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Red Wigglers - Vermicompost

Awesome! I got mine last month. Just a couple of tips, don't feed them a whole bunch since you have a rather small colony. Once they start laying eggs and the size of the colony expands they will need more food. Don't use too much citrus, I stay clear of bananas as well, they spray them with pesticides to kill the poisonous spiders so they don't harm workers. Microwave egg shells to kill bad germs, then crush them so they can munch better. Let the worms settle into their home for about a week before you feed. Good luck!
 
They like peat as a base if you want to get rid of old potting soil.
 
Using cardboard was a pain in the ass.
 
I have a 65 gallon worm bin with a mix similar to what's in my soil.
Worms love compost and any decaying matter as they have no teeth and eat the bacteria that forms on foods as they break down.
And despite the BS that goes around, they do not prefer melon and coffee grounds over other things because of what was said above.
 
FreeportBum said:
I started with 1000 from uncle jims and would estimate my colony at around 20000 now easy. crazy how fast they reproduce when given the right conditions.
I too started with 1000 wigglers from Unclejimswormfarm, except I put them in my composter, and have no idea how many I have now, but I see some in there every time i turn the compost, and they do SEEM to brake down my compost quicker.
 
I have found that if you blend up your vegetable scraps & clean eggshells with a little water (kinda like pre-chewing for the little worms) they seem to migrate towards the freshly added scraps and devour them quicker (don't give them Citrus though)
 
I never cleaned my eggshells and the worms didnt seem to care. I usually never even broke them up more than what they were. Citrus in small amounts was ok. Excess food was my biggest problem until they fully populated each bin.
 
Just my experience. Not arguing.
 
I need to get another bin going now.
 
Able eye,
I only washed my eggshells so they didn't smell (not necessary, just my preference) as I was collecting them in a small bucket until I had a few before blending with vegetable scraps then adding to the bin.
My experience with citrus & worms was with over a lb of leftovers after using the Zest from Lemons to make Limoncello, and the Juice used for Lemonade- the worms seemed to avoid those scraps/that section of the composter for weeks(in hindsight it was probably more the volume of citrus I added that was the problem)
Blending the produce scraps really isn't necessary either, I just found that it was eaten much faster when I did.
 
I found the best way to increase population size was to use a food processor to cut up all the food really small.  The worms eat it so fast and multiply like crazy.  
 
Then, when the bin was established nicely, I just chucked the stuff in as it was and let it do its thing. 
 
I don't think it really matters what way its done - at the end of the day, as long as there is enough food in the bin, the worms will eat it and multiply eventually.
 
My worm bin is a 200L food grade barrel that used to store commercial olives.  It stays outside (we have a climate similar to Arizona / Cali), so keeping the temp and moisture in the bin is the hardest thing initially, but in all honesty keeping worms must be one of the easiest things associated with gardening IMO.
 
able eye said:
I never cleaned my eggshells and the worms didnt seem to care. I usually never even broke them up more than what they were. Citrus in small amounts was ok. Excess food was my biggest problem until they fully populated each bin.
 
Just my experience. Not arguing.
 
I need to get another bin going now.
I agree about the citrus. I have put several lemons from my tree chopped up on the bottom of my compost bin and when I turned them over a few weeks later there were a lot of worms under them.
 
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