What did I do wrong?

13 years ago

I thought this would be a simple and fun way to teach the kids about the environment and feed my garden. Here's a little background.

Three months ago I bought a plastic, three tray worm farm online and bought a starter herd of worms at a local garden store. My original bedding was the coconut coir that came with the worm farm. I fed them kitchen scraps each week. After a month I started adding food to a second tray. (I didn't put any bedding in that tray because I'm a dumb rookie and hadn't found these boards) The worms didn't really travel into the second bin, so I continued adding scraps to both the first and second. The worms still seemed healthy.

After a while, the food scraps got moldy and started growing hair and such. I actually thought this was a good thing at first because I thought the worms fed on that stuff. I decided that I needed more worms. I found a lot of worms around the yard. (Different species of course). These went in the bin about two or three weeks ago.

This weekend I pulled the trays apart and found several worms dead in the very bottom of the farm. Then I scooped up a few more living worms. They weren't firm and strong anymore. They were lethargic and week. They were no longer tacky to touch, more wet and sloppy. Also, maybe the most important thing is that the farm had become overrun with insects. Fruit flies, and ants didn't really bother me, but there were all these really small white worms everywhere. (First I thought they were baby worms, wrong) They seemed like parasites, because they were attached to many of the worms. And, there were also tons of teeny black insects that had completely colonized the bottom of my first tray, where I couldn't see them.

So, I hand picked all the living worms and worm eggs out of both trays. The farm was cleaned with water. I started a new tray with egg carton bedding and some coconut coir. For food I gave them crushed apple. 48 hours later, I think all the remaining worms went to the bottom of the farm and died. My daughter's gonna be so sad.

Anyway here's the post-mortem, as I see it; I overfed, I didn't provide enough bedding, I didn't change out the first tray for three months and I added worms from a native, local population. Plus we had a heat wave at the same time. In short, I made a better environment for mold and insects, then for worms.

Am I on the right track?

Hopefully I have made all the rookie mistakes, and do a better job next time.

Thanks in advance for any help.

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Comments (5)

sbryce_gw
13 years ago
I think your diagnosis is perfect.
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equinoxequinox
13 years ago
Sounds like a similar path to one I took.

The directions given to new worm care givers seem to guide them directly to a smelly pile of garbage and put them behind the eight ball with little chance of redemption.

I think they set bin buyers up by telling them to soak the coir. Overfeeding is going to need the coir to start dry to soak up the moisture. (I have never seen coir.) I would love a brick to play with. I would put the coir in the bin whole and dry right before watermellon or pumpkin season.

I almost think naked, dry bedding should be the bottom tray level in these systems above the drainage moat. If there is drainage that is a warning. I have never been lucky enough to have a factory made system so I can not speak with any authority.

Which of you had the idea of selling the 5 gallon bucket with to quote Bently "ecosystem" to new wormers. This gives people what they really want right off. To see a system that is a balanced going concern. Not naked plastic parts. It gives people a starting chance.

I think worms hang out under food instead of in it because that is where the getting is good. The goodness of the decaying fruit or vegetable is underneath it in the bedding.

"What did I do wrong?"

You know. I don't know.

Maybe beginning worm instructions should say rip up three egg cartons and three over ripe banannas and put it in the refrigerator for 3 three weeks in an open to the air plastic bowl. Feed the worms 1/4 cup a day. Maybe that would make a proper microbe filled medium for naked worms moving into naked plastic.
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randomz
13 years ago
When I started with my first COW, I just followed the instructions. Put a layer of cardboard acoross the bottom of the first working tray. Soak coir brick until it turns mushy - about 15 minutes. Drain and put in working tray. Add worms, then leave it all alone for a few days to a week for things to settle down. Start adding food slowly, don't add more until you see them working the last batch you put in.

It all worked fine for me (and a friend who did it all pretty much the same).

I never made a point of adding new bedding when starting a tray, just started adding food to the new tray once the level in the previous tray was high enough.

be aware that the coir or any bedding is also food to the worms, hence the need for caution with adding kitchen scraps.
alabamanicole
13 years ago
campbellute, I agree with your assessment of your issues, except "I didn't change out the first tray for three months." Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but you don't harvest a tray until it's ready. In your kind of stacked system, you've got two other trays to play with and the bottom one can stay there for a long, long time if needed.

There will still be worms in the bottom tray, no matter what the instructions say about them migrating up.

The instructions with these purchased systems all show a stacked system with a ton of food in it. It does a disservice to newbies because it sets up expectations of a new bin processing tons of scraps when it takes quite a while to get going.

I would let your existing bin dry out to a nice ideal moisture, just removing the unprocessed food. You may have living worms and even cocoons still in there. Once you have a more ideal worm enviroment going, then purchase a new batch of worms.
campbellute
Original Author
13 years ago
Thank you all for your responses. This will really help me when we take our second shot at it.