"Is white office paper suitable as bedding or should I stay with newsprint and corrugated?" While white office paper is probably fine dioxin and all it does not hold water nor is it as tastey or fluffy as corrugated, egg carton or even newsprint. White office paper probably has a higher use to be recycled.

"Is the brown card stock with printing on one side - cereal box, popcan box - suitable to shred and use as a bedding mix?" I think it is ok but then again there is so much of the stuff and there are easy means to recycle it. They would way prefer those cardboard restaurant coasters.

Thank you for diferentiating between corrugated cardboard and the cardstock with printing on one side like cereal boxes. Often people talk cardboard and I have no idea which they are talking about.

I enjoyed your bit of this and bit of that beginning of your vermicompost bin and especially the three big tubs from the big box sporting goods store.

My one question is do you eat? Are there no bananna peels, potato peals, or carrot tops they can eat? To capture the worms love and admiration they would really like to eat the eyes and nose cut out of a tiny jack o lantern and then when it rots eat the rest of the bounty along with plenty of whatever bedding material you have.

I too have a very small vermicompost set up but it meets my needs of food scrap disposal and compost like material for seedling starting.

You might want to keep a worm diary or even just write on the bucket the date you started the worms. That way you can judge your progress over time.

I especially like the low investment method you used. Those who spend $$$ are not any more likely to have sucess. Observation is your key to sucess.

> Can fall leafs act as the majority of my bedding while
> available? I can only guess that these break down faster
> and have more nutrients than paper.

Yes.

> Is white office paper suitable as bedding or should I
> stay with newsprint and corrugated?

White office paper by itself is not very good for bedding. If you have a lot of it, you can mix it with shredded corrugated, and be OK. Shredded corrugated is, IMNSHO, the best bedding.

> Is the brown card stock with printing on one side -
> cereal box, popcan box - suitable to shred and use as a
> bedding mix?

I wouldn't use it. In the process of creating the paper board and printing, there is a lot more there than just the paper.

> My cubic yard of traditional compost is largely a failure
> as I mixed new stuff in too often and now the whole cubic
> yard is a mix of compost and noncomposted-matter and
> cold. How well will it work to feed this slowly to my
> worm bin so it can be finished and ready for next season?

Your worms will prefer that you feed it to them quickly. If you are determined to use white office paper as bedding, mix it with the partially finished compost. The stuff out of your compost bin is probably the best thing you can feed your worms.

Thanks guys.

We do eat and my veg garden is creating a lot of garden scraps now too. My 3x3 traditional-compost bin is nearing 4 feet high now. I started worms to keep me occupied over the winter and to add the VC to my 25 self-watering containers (similar to Earthbox / Earthtainer).

I was hesitant to feed the bin in the first month. I've read a place or two saying avoid early feedings because of low microbial levels. All told we generate 4 to 6 pounds of fruit and veg waste a week which has all been going to the traditional compost. I hope to get this bin going inside over the winter and perhaps add an outdoor bin next season - zone 4b and I expect overwintering to be a problem.

Any thoughts on avoiding tomato and potato leafs if past the heating point of compost? I have two potato towers which will come out this week and had 14 tomato plants this season (4 celebrity, 5 cherokee purple, 2 super-sweet 100, 2 mortgage lifter, 1 ox-heart paste).

Worm diary huh? Sounds like another tab in my garden spread sheet. This is what happens when you have an engineer with a garden.

Your 5 gallon bucket is far too small for what you want to do. It is OK for the amount of worms you have (assuming they are EFs). You will soon grow out of it. Prepare to expand. When you do expand, just fill your new bin with the organic matter out of your compost bin and go from there. Your worms will be very happy.

I knew this was too small to handle the whole scope of my needs but I had to start somewhere. I didn't want to blow next year's garden budget without even looking at other tomato and melon seeds or a new variety of seed potatoes.

Yesterday I added 8 to 10 ounces of pureed kitchen scraps to one side of the bucket buried well under bedding. I used a wetted mix of leafs and shredded corrugated.

I think I'll knock together a wooden bin before the end of the month. Think 48" x 18" footprint and 12 to 18" tall.

When I start the bin do you think I should dump my existing bin at one end and fill laterally to the other end of the bin as I feed it or spread my bin out over a layer of bedding covering the whole bottom of the new bin?

I think you should divide your worm population in half or thirds. Then keep some as a safe reserve with lots of happy moist bedding and do the risk with the others. Every? Many of us have had "a bad worm thing happen". Keeping different containers means our experiments will not do them all in and we can replenish from our own worm reserves with no further $$$. Sbryce is giving good advice as always. I am not answering your exact questions but instead giving my impressions. The issue with a bucket is gasses that sink can build up and lack of oxygen. Maybe this is the real advantage to a flow through or other system with some type of holes at the bottom? You may be interested in one of the cloth based bins that tie at the bottom. Lots of air exchange there. Many systems work. Many of us have a few different types of systems. And change systems forth and back again. If I was to start again and did not have an outdoor compost source to gather worms from I would be at my "local big box outdoor outfitter" to buy "3 tubs of "Jumbo Panfish Worms". By the way, my system is tiny duel bin flow through, 8 gallon set up, and I favor getting worms from nature or a friend for free. I do not sell worms. I have given away half my worms a few times. I am not a worm expert. Sometimes I am a worm not very sucessful. But I have read the entire multi years archives of a few worm boards. Others on this board know way more than me and have way more exprience. I am glad they freely share their advice which is way valuable. My message to everyone: Add More Bedding!

Going from a 5 gallon bucket to a 48 x 18 bin is awfully ambitious. You may want to make that transition in a few jumps. Also, keep in mind that we are talking about decomposition here, and wood--the material you want to build your bin out of--decomposes.

I think you are asking about sectioning off the 48 x 18 so that you only use a portion of it, then let the worms grow into the space over time. That would be a good idea.

Wow these worms and microbes finish off food fast. Last weekend I added 8 to 12 oz of pureed kitchen scraps to half the bucket area. When I inspected Friday it was nearly gone. I just added about 12 oz more pureed scraps.

Equinox, I like your idea of dividing the population. I only started with about 100 worms - three tubs of "36". If I divide in half would I risk not having enough population in one bin?

I have started reading about the Worm Inn and Bentley Christie's over feeding trials. I may jump toward a worm inn next.

Hehe, I have a Worm Inn and the system is pretty amazing. Not that I (as he said himself) recommend doing what he did. But after seeing his overfeeding videos, that kind of almost idiot proof system was one of the reasons I got it ;). It's handled citrus no problem, I've got about 10 corn on the cobs working through a second pass. The bucket of husks put up a fight but died a good death :P.

But I do certainly find it move forgiving in amounts of food you can add and what you can add. Stuff out the bottom is nice processed compost, hardly any paper leftovers. Nice tight zipped mesh top, with freezing all food I'm at 11 months and no fruit flies or gnats at all, woohoo.

As others mentioned, still have plenty of bedding. Can never go wrong with plenty of bedding even on very breathable systems like the Inn.

I've had the worm inn also for about a month. I love it, I love seeing all the worms and know I dont have a wet mess down at the bottom.

I have read somewhere that the ideal work height for the worms is 24". (sbryce, please correct me/comment if I'm wrong)
Any problems to build it a bit taller? I am in the process of building a bin (w. insulation boards added) with 24" "worm"space

> Is the brown card stock with printing on one side -
> cereal box, popcan box - suitable to shred and use as a
> bedding mix?

I can't recall the details of the laws, but many years back both the US and Canada passed laws stating that the inks/colors used for such boxes and other types of paper have to be non-toxic. Evidently, little kids were eating the stuff.

So, if you want to used colored pages from the USA Today or cereal boxes, go for it. It won't hurt the worms or the plants that use the VC.