It sure is nice to read a post about things going well.

How big is your worm box? Is it open-bottom or have holes in the bottom?

I do something similar with my worm cages, moving them to a future garden bed at harvest. Great way to prep a new bed. EZ!

My box is about 1 foot by two feet and maybe a foot deep. It is a styrofoam box that some veggies come in at the grocery store. It is enclosed on all sides with about a billion holes on every side/top.

Your worm cages sound amazing. When I grow up and have a yard of my own I hope to do something like that. At the moment we are renting and have a tiny little patch of dirt to work with.

You will make that tiny patch of dirt fertile soil.
You could try creating a trench with scraps connecting the Two . Build a wormy subway system between the bins. No round-abouts. ;D

It sounds like you are enjoying your new hobby! Good luck and happy wormin'

Ohhhh wormy subway system. I like it! At the moment they are just two adjacent apartment buildings (one is still vacant I think), but I am really liking your trench idea. Thanks!

How deep do you bury the food in soil? Around 3/4 inches down?

Do you cover buried material with anything else apart from soil? Like garden waste or other compostable material which will not generate heat, but sill get composted.

Do you water the area every day? How do you maintain moisture in the soil?

Sorry for number of questions, but have desire to learn and experiment. Interestingly, Bentley had a blog posting today on similar topic which you might find interesting - that if you have not seen it already. http://www.redwormcomposting.com/gardening/wormy-windrow-tomato-garden/

Here is a link that might be useful: Bentley's post

Hi nhrdls,

To answer your questions in the order they were asked:

1. I bury the food as deep as I feel like. Sometimes a few inches, sometimes nearly a foot.

2. I only cover it with soil, but sometimes I throw garden waste into the hole along with the scraps before I bury them with soil.

3. I don't really water the soil unless it is looking especially dry (I think I may have once or twice). It seems to stay fairly moist. It is winter over here, and we have been getting rain every couple of days lately, so it's not a worry.

I originally got a similar idea off Bentley from an old post that I read when I just started researching worming. Mind you, I've only been at this a couple of months now, so I'm certainly no expert.

I also read somewhere else about a no fuss composting method of digging a hole and burying it--someone's grandmother had taught her that and she continued the tradition. I decided to start doing this with the excess scraps that I don't put in the worm bin because it's not big enough to process all my waste. The worms really seem to like having the menu options of above or below ground cuisine, and I don't have to have an ugly compost pile taking up space in my VERY limited garden. It is working out pretty well for me I think.

I just read Bentley's post--a great follow-up to the first one that I read. :)

You mentioned burying things that don't generate heat--honestly this is a super low maintenance solution for me, so much that I'm not worried about heat or no heat. If it heats up, that's fine because worms don't have to go there if they don't want to. If not, great, it's a nice temperature for the worms to eat. I look forward to hearing about the ideas you have brewing--it sounds like you've been giving this some thought. :)