I think my worms are dead

[imafan26]

I checked my worm bin and the water level was high and the roaches are all over the place as usual. I have been feeding the worms once a week and the food and newspaper are disappearing but when I put the box out to evict the roaches, I did not see any worms. The bin is about 4 years old. I think all I am feeding are roaches. I am trying to dry it out now. I thought I killed them before but when I tossed the bin in my pot, I found worms again. Maybe I'll get lucky again, but I am not counting on it.

[rainbowgardener]

"When I put the box out" ... does that mean it was inside and full of roaches? eeuww. You are making me glad I don't live in Hawaii. In your climate, why would you have a worm bin inside anyway? Mine is inside in the winter, because otherwise the worms, not being able to burrow deep in the ground, would freeze to death. But I'm always glad when I can take it out in the spring, because over the fall and winter, it gradually gets too full of life to feel like an indoor thing, even without roaches --slugs, pillbugs, tiny spiders, black soldier fly larvae....

What do you think would have killed your worms? Too much moisture?

[imafan26]

I keep the box in the garage, not in the house. It is too hot and humid here to have rotting vegetables and food scraps even in the trash can. It either goes down the disposal or into the freezer until I can either give it to the worms or I take it out the morning of trash pick up. This is especially the case now that the city has gone to once a week trash pick up.

I put the bin outside on the driveway when I evict the roaches, but the roaches make a run back to the garage so I have to be ready to stop them any way I can.

[applestar]

That's a tough one. Do you have the big kind that flies or the little ones?

I need to get ready for the winter worm bin -- Last winter, I really didnt have enough worms so I have to make up my mind whether I want to start stocking up on garden worms for the winter or buy the "real compost worms" from a worm farm I found not too far away....

[rainbowgardener]

So you also have a winter only worm bin, applestar? I start mine sometime about now (when there are still worms available in the outdoor compost pile) and keep it going indoors until spring. Somehow through spring and summer it just seems redundant.

Imafan, what is the reason you don't have a regular compost pile for the excess scraps that go in the trash or disposal? I have a garbage disposal in the sink, but only because it came with the house. If it were a living thing, it would have starved to death long since.

[erum]

I think I like the freezer idea. We are planning on getting a freezer chest, because our fridge freezer is currently full of breast milk for our 9 week old. So space wont be a problem.

[imafan26]

I don't have space or enough material for a regular compost pile. The compost piles I have access to here all have centipedes and ants. I don't have centipedes at my house yet, so I don't bring any compost from those piles home. I have bag composted but even that attracts ants, mice and roaches and it does not make that much compost.

I put my greens in the green waste recycling bins and weeds in the garbage. I do trench composting when I have vegetable scraps and if I bake and use a lot of eggs, I put the eggshells in the garden the geckos like to feed on the membranes and it slows the slugs down. Rice water is used on the orchids. When the garden needs to be turned over, I just chop and till in the residues as long as they were not diseased. I save seeds from some of my plants and propagate by cuttings from others.

I actually throw out one 13 gallon bag of trash a week and sometimes it isn't full. I recycle the Costco Caesar salad containers, plastic cups, plastic containers (sour cream, butter, cottage cheese), plastic cutlery ( plant tags). Gallon cans- plant pots, boxes for plant sales at the garden, bottles, trigger sprayers (fit alcohol bottles). When the worms were alive, I gave them the paper from the shredder. Even the cats are paper trained so I can minimize the amount of cat litter I use. I think I qualify as a hoarder. I even save left over napkins from Mcdonald's and I always carry folded grocery bags on me especially when I go to Costco or the garden.

[rainbowgardener]

I killed my worms too.... Started the worm bin outdoors and meant to bring it in, but somehow that never happened. I was waiting to go through it better try to make sure I wasn't bringing in black soldier fly larvae or whatever else. Now the poor worms are frozen. In the ground they can go down deeper, but in the bin there's no where to go. Oh well.

[imafan26]

I did not keep my worms outside because while I still managed to drown my worms inside the garage, others have had their worms try to make a break for it when it rains and floods the worm bins. It gets pretty hot for red worms here and the bins are best in a shady spot.

[valley]

I found great large worms by the river and freed them in the garden. Moles come after them then I go after the moles, they make a mess in the garden.