I wish I could have an outside bin. I might still experiment this year, tho, with an outside bin. I've been at it a few years in a lazy fashion with an indoor bin. Last year was war. 2 (and maybe 3) different gnats introduced themselves. Until then, never had a problem. Mostly fungus gnats forcing me to harvest 35-50lbs of vermicompost when I wasn't ready to use it. It's sitting in 5 gallon buckets in the storage room, right now.

Because I've a new garden with clay soil, I make worm tea and use it as a soil drench. It springs the soil biology. It's amazing to see how powerful it is. Since I've SO much that needs to be used before it is no longer viable, I will be spraying it on my plants this year. Literally. Coating them. See how it does. I will be top-dressing with it, as well.

I started because I couldn't afford a lousy $4 bag of fertilizer. Yeah. Then, I learned about organic gardening. Then, I got rabbits. Now, I don't need anything else except (alfalfa) hay, compost, vermicompost and a little spinosad.

Most of the time I'm really glad I couldn't afford that bag of fertilizer.

MacMex, (George?) is the poster who helped me the most with my worms. I kept them inside during the winter/summer and on my porch in the spring and fall. I have since let Moni take my wormies off my hands, but I worm sit for a friend who heads north in the summer. I prefer to do my composting outside and let nature do it's thing, but they are kinda fun.

Are you wanting to do an inside or outside worm bin?

I'll see if I can pull up my old worm thread.

Lisa

how I started...

Here is a link that might be useful: Worm bin thread #1

year 2

Here is a link that might be useful: The year of the BSF larvae...ewww

I searched vermiculture, but didn't think about worm bins. If I can find worms without having to order, I'll start with a bin in the greenhouse and then adapt from there. From what I can see, it would be tough to generate anywhere near the quantity of castings I want, other than to use in the greenhouse.
Pretty much the same with normal composting. For the volume I want, it's easier to buy it by the cubic yard.
I hauled and spread a little over 9 cu yds last year and would have liked to have had another 20. That source advertised on CL up until this year. Not sure what happened.

This post was edited by okoutdrsman on Thu, Feb 27, 14 at 16:25

if you get good at being an awesome worm host, under the right conditions they become voracious eaters and breed like crazy.

They don't require much attention after they are comfy.