Last Fall I used some old wood pallets to build four compost boxes and hired some neighborhood kids to pack them with leaves. Was just going to let them cold compost but decided to use some of the leaves this spring as bedding to start a worm bin. First time.
Everything was going great as I fed the bin my weekly Veg scraps. Last weekend I decided to harvest some of my worm castings and to my horror I found that my bin was crawling with tiny red bugs. They were everywhere, pouring out of the bin by what seemed like thousands. And even worse they were crawling up my turning tool... and I just about lost it when I noticed them scrambling around on my gardening gloves. Needless to say I ran screaming into the house and straight to the shower room.
Anyway, I googled tiny red bugs and came away convinced that I had a red spider mite infestation. However, I didn’t find any concrete info on whether they are good or bad for the bin itself (the worms don't seem bothered at all) or if they would survive outside the bin if I used the compost to plant some peppers and tomatoes. There was some info that they could do damage to plants.
I am on the fence. Thinking I may abandon the worm bin. Can anyone help me decide? I may just dump everything back in the cold compost pile and sulk in failure.
Thanks in advance,
PT7
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- Full Member
- Posts: 35
- Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2014 11:06 am
- Location: Metro Chicago
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- Full Member
- Posts: 35
- Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2014 11:06 am
- Location: Metro Chicago