What type of worms? Red wigglers are not soil dwellers.

If you are using bins and compost worms you want very little actual soil in your bin... just enough for a little grit for the worms to help them with digestion.

There is lots of information on this forum and online. I'm relatively new to this as well and found just by searching around the internet I learned so much more than any one or two people could tell me.

I have about 30 red wigglers, 10 night crawlers, and then 1000 African Night Crawlers on the way. I read online to line it with newspaper, which I did, and then put about 2 inches of garden soil with bedding on top. My bedding consists of shredded newspaper, eggshells, fruit peels and such. I cover the fruit with more garden soil because the fruit flies somehow keep getting in the mix. But you're saying don't fill the bin with soil, but more bedding? And I couldn't find anything about harvesting to actually tell me how to do it. Every article just mentions that what you do after so many weeks and the compost looks like worm poo. Also, I saw a person posting pictures with his message, how do you do that?

I figured it out about the pictures. This is what my bins look like. I put the bins inside a larger bin to catch the liquid and any stray worms that might fall out. Also to keep other things from climbing in. If this isn't right, just tell me.
{{gwi:1334327}}
{{gwi:1334330}}

BJ, why don't you get a copy of Mary Appelhof's Worms Eat My Garbage. They might have it at the library, or your library can get it for you. You'll get a lot of help there.

I'm sorry I cannot see your pictures. Did you move the pictures after uploading them to Photobucket?

I'm not knowledgeable enough to offer an opinion on the variety of worms you have, but as a previous poster said, red worms (which are the best for composting) are not soil-type worms, but worms which naturally live in leaf litter, so they are not going to fare too well if you put much soil from the garden in there. If you get the book I mentioned or check it out from the library, it offers several suggestions for bedding.

Good luck, and have fun.

Thanks for the advice about the book. I do plan on checking it out at my library soon. Here are my pictures again, I did move them.

"I have about 30 red wigglers, 10 night crawlers, and then 1000 African Night Crawlers"

The 30 red wigglers are top feeders, but the night crawlers are all bottom feeders. As I understand they dig deep burrows and will grab food and take it down their burrow. I just did some looking around and found sites selling both wigglers and African or European night crawlers, but haven't found any real information on how to do it. My dad used to raise night crawlers we caught in the yard, for fishing. He had a deep box filled with dirt. I don't know anything else about what he did.

Pretty much I got the Worms Eat My Garbage book and it has everything I need to know. It even has the African Night Crawlers and how to take care of them. They aren't as fat as the night crawlers around here but they do get pretty long: 6-8".

I don't get the top/bottom feeding worms. My worms just go to where the food is and are found throughout the bin. African night crawlers are just another species of composting worms and should not be confused with a Canadian or northern night crawler (L. terrestrius)

I do like the African Night Crawlers (Eudrilus eugenia) but you do have to keep them warm and they do not like changes to their bedding, i.e.- they slow down in castings and cocoons.
They are obviously not as hardy as the reds (eisenia fetida), but they can produce some awesome looking castings that make gardeners go goo-goo eyed! It's not any better, just prettier as castings go.
My favorite thing is the fact that the bigger ones (8-12") like to lay on top of the bedding and stretch out. I think it's their testosterone expressing itself. As long as you don't disturb them, they won't immediately scurry when exposed to light. They just kind of hold their pose as if flexing muscles and to say, "Check this out!" They're just cooler (more cool??) to me.

All that being said, I do nothing but keep their bin warmer through the winter than the reds. I feed them the same as the reds, they use the same bedding as the reds, I even tell them the same jokes as the reds- they just don't laugh as heartedly.

So don't think that you have to do some kind of voodoo ritual to raise Africans. Just follow the well founded, well established methods that you find in the forum and you'll be fine.

But keep the reds going for insurance.

There are several ways to harvest your castings as I think that is still one of your questions.

If you have 2 like containers like I think you mentioned, you can put holes in the bottom of the second container and when the bin that is working is almost full of castings place it gently on top of the working bin making sure the castings touch the new container and put some bedding in the new container. Then slowly start feeding the top bin and the worms will migrate up looking for the new food. Some will remain for awhile finishing the bottom bin. You will also want to allow time for hatching of any eggs left in the lower bin if you want to save them as well.

Another method is to place the next feeding into something like an onion bag & when many of the worms have found their way into it harvest the bag of worms for your new bin. You may have to do this several times to get most of the worms.

You can also use a screen to filter out the leftover food scraps and the few worms that remain after these approaches.

There is also a more hands on approach to harvest if you want to get your hands dirty for an afternoon & play in the worm bin. Lay the composted material out into small piles in the light and the worms will crawl deeper into the piles. Remove the top of the pile and repeat until you have mostly worms left in the piles.

I myself have not harvest yet... awaiting the day!! These are the approaches that I've read the most about and they make sense to me. HTH