r/Vermiculture

For hot composting, you need to balance greens and browns.

This confused GENERATIONS of vermicomposters.

If you want fast vermicompost, you actually need mainly greens.

The only problem? Most of them are WET.

"Browns" are then mostly "humidity control". But worms eat them very slowly.

There are then two good ways how to improve your greens:

1. Let them dry on the sun (like banana peels)
2. When you want to bake food, you need to first warm your owen. So put you greens there for the first minutes.

Sun or starting owen will dehydrate your greens.

Worms overall love things that were f*cked up in any way (by cold, heat, light, cutting...)

This is even why used herbal tea leaves are one of the best materials to vermicompost: they were cut into milion pieces, then dried, than extracted by hot water, then you slightly dry them again with your hand.

Also grass and leaves are much better then rotten fruits because they are NOT WET. But use my method for the food scraps and worm president will personally come to thank you.

I have several canisters of fish food for fish who have passed on. Can I put the fish food in my worm bins? I hate to waste it and would love any use suggestions

I just had my entire bin die overnight. Why? All I fed them was coffee grounds and an apple core.

Hey there composters, quick question for anyone in the PNW specifically western Washington. Looking at starting my first bin and trying to debate if I should do an indoor bin our outdoor bin. My instinct is to go outdoors with our general weather but any advice is appreciated!

Does anyone have trouble keeping moisture in them? I had my for about 7 months and it keeps drying out. The one have is not lined so moisture just evaporates out. I’m using mostly coconut coir and I washed it before I put it in. I tried using plastic on top but it only stays moist immediately under the plastic. What am I doing wrong? I’m to the point where I put my worms back into the stackable and then I’m going to see the Urban bag.

Hello all, I am a few weeks into vermicomposting, and I have a few questions.

First, I'll explain my situation so far. I have two 17 gallon tote worm farms. These are for the sole purpose of composting and amending the poor soil in my vegetable garden.

My first tote was "500" super red European wigglers delivered on March 25th (I say 500 in quotes because i would be surprised if there were actually 250 in there. It was a bogo deal, so I wasn't too upset). They have a bedding of 95% shredded paper and 5% newspaper. Any new bedding added is newspaper. They have never really settled in to the tote. At first, I may have had the bedding too wet, but I added dry bedding to even it out. They have probably 10" of bedding. Even since then, after a day or so, there have been a few worms at the top trying to get out. If I leave the light off, more than that.

It was after I realized that super reds weren't actually the best for my goal of composting, and I was a bit unhappy with their performance, that I ordered a pound (~600) of red wigglers from Naturesgoodguys. I have been much more happy with this order/tote. These worms arrived on April 10th. They have a bedding of 100% shredded newspaper. They only ever tried to escape en masse once within the first 3 days. I think they were exploring. They have also been attacking the food a bit more, as well.

So here are some of my questions: what is with my super reds? Is it that the bedding is shredded paper, or am I doing something wrong? If it is the bedding, how do I amend it? I have fluffed it several times, but it didn't really make a difference.

How much less can I expect them to eat than my red wigglers, and how much can I expect each tote to eat per week?

Also, I could've said more about this, but between my two orders, I was really let down by Uncle Jim's and pretty happy with Naturesgoodguys.

Hi guys, I want to put some in-ground worm towers into my raised garden planters. The majority of plants are Australian natives, but I also have a few palms, frangipanis and the (hopeful) beginnings of fruit & veggie areas. I have 5 questions:

1. Would the worm towers be ok for all of these areas or do some plants not like worms/castings?

2. I don't want plastic towers. Can I get wooden or pottery ones?

3. Apparently "area specific" live worms are best that are already in their own "habitat". Does anyone know who sells them in Sydney?

4. What type of worm would be best for this situation?

5. Should I prepare their towers for a month or so before adding the live worms?

If you could share your knowledge, I'd be very grateful.

I received my worms a week ago through the post. The guy that delivered them jammed them through my letter box, I could hear him from upstairs struggling to jam it in for like 10 seconds. It even says on the package, "Fragile, handle with care". I open them up and see that the majority of them are not moving, but after a google search it says that they may just be dehydrated.

I decide to use them anyway. I put some soil at the bottom of the bin and mixed in the worms, then added some veg scraps and a small amount of water and covered with some burlap fabric.

I don't disturb them for a week and come back to check on them today. A lot of the veg seems to still be there but there's also soil that has trickled down the holes which to me, indicates movement, I also checked the moisture of the soil on top and it was bone dry so I spritzed it with some water. I used some tongs to sift through the soil to see if I could find any worms. I picked one up with the tongs and it wasn't moving at all, but when I dropped it back into the soil, it started violently flailing around. I'm unsure if this is a sign that it's alive or just a reflex.

I don't know if they're just a lost cause at this point and I should just try again.

Edit: I've just seen that a lot of them have travelled to the bottom layer of the wormery where there is no soil and gathered in a corner and died. Very sad. I can see a couple on the bottom layer moving around but most seem to be dead. Seems like they really don't want to be in that soil. Any ideas why that could be? I've just ordered some more worms anyways.

Sometiems I discover a bag of flour or oats to be infested with weevils or their respective grain-eating pest. Is it safe to feed that to my vermihut? I wonder how far these bugs can wander once they exhaust their resources cause I don't want them to find their back into my house (vermihut is in a storage unit with no food in it).