Indoor worm bin -- nightcrawlers OK?

[judi7550]

Hi...

I did a post earlier today in the "Organic Gardening" section asking about adding worms to my garden and rainbowgardener answered my initial questions (thanks again! )

As suggested, I did a search on the Composting section of the forum for indoor worm bins and came up with some great info--and another question ---

The few worms I have found in the existing planting area are the common earthworms (nightcrawlers) and I'd like to stick with them if I can. Is that species OK for my indoor bin? (I have a source of them from a local bait shop.) If so, are the bedding and feeding instructions the same for nightcrawlers as for red "composting" worms I see mentioned so often in Google searches as well as posts in this forum?

Thanks much for any advice ...

Judi N.

[rainbowgardener]

Yes, as I mentioned elsewhere, I use common garden earthworms (I guess probably nightcrawlers) for my worm bin and the bedding and feeding instructions are the same.

[MustGrowMore]

I am using red wigglers in my indoor composting bins. I started them about a week ago and they are doing great. They already blew through a ton of food that I have been feeding them. I started my tray with 2000 red wigglers.

[rainbowgardener]

Wow, that is a TON of worms (well not literally, but a lot)! No wonder they eat so much.. I started my worm bin with worms I dug from the compost pile. I didn't count them, but at a guess, 100 or so. They obviously don't eat all my kitchen scraps, most of it still goes in the compost pile, but I give them maybe half a cup of food twice a week or so.

[MustGrowMore]

Yeah, I think most suggestions said 1000 worms for starting the worm factory. But I am hoping to get the first tray completed as quick as possible. So I went with 2000.

The I chop all my scraps into small pieces and freeze them in baggies, each containing 2 cups. The first feeding, I put 2 cups on each side for a total of 8 cups or so and they had that mostly gone in less than a week! I added 4 more cups a few days ago. So we will see how it goes.

My apple tree is near dropped all its fruit and its all mealy so I been chopping and freezing that like a mad man.

Can't wait for some of the black gold!

This is my photo when I first planted my raised box. Will be 6 weeks this friday.

This is it last week, 5 weeks in.

534322_10201568075578978_1678113676_n.jpg (74.99 KiB) Viewed 1360 times

And the worms

942766_10201543636528017_901901261_n.jpg (95.74 KiB) Viewed 1360 times

[rainbowgardener]

Your raised bed is beautiful!

That is a lot of worms! I would put a bunch of bedding on top of them, like shredded paper or fall leaves, as well as under them. They are going to eat a lot!

[MustGrowMore]

Yes, they are in a mixture of coconut coir and shredded newspaper and some compost soil from my raised bed. That photo is from when I first poured them into the tray. I left them on top with a few sheets of wet paper above them and they worked their way down and to the food in a few hours.

[vegetablesteve]

that really is a bunch of worms. I'm happy I found other vermicomposters here. Always nice to be able to ask questions to fellow composters.

greets,

[MustGrowMore]

My bin is still doing great. I am planning to add my second tray on Monday since the first tray is now pretty much converted to castings