storage bin, drilled about 20 holes all around the upper area of the bin on the sides and about 10 in the top. I chopped up some cabbage, lettuce and banana peels and put it in.

Then my skinny little worms came...oh happy, happy me!!! I put them in, put some more paper over the top and put them in a dark cool area of my basement.

Well, about 2 weeks later I looked in and I saw yellowish mold on the paper and freaked! I took out as much as I found, shedded up the cardboard that looked ok but damp, mixed it up and said a prayer.

The worms seemed to be alive and ok but they are all at the bottom, is this normal? Not sure what a normal worm is but I want them normal and happy, Please let me know if you know why the mold.

Thanks,
Julie

If you are getting mold, the bin is probably too wet and/or you are adding too much food.
What size bin?
Do you have drain holes drilled in the bottom?

Mold in itself is not dangerous. With dampness and lots of paper you can get lots of the fluffy cotton looking mold everywhere.

If you want an easy start, what I would do is have 99% bedding and make sure you've got drain holes. Seriously, fill the bin up a third to half full with just damp cardboard/paper. Not enough bedding and too much food is the number one rookie mistake (that and flooding the bin with moisture which can be the result). You basically have a bin of bedding to which you add a little food when starting a new bin.

Feed in small batches and place into a corner. Once you see worms in that feeding, then you can do another in another corner (ie. never have two feedings just sitting there rotting).

With that much bedding and controlled feedings you almost can't go wrong while you get a feel for it and your worms, solves most of any basic problems. From there you can tweak it while you learn and the bin ages and becomes mature. You will get mold, mites, other crawly things etc. but with nice moisture and airflow the worms will be fine. As Jerilynn mentioned, you'll want some drain holes if you don't have any.