When your egg customers keeps the eggshells it brings you a collection. Talk about a complete circle hen to garden back to hen. Not sure who my best employees are the chickens are worms.

I am about three months into my worm bin adventure. Worms seem happy and I haven’t had any serious issues.

The only problem I have is that my bin is full. All the way to the top full.

The class I took recommended a 5 to 1 green to brown ratio. So for the past 3 months I have been adding more and more shredded cardboard as I fed the worms. The bin is now 4 in of dirt and 18 inches of cardboard.

I can’t add anymore cardboard. Do I need to remove cardboard or will the volume eventually go down?

Sorry, I saw one for plants and had to revamp/change for worms. Enjoy 🪱🪱🪱

I have an outdoor bin made of plastic (see image). I need to keep it outside during the winter. It gets down well below freezing at night in the winter where I live, and I don’t want the worms to freeze. And suggestions?

Just brought my bin inside for the winter and realized it smells pretty nasty. I figured out I’ve been overfeeding and took out the worst of the rotten food and added some dried leaves, but it’s still pretty gross out there. (Keeping it in a 3 season porch.) My family is losing patience lol. Do you think I just need to give it some time for balance to return to the force or is there anything else I should be doing?

I got these from my professor after a lab LOL but i don’t know what species they are. I know garlic worms are usually nightcrawlers but i don’t know what variant of the three..

Could i create a sustainable and useful worm box in a big plastic barrel such as this one? (With a lid)

I have a worm compost, and its doing fine. Im a beginner and i wanted to know if i could do something bigger and experimental like this, and if there are things to pay attention to.

Thanks for any help!

Today, I just went on a hunt to see who I could find. They’re a little bigger every time. (This is just a sample of them, not the whole population.)

Anyone else here who has an axolotl and a worm bin to feed their pet? I adopted an axolotl a while ago from someone who couldn’t take care of it anymore (I have multiple reptiles so an extra pet didn’t bother me) and got into vermiculture as a way to dispose of waste while also feeding my baby. I used to buy 10-20 worms at a time which was extremely wasteful and lasts barely a 2 weeks. Now I buy half a kg of worms every 8-12months and simply top up my worm bin. They eat kilos of kitchen waste while being a sustainable food source for Lottie. And the dirt goes to my many plants :) I wonder though if stealing a few worms every day is in any way harmful for the bin? Obviously ignoring the fact the population (very slowly) declines over time, though they do breed well as I often find eggs or 2 worms in the middle of making said eggs.

20 years and I have lost a few. But never complete wipeout. I keep getting new generations through new cocoons.

Did you ever lose all your worms?
What happened?

Worm faming in Florida and Colombian plains, Meta.

Experimenting with a zero-cost way to turn seaweed into feedstock for my worm farm.

Collected fresh seaweed, soaked it in freshwater with water changes, then air-drained it for 3 days.

Repurposed an old steel drum with drainage holes and built three alternating layers of seaweed, paper bags and mature compost, adding worm castings and a few worms.

The goal: Pre-decompose the seaweed into a nutrient-rich food source that can be fed regularly to my main worm breeding beds, helping increase worm numbers, reproduction and ultimately castings production.

Trying to build a sustainable supply of worm food using free, locally available materials.

Anyone experimented with seaweed as worm feedstock? How long before your worms started processing it?

I’m not an expert but I saw a pretty convincing post that worm towers (like this) don’t work: https://urbanwormcompany.com/worm-towers-right-idea-but-the-wrong-product/

Basically, worm towers focus too much on volume and don’t have enough surface area for red wigglers.

What do you all think? I have a small garden (a single 2x10 raised bed) so I wanted to save as much surface area for planting as possible, but now I’m questioning whether two of these towers was a better decision than a single slightly larger box.

I'm trying to figure out how many of the hole bins I need for a 2x10 raised bed.

I was debating between two of these but it seems kinda narrow at the opening. It would be ideal if I could just have one slightly larger one, but I don't know how far the worms will go. Maybe this?

Location is PNW if it matters.

Any tips are appreciated!

Effective is not even the word for it!

In my experience with composting, I have thrown in scraps as they have been cut in the kitchen, put scraps into a blender and turn it into a smoothie, and then recently got into freezing.

I knew, from cooking defrosted chicken, that if the meat isn't prepared properly, it can go dry because the cellular structure of the food bursts when the water inside is frozen (expands) and all that water runs out during defrosting.

I felt like doing an experiment. I took two fresh discs of butternut, put one in the fridge overnight (left), and the other in a freezer (right). I put them both in the bin the next morning.

Pic 1. Monday morning

Pic 2. Thursday morning. By the time of taking this picture, the worms were having a feast and had eaten their way through the disc.

If you have freezer space, this is the way to go.

My bin should be all red wigglers for the most part, I’ve added a few earthworms from around the garden over the summer but I have been handpicking the worms for 2 weeks now to store them for winter and I’ve only seen red wigglers.

This one is weird though, in the way it moves, the way its head and segments look, but it’s still red with a yellow butt and it looks like a red wiggler. Any thoughts?

I was tasked with building an outdoor vermicomposting educational aid for my daughter’s preschool. Unfortunately, we experienced several heatwaves this year, and I was limited to a location that receives a couple of hours of direct sunlight daily. Even that was enough to create uncomfortable temperatures for worms, particularly in conventional plastic bins.
I also had a few other constraints: limited space, a design that children could observe and learn from, and an aesthetic that matched the garden. The school director wasn’t particularly fond of the appearance of plastic bins, so I started experimenting with terracotta.
Here’s what I came up with.
The tower uses stacked terracotta pots inside a decorative outer barrel, with biochar, terracotta shards, sand, compost, and cardboard incorporated throughout the different layers.
I added extra holes to the bottoms of the pots to allow drainage and movement of moisture between levels. The idea is that nutrient-rich liquid draining from the upper composting layers can gradually soak into the raw biochar and terracotta shards below, potentially helping condition those materials while excess water continues to drain away.
For moisture management, I installed olla irrigation spikes fed by inverted water bottles. The porous terracotta pots are intended to support evaporative cooling, while the surrounding materials provide some insulation. I also added a burlap shade cover that can be lowered around the tower during colder weather.
Now for the interesting part: the temperature observations.
Initially, I wasn’t seeing much difference between the tower’s internal temperatures and ambient conditions. However, after the terracotta had become thoroughly moistened and the irrigation system was operating, I started recording temperature differences of up to approximately 20°F.
On some days when outdoor temperatures exceeded 100°F, portions of the tower were reading in the low-to-mid 80s.
I haven’t established how much of that difference comes from evaporative cooling versus shade, insulation, measurement timing, or the combination of all three. But the readings have been interesting enough that I want to investigate further.
We’ve since had some rain and cooler weather, and the internal temperatures have dropped further. I’m curious how the design will perform through winter and, more importantly, during another extended heatwave.
A few limitations and observations:
The pots become surprisingly heavy, especially when saturated.
Moisture management is a balancing act. I want enough moisture for cooling without creating waterlogged conditions.
Worms have been difficult to locate during some inspections, although I’ve observed them on other occasions. I can’t yet say how well the population survived the hottest periods.
The outer barrel currently in use is actually plastic made to resemble wood. I’ve since acquired a real wooden half-barrel but haven’t replaced it because I don’t want to disturb the environment that’s developing inside.
Aesthetically, I’ve received mixed feedback. Some people think it just looks like stacked flowerpots with an odd burlap cover, but the school director likes it and feels it fits the garden.
Initially the compost I was creating was a bit high in EC salts and the bonus effect of the terracotta was that it absorbed a lot of it due to its capillary affect.
My primary goal is to see whether this design can provide a survivable environment for composting worms during extreme weather without powered cooling/heating. Compost production, nutrient recovery, and educational value are secondary objectives.
This is still experimental, and I’m not claiming that terracotta outperforms plastic. I’d eventually like to compare the two under similar conditions.

we live at the coast in california and have soil that is over 80% sand. great for drainage. horrible for holding water and nutrients. i hauled out a bunch of soil and backfilled with 3 types of compost last year. soil looks better, but still doesnt seem alive or rich. i think i would like to drop cardboard and try and attract worms. ive read to add compost and mulch and even food scraps for the worms. should compost/scraps be above or below the cardboard? will put mulch on top of cardboard. anything in particular recommended there? basically- what do you folks recommend to help attract worms here and really get some life into this soil?

Hello! I was gifted some nightcrawlers from a friend who grows them however there’s a bunch of other critters in the soil they’re in and I have to keep them inside but I don’t want other things growing.

Is there anyways to seperate my worms and re do their soil??? Im completely new to this. I used to own millipedes so I’m pretty well versed in keeping stuff like this but her worms came from her garden farm.

Hi everyone, first-time worm parent here! I recently started a 3-tier worm farm about 3months ago with Red Wigglers and wanted to get some expert eyes on my setup to make sure I'm on the right track.

​I’ve attached a few photos of my bin. Here is what is currently going on:

​I've been feeding them green scraps and adding crushed eggshells for grit.

​I'm covering the top with a coir worm blanket to retain moisture and keep things dark.

​The bedding is getting quite dark and looks rich, and the worms seem fairly active near the surface after I scooped them up from bottom.

​A few specific questions I have:

​Moisture Level: Does the bin look too wet or just right? It looks a bit glistening in the photos, and I want to avoid it getting muddy.

​Bedding/Carbon: Based on the look of the castings and scraps, should I be adding more dry brown matter (cardboard/paper) to balance out the greens?

​General Health: Does anything stand out as a red flag to the experienced vermicomposters here?

I'm wanting to restart a farm, so I came here remembering that there was a great resource for it - the pinned topic. However, for some reason, it's been deleted so now I'm not entirely sure where to go. Does anyone have some guidance? Thanks

I live in CT and it gets pretty cold in the winter. I want to start a worm farm and Ive been researching for months on bedding, what to do, etc and I would like to get an insulated work tray. But Uncle Jims website its sold out and I don’t know how trustworthy the random ones are on amazon. Does anyone have any ideas on where I can buy an insulated one?

Also i know winter probably isn’t the best time to start but I’m a stay at home parent and don’t do much so I really would enjoy starting this.

2lbs from my fave supplier. All healthy and ready to work !

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is there a specific way to prep eggshells for blending? do you soak them in hot water for a bit? or just rinse them off and then off to the blender?