Sounds good I think your ready for harvest then freezing food will help with that problem and bury deeper cover with thick straw or cut out a piece of cardboard or thick remnants of carpet for the tip wil help deter them also… are you getting springtails and beneficial mites yet? The mites are hard to see but if ya study one spot for long enough you can see them … not to worry sign of a healthy worm bin!
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Yeah, I managed the top layer a lot better during the middle of the summer and had very few fruit flies. I had a bunch of plums that went bad I stuck in there whole that were probably attracting them big time. I do let the food scraps accumulate in a bag in the freezer tho. I’m not as loving as some of the others who blend up the food for their worms tho!
Hard to say about the mites but there are definitely all sorts of little critters crawling around in there. Without knowing what they are, it gives me pause to use those castings on my indoor grow plants. Earlier in this thread someone had said something about keeping 2 worm bins- one for indoor cannabis grows and feeding the worms more manure and other plant wastes. And a second bin for food scraps and using those castings outdoors in my veggie beds. I didnt bother to go back to read that, and I may be imagining it, but any insight into that would be helpful for me to understand better.
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Time will teach a lot as well as experimenting with different methods YouTube books they all help in some sort or fashion.
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So as soon as it started getting cold, I moved the bin inside my garage. Its a 10 gal fabric pot inside an open plastic bin thats propped up a little so if it leaches anything they wont drown.
Seems like theyve gone dormant or they arent eating much at all. I assume if it doesnt freeze solid theres a really good chance I’ll still have worms in the spring? Should I be doing anything in particular w them in the cold but not freezing garage?
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Even if it freezes you will have worms. The worms may die but the cocoons can live through -40 F. Make sure it is wet and not sitting on cold concrete. In the spring you will have worms in a few weeks once it warms up.
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Yep, its sitting up off the concrete to make sure if it leaches they wont drown and prevents them from sitting on the cold floor. Good to know that I’ll have some worms ready to go in the spring!
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@newb2.0 I use thick ass styrofoam panels under my pots doesn’t hurt to cover them with some heavy blankets either worms tend to ball up in large masses to help keep each warm as well , their pretty hardy creatures for sure Iv had my garage below freezing with the above mention protection and they’ve done fine.
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Couple of simple tips if you want to keep your worms rolling all winter. I’ve used soil heating cables successfully in the past. Something like this.
If I had to do it again I would use one of these under a fabric pot.
The only thing is you will have to water because they dry out fast when you add heat to the soil.
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Got the worms out of the garage today to check on them. They ate everything I put in back in Nov or so, and they look like there are a lot of little ones in there.
Gave them some food and water, looking forward to it warming up!
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Once it warms up they go crazy. I like to let the bin build up a population then early summer split it up into my greenhouse beds.
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Nice, yeah I split out a bunch at the end of the season. I hadnt checked my bin since probably November. I put some food in there but didnt expect them to be eating bc of the cold, but there was NOTHING left in the bin food wise! I think we’re probably only a few weeks away from me moving them out from the garage into a protected area in the yard. Really cant wait for the winter to be over.
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started this bin in the fall with about 1000 wigglers. original bedding was coco. been feeding some veggies but mostly chicken manure/straw, coffee grounds, a few spent mushroom cakes, and grew a bunch of clover and barley in it until it was 4-5 inches tall then turned it under and let them consume that too. every so often I throw in some egg shells, and random amendments like neem, kelp, crab, alfalfa etc just for fun.
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Some beautiful looking stuff there! U ya our plants are going to love it! Great job @indyfarmer!
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thank you. i got into vermiculture about 5 years ago and i love it.
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Was looking at my worm bins tonight after work did some good bed soaking and realized I have probably over 50lbs + of casting that’s look pretty broken down and ready to separate it out
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That awesome. It’s a hard feeling to beat when you are looking at buckets full of fresh castings, knowing what’s in them, and knowing how much your plants are going to love them. Tea? Top dress? Mix a batch soil? I think I’ll do all three.
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I’ve got a 5-gallon bucket of castings waiting for when I make my beds. I’ll have another one here soon, I need to harvest and start a new level. I’m going to need 45 gallons of compost.
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You keep your bin inside? Mine is just in a 10gal fabric pot right now and no way to cover it up. Not sure that set up inside would go over well, I could tell there are a LOT more than just worms living in the bin. There was a ton of very tiny mite sized things moving around when I picked up some of the newspaper still left in there…
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If anyone wants free red wigglers find a local horse stable and ask them for some of their old (cured) horse shit. I’d bet a dollar to none that pile is friggin loaded with them
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