My sister in law buys a restaurant feast thing every year and without fail about half of it is awful and no one eats it so Intake it and feed it to my worms and compost. This year they got got half a gallon of some of the worst mashed potatoes I've ever had and a literal brick of something called sweet corn pudding. They seem to be having a blast with both.

Here's a video of me showing how easy it is to harvest the Urban Worm Bag. Great product!

https://youtu.be/eImGkwx6FVY?si=xvjCAdGD-y33WHo4

A bit of a long story, please bear with me:

I've been keeping worms, mostly red wigglers with some Indian Blues, for almost 3 years. They're originally from a worm farmer. I rarely had issues with bad smells in the bin, even when I switched to a lidless bin without holes with mosquito nets wrapped around them to keep critters away.

This past Summer I dumped some finished castings in the garden. However, after digging around in it again I found some worms, which made me think that I didn't sift through the castings enough and mistakenly dumped some worms with it. This made me dig around more and I found more worms, deeper in the soil, which I wasn't quite sure were wigglers (yes, I know how to identify wigglers- pink hue, yellow tail.) These seemed paler, but I thought maybe they are wigglers that I dumped by mistake in previous times I sifted castings.

I took these and placed them inside a bowl-- I did not want the put them inside my bin since I've been warned that some native worms eat wigglers (I'm in Southern California). Then I added one wiggler from my bin to test it. A week or two later, wiggler seemed fine, though the bowl smelled bad. I thought maybe it was just because it's a fairly small space. So I placed the worms I found in the garden in my bin.

Every since then, the bin begins to smell REALLY bad after a while. I haven't done anything different than the last 2+ years. I do tend to overfeed sometimes, but again, not different than the past two years.

I gave away quite a few of the worms and decided to start over with juveniles that at least look like wigglers, pink with yellow tails. Most of them are grown up by now, but again, the bin starts smelling REALLY bad after a while. I've changed the bedding at least twice since then.

Looking at the worms, they mostly do look like wigglers. Some of them are paler, but most have yellow tails, with the exception of a few darker red ones that may be the remnants of the Indian blues.

I use coconut coir for bedding. I otherwise have not done anything different. This issue only began after I added the worms from the garden. I tried looking at a worm chart and realized that quite a few have yellow tails too?

I did notice the cocoons look different than they did in the past. I believe the past ones were fairly round. These seem a bit more oval with a little thing sticking out in the end like a tiny stick.

Could these be new worms that took over? A lot of them still look very wiggler-y. The adults are quite pink with yellow tails. A few others may be paler. It's hard to tell since when I sift through they're mostly covered in bedding/castings.

I've seen a ton of information about mites - most of it conflicting. But it seems to be the consensus that mites aren't a problem until they're a problem.

So my question is, how many are too many? When are they a problem?

As an example, I stuck half of a brown avocado in the nightcrawler bin. It's now completely covered in mites. The worms don't seem to mind. I found a cocoon under the avocado and when I checked back today the thing had a bunch of baby worms in it. But it's still covered in mites. I have read that I could rinse these things off but I don't want to rinse off any babies. Also, I can't really know if they mind...

The same happens in my red wiggler bin. I stick some food in there and the mites cover it. It doesn't happen in the bins of blues, I suspect because they eat everything so quickly the mites don't stand a chance.

So should I let the mites do their thing? Or are there steps I should be taking to try to prevent them from swarming the food scraps? If they aren't a problem for the worms I really don't care. I've seen mites come and go and I've never seen them take over a whole bin or anything.

Hey, I've been keeping red wigglers in totes for a while, and I find myself constantly overthinking the process and am sensitive to their experience. Right now, they seem to be dwelling at the bottom and not eating much at the top. They are also going through the holes at the bottom ( not all of them, some are active in the bin ) any simple advice on what to add to the bin to make them the most happy? I get overwhelmed with all the different advice on the Internet. Id just like to find a good flow on what to add and keep them happy, things to loom out for etc. Thanks so much

I was given a bag of guinea pig poop and hay, would love to add it to my bin but it's got a fairly strong febreeze scent on the bag. Does anyone know if it's safe for the worms if that's absorbed into the poop?

So, I had some saved pumpkin seeds from 2023 that I never got around to planting or baking into snacks. I decided to give a few to the worms. I threw in a couple handfuls and kinda turned them into the bedding. I thought maybe a few would sprout, maybe a few dozen. I think they all sprouted, lol. I got myself a little vermijungle going on in the UWB. 😂

Wife put celery in my worm bed.

Hey people!

I'm getting ready to start my first worm bin this week, i have a bunch of used coco coir based potting soil that has some vermiculite and compost in it. I heard coco coir is acidic and i periodically use lacto-fermented plant juice as fertilizer, can i use it as bedding. I also have been roasting, crushing and saving eggshells preparing for the worm bins to use as grit, can it be used to neutralize the acidity as i'll also be mostly feeding them bokashi fermented kitchen waste and i'm worried this will make the worm bins overly acidic and i don't have a ph meter.

I also can buy old newspapers and cat litter wood pellets(chemical and scent free) but i would prefer to use what i have lying around first as i have a big amount of the used potting soil and i want to recycle it.

Let me know which of these would be the best option for bedding.

Thanks

My neighbor moved away and gave me two old worm bins full of finished castings. I used the castings from one of the bins in my gardens and then left the other bin alone for about a year. A few weeks ago I decided to try to revive it.

I mixed up the old castings and some dead leaves that had fallen in there and added some food scraps to see if they got eaten. I had assumed most of the worms had run away or died while I neglected the bin but I add scraps to the bin about once a week and they seem to get processed in that time. I've seen a few worms in there but only a handful. Is that normal? Should I buy more worms to add to the bin?

Also should I add anything else to the bin to make them happy? I didn't add any new bedding to the bin when I started it back up.

I keep my kitchen scraps (mostly fruit, vegetables, and eggshell) in a pot with lid in the kitchen until it is feeding time.

1. I have been waiting a couple of weeks between each feed, the scraps start to ferment, is it a good or bad thing for the worms?
2. I sometimes run out space in the pot and have been pressing the content and removing the fluids that comes out (water is +60% of the space). Is this a good thing for the worms?

if useful: I have red wigglers and a continuos flow bin that is +1 year in my basement.

Thank you!

I've finished the experiment!

This is an update to this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Vermiculture/comments/1dn6cne/the_great_glossy_color_ink_cardboard_bedding_test/

Summary of the setup: To test the efficacy of using color printed cardboard in vermiculture bins, I made a separate bin where the browns were entirely color-printed ink cardboard that was slightly shiny. It was mostly cereal boxes. No super glossy magazine-style paper was used. The greens were mostly home food waste like leftover salad, coffee grounds, etc. The bin was an open top glazed ceramic planter pot with no drain hole. The bin ran for five months with feedings roughly every two weeks. The experiment was ended this morning once the rainy season started (I didn't want the bin to flood since it is outdoors). Outdoor temp range was mostly 20-33C (68 to 91F) through summer and autumn in an Eastern Mediterranean climate. The bin was started with 50 adult red wiggler pioneers moved over against their will from my good bins.

The results: Today marks roughly 5 months since the start. The cardboard is mostly decomposed, but there are still lots of chunks that seem to be in pretty reasonable shape, still with legible text and images, etc. While the bin is mostly castings at this point, there's still lots of cardboard. Also, the castings are much lighter in color than my other two outdoor bins that get plain cardboard and dead leaves as the brown material. I would describe this experimental bin's castings as light brown, whereas my good bins are a much darker chocolate brown.

The breakdown of cardboard here appears to have gone much slower. I should have shredded the cardboard smaller to begin with, but I did this all by hand. Some chunks were stuck together, limiting decomp.

As I harvested and cleared the bin, I counted 151 worms by hand, with at least half of them very small juveniles (less than approximately 3cm or 1 inch). The worms in the upper layer were also very lethargic. I thought maybe they were dead at first, but they did slowly wake up as I harvested. The deeper buried worms at the bottom were much more likely to be adults and active, but still this bin's worms were more lethargic and generally appeared less content with life. I did find several cocoons, but not as many as I had expected. A population increase of 50 to 151 in 5 months seems good, and I probably missed several small worms since I was just finger-sifting and spreading the compost out on a table top. However, the worms just didn't seem happy or very productive. So while the color ink doesn't seem lethal and the bin was productive, it was definitely sub-par.

TLDR: Color-printed cardboard seems to work and not kill the worms, but it goes much slower and the worms don't seem as happy. In the future, I won't use very much of it.

Breakdown over time

And here's a shot of it all laid out after taking out the worms:

https://preview.redd.it/v6k238dx2m3e1.jpg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=91c4830d20b6fbb857a77cc15537820a846c9519

And here's a closeup showing how some of the cardboard is still in quite a good condition, with text and images.

https://preview.redd.it/s6ej4e9g3m3e1.jpg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d08993024b31b5e35276c5c8f4a6f0dca40423dd

I've got a pound of red wigglers in a 14 gallon shallow tote. The bedding is primarily made of pre composted rabbit manure and shredded cardboard with some coffee grounds, rock dust, and egg shells. There are some rocks, leaves, and straw in there from under the rabbit hutch. As well as several isopods that have made themselves a comfortable home in the bin. They're kept in the basement at a comfortable 72°.

They've been in this container for more than a month now, the rabbit manure is broken down and unrecognizable, and they have been breeding like crazy. There is at least one cocoon in every square inch of that bin. But they don't eat. I've tried sweet potato, watermelon, expired infant cereal, avocado, and precomposed fruit/veggie sludge. They don't touch it.

My bins of blues are like piranhas. I can drop anything in those bins and they swarm and devour it immediately.

I was under the impression that red wigglers are great composting worms but my worms didn't get the memo I guess.

What can I do to stimulate the appetite of these shit heads?

Recently, I created a worm tower using buckets, I have created small holes in the side of bucket and there is lid on top. There is also a drainage system, so no excessive moisture. How can I stop fruit flies from coming inside the bucket? Also, is there any harm if I don't do anything at all?

Seeking support to do small projects for special-needs neurodivergent adults who are under employed unemployed.

No to low cost worm parties with Activities lessons exercises experiments.

I like support and encouragement around this to help special interest this within intention of supporting functioning .

I’m a bit overwhelmed and still burnt out .

Minister or war and finance has given direction that worms so not live in the garage, not in a location where they can be seen through a window.

The remaining locations are either exposed to direct sunlight or are not shielded from rain.

Pretty sure I cooked my last set of worms, so now I'm trying for the wetter location.

I have a vermihut type bin system. Apart from leaving the tap off, how can I maximize drainage?

I wanted to see what you thought about viruses such as TMV being present in vermicompost from plant material being fed to the worms that was contaminated with a virus? I grow commercial greenhouse tomatoes and an always concerned about introducing such viruses to my crop and wanted to see if anyone has experience with this.

Thank you!

We don’t have a lot of paper in our lives. There’s mail and toilet paper and Kleenex and that’s about it. No newspapers. No paper towels. No printer paper.

There’s mail but most of it is “waxy” Junk.

There’s also the off delivery cardboard box.

What we do have, in spades, is “organic,” dye-free Kleenex-style tissues. Can we use these as bedding? Some of them have snot. Most of them probably have snot. Or eye boogers. Or weird food residue.

But there are a LOT of tissues spent every day because small children and partner that suffers allergies.

Is that enough? Tissues + food scraps? And some leaves from the autumn?

Every day I have to pick worms out of the worm saver tray and I don’t know why. I have a top feeding tray and two lower inoculating trays with just shredded paper and a paper bag at the bottom to hopefully prevent this but they still go all the way to the bottom. Conditions are on the dry side of moist and I get no liquid in the bottom catch but all levels are moist. If I squeeze the material in the top I may get a drop but not a lot. I’ve tried more and less moisture but the top doesn’t hold on to a lot of moisture. The scraps are all putting out moisture though and hold it well.

I scrape them off the bottom back into the top at least once a day but wondering how I can prevent this since I don’t think they can get back up and there’s no moisture or food at the bottom for them. Thoughts? Normal?

I am getting a worm bin/wormery for Christmas. I am fortunate enough that I have access to tiger worms from somewhere so I can prepare everything first in my own time and get the worms when I am ready.

My problem is that I cant keep it at my house and have to keep it on my allotment and can only go there once a week. I am reading that worm bins need toppings up little but often every 1-2 days.

Is this strict advice or can I give them a weeks worth of food waste at a time? Maybe some types of food waste take longer for them to get through?

I'm contemplating sharing out my worm castings for help from other allotment members if it is a hard and fast rule, but if I can avoid it I would prefer to.

I’ve recently started a Hungry Bin worm farm following the supplied instructions: filled with compost. Now its established I have started reading a bit more widely and i see i could have taken more trouble on the composition of the bedding. Can anyone advise me if I should change the bedding please?

Made too many for Thanksgiving mac and cheese dishes