If you have mentioned it anywhere in your post, I don't remember what kind of worm bin you have. The term "over feeding" is relative to what kind of bin system, how well the air movement works in said system, how many worms you have, how "established" is the bin, condition of feed (fresh vs pre-rotted = backyard compost), ambient temp. I might have missed some but IMO those are the important ones. Anybody can add more?

""I started with a pound of EF about 2 months ago. I also had about 100 euro nightcrawlers in the bin for 3 months now."" That is a fairly new system and VC-ing has a lot to do with patience, LOL. So, if you are in a hurry, you might want to buy more worms. And while you're at it, if you buy the worms from Bentley, he also had (if I'm not mistaken) something called "worm culture" (VC with some worms @ different stages + some cocoons) and you might want to buy a bag of those. Just checked his site and he doesn't have it listed so you might want to e-mail and ask him about it. This way your new worms will not be in a total strange/new environment and might start working/producing/re-producing faster.
I have 4 stackable RM (9 or 10 gal. ?) bins. The newest on top, then 1, 2, and 3 mths. old going down. I harvest the bottom when it's 4 mths. old so basically, 1 bin every month and get about 7 to 8 gal. VC out of it. Each bin has about 2lb. of EFs. This system is about 2 yrs. old. I don't rely on the worms to travel UP because they do as they please, up or down, makes no difference. The bottom of the bins has holes just to make sure the worms won't drown.

"How can I get things moving the fastest?"

"That's a rather tender subject. To get the worms wriggling with antici... pation" one needs to know the subject well. The best way is to do a little experimentation in the lab. Using a three tined garden hand tool investigate what is going on in the vermicomposting systems. Toss each fork full onto the slab and inspect what is going on in each area of the system. Yes it entails ripping the system apart but how else are you going to know what is happening in there. Once the system is fully understandable then it can be left alone to do its stuff. This may be the most fun one can have with their worms. It is a good idea to find a day when the area is clear of other people who may not enjoy the mess or smells of investigating how a vermicomposting system works in detail. Once you have found out "Where the Worms Are" you can design the whole system to be the place the worms want to be.

I suggest having several colonies of worms if you are going to attempt to push several colonies past where they maybe should be.

The worm inn is maybe the system that you can push the most. I do not have one but that would be the system I would purchase if I spent $$$ on a system. Ease of harvest and air from all sides would be the reason.

To get things moving the fastest I would rebed the bottom of the worm in with inches of cardboard and egg carton. Then toss in all of the frozen ziplocks of food. Then some course preused bedding. A bit of worm habitat and then some worms. The worms should multiply good here.

Because you have gone over all of your bins you will have your worm population in a container to disperse as you want.

Jam as much as will fit of the "cold compost pile outside" on top and zip it closed.

Then fill up and top off the other vermicompost bins and containers to the top. In a month top off again.

January and February, March, April are usually months that do not have a lot of material to add to bins. You are lucky. You have lots to add. Also to get the best results I would add layers of finished vermicompost into the mix to cover fresh additions of food. In a month or so you can reharvest it.

I would also add real wood charcoal to the bins. After a few times through maybe crush it for the last time. This adds surface area for the weebeasties. Weebeasties are what the worms eat.

Do a grand search for bedding materials. Keep the material handy. The more material the richer a vermicomposter is. Add this material very freely. It is insurance against any vermicomposter errors. It also regulates moisture.

"That elusive ingredient, that... spark that is the breath of life..." is bedding.

I had to smile when reading this thread. I too have suffered long and hard over ways to increase my production of spent vermicompost. I have pushed my four indoor bins (approx. 30 gal capacity) to the limit on feeding, but the bottom line is I can only harvest about 60 gallons of spent media each season from this resource. As previously mentioned peat moss is my media choice for indoors and like others who use either peat moss or choir, much of this spent media is used as a germination mix or part of my potting up mixtures.

Last summer I was experimenting with what I called 'worm kashi' which was several five gallon buckets of mostly vegi peelings which had been blended and left to ferment with the lid on. Wife complained about the aroma and suggested I move the buckets out of the garage. The heat only made the aroma worse and I eventually abandoned that idea. However, the point being, the worm kashi was consumed by the worms more readily than the straight blended foods and I'm sure I had reached a point of saturation as far as feeding the bins was concerned. And yes, you can over feed an indoor worm bin. A fermented odor is the first indication of over feeding, and if your not careful your system can go anaerobic.

My basic method of collecting spent media for my germination and potting mixes is to remove a half inch of dried media from the top of each indoor bin prior to feeding twice a week. Again, with four bins this related to approximately 60 gallons of material annually. So I think you can draw your own conclusions from that as to how much material you can collect from an indoor process. My rule of thumb is two indoor bins per household member is about all you can handle with just kitchen scraps. More than that would require some additional purchased materials like corn meal, alfalfa meal (w/o oil), and so forth.

But I can assure you of one thing mr_yan...you will NEVER have enough of this great material for your plants.

Yeah I don't think Bently ships during the winter, at least not worms the last time I tried.

If your current worms process a pound a day max, feeding them more means they still only process a pound a day. So questions can be am I underfeeding and/or how do I get more worms :)?

For the feedings. Is the food all gone before you feed again, is it mostly gone etc. I can say that system is very tough. I do feedings I wouldn't do in a bin. But again if you're overfeeding, let alone the risks it won't mean you process any faster. With my inn I feed weekly a half bucket or less and the lasts weeks is not gone (certainly not the paper parts) but definately almost and all being worked on. That was after six months from a start of 1 lbs of worms.

For breeding, how much does more food mean more worms. I know Bently's overfeeding challenge made a ton of worms. I'd assume always having food ready to be eaten helps them on the breeding push, then again I think Bently mentioned that dry/sparce times could also help trigger cocoon creation (they are more survivable during harder times). Worms evolving to handle boom and bust food cycles.

For getting active worms together in one space, I find covering a new feeding with 1cm of VC (with the inns open top and it being in the living room...) works wonders, also has a layer of loose bedding on top. The worms pack that top layer and are very active, you can hear them if you put our ear to it. Can't say if that grouping improves cocoon production, just a behavior I noticed.

So maybe you can up the feedings on one inn and see if it still gets processed. If you throw in one larger than usual amount, see how it gets worked. If after a week or a week and a half (frozen and thawed food) you find only half being worked on as your whole worm population can't handle it, hold off.
The below pic link is the thing I check on in my inn. If worms are like that on a prior feeding I'll do my next as I know it will take 3-4 days in the inn to be ready (it's prefrozen but not prerotted). BTW if you're wondering about the cardboard around the sides, it's only at the top to stop food goop getting on the cloth, once it's made into VC lower down I don't care :).

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/502/beforewa.jpg/

I have a worm inn and a smaller worm inn hybrid hanging in my basement. By no means is it warm down there but it is well above freezing. I'll venture a guess that it is about 60 F right now. Normally I would not have more than kitchen scraps (two adults and a toddler and I cook almost all our meals from scratch) at this time of year but we've been so warm I can still pull stuff out of my compost pile. I'm in zone 4b but we were in the low fifties today.

A typical bag of kitchen scraps has:
banana peels
orange peels
tea bags
carrot peels and ends
steamed veg that kiddo didn't eat (but may have chewed)
onion and garlic ends and skins

occasional bags contain:
squash skins / pulp
potato peels
broccoli stems
sweet potato skins

I don't think I am missing too much in the way of variety.

Last night I dug around in my large bin two days after a large feeding. This feeding had a bunch of old tomatoes which had done several freeze/thaw cycles since getting evicted from a failed ripening on the counter among kitchen scraps. Some food was left from last weeks heavier feeding which included 1/2 an unbaked loaf of bread. I use cross cut shredded newsprint as bedding. The top 4 to 6 inches were about 50/50 bedding and food and all but devoid of worms. The inch of media immediately below the food/bedding mix is teaming with worms.

I wish I could take a bin apart but doing so inside is not an option and it's too cold outside.

I have a lot of potential bedding on hand. Last night I even grabbed more cardboard from someone's recycle bin as I was walking the dog - this was the solid formed packaging similar to egg cartons.

------------------------------------------
My intended use for the VC:

My "garden" is primarily made of Self-Watering Containers (SWC) much like the earth-tainer or earthbox. From working with these for a few seasons and hydroponics for two seasons I am inclined to say that the SWC's are a hybrid of traditional containers and hydroponics. The grow media is nearly sterile and the plan depends on the addition of a fertilizer. The recipe I used was about 2 peat, 2 perlite, 1 bark fines by volume with some dolomite lime and compost mixed in for good measure.

I want to add 1" of VC to all my SWC's and mix that into the grow media. My back of the envelope calculation says I need 3820 cubic inches of VC - 16.5 gallons, 2.21 cubic feet, 62.5 liters choose the unit you like. Based on traditional last frost date around here I need that by early/mid May.

After I add that inch I will use the VC that is continually produced as side dressing and to make tea with.

This post caused me to tally up the surface area I have available as a garden. I have a grand total of 100.53 square feet for veg garden. For the 2011 season I got over 112 pounds of produce out of that space.

PeterK2 says, "I do feedings I wouldn't do in a bin." Could your clarify that statement. Are you comparing a tray system feeding to a bin system?

I had a discussion once about feeding vs egg production. Although I can't vouch for this individuals comment, he claimed that excess food encouraged worms to reproduce more quickly. Winter time in a basement or unheated garage can significantly reduce breeding activity and feeding activity. Pushing the limits on feeding can be tricky regardless of the system(s) used.

I insulate the bottom of the bins from a cold concrete floor with a thick carpet strip as well as a six foot heat mat with a timer in the winter. I do not recommend the heat mat method because it is too unstable. I have to be very careful about controlling temperature in each bin using a digital soil thermometer to check the temperatures on a regular basis. This also requires frequent mixing of the media in each bin.

I too am in zone 4b and I winter garden indoors, so I require a constant supply of spent media for germinating and potting up. Pushing the limits of any system requires careful observation of your system(s). Unless you are very familiar with your operation this can be a difficult challenge.

Morgan. A FT 'Worm Inn' system, I do keep mentioning an 'inn' and make comments like that so folks don't assume, but with 'inn' and 'bin' I'm not suprised if people reading blow past not picking up on it :). I know Mr Yan has a similar home made system. They are both very breathable and harder to blow up worm wise. The overfeeding challenge we were mentioning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JOa_fgraUM

One big benefit is due to it running much drier (you actually end up adding water), excess food just sits and ripens until it's eaten without causing much issue with the rest of the inn. Less likely to cause issues, always up to a point of course as you mentioned.

" The top 4 to 6 inches were about 50/50 bedding and food and all but devoid of worms. The inch of media immediately below the food/bedding mix is teaming with worms."
Mr Yan, yep that's exactly what I'd get in the inn. The top surface area of the inn isn't that big so when you feed it's deep. The worms seemed to be be put off from the bottom stuff even if the top was probably ready, they wouldn't push their way through. So some harvested VC on top, some loose cardboard on top of that (I just move it aside when I feed) had the worms on top (but not in) in a couple of days. 3-4 days later they start working their way down into the new food. That side cardboard might be helping also, a path up.

mr_yan: "I wish I could take a bin apart but doing so inside is not an option" I'd say when nobody is home take the bin apart in the bathtub :-) But a worm inn is I think a cloth bag that hangs and that would be difficult to transport. To take the worm inn apart can't you just put a bin underneath it and open it from the bottom? Peek through the stuff and dump it back on top? It would be great fun on a day when snowed in.

"solid formed packaging similar to egg cartons" coffee trays, floresent light bulbs sometimes have this, wine shipped to the door has this but it is too thick for me to tear by hand. I need a bigger bin to use whole and let the microbes do the worm for me and save my wrists. There is nothing funner than a big bowl full of torn up egg carton :-) It is fun to run my hands through. "I'm rich!" in worm bedding. It is also calming and satisfying to tear up. Just like crushing egg shells is.

"My back of the envelope calculation ... by early/mid May. It really seems that one day I have nothing harvestable and the next day tons. I do not know how that happens. To get the most harvestable I would let it dry a bit. If it sticks together less more will fall through the sized grate. Also even the couple of week difference between your earliest planting and other plantings will help get that last bit of harvested compost. A few times I have used every last bit of harvestable compost I could squeeze out of my systems. The worms were left with pretty much that days egg carton and that days kitchen waste to make do with. On the plus side I once again had empty buckets since every available container tends to fill with compost over the long winter.

~ Having fun with the worms.

I think 'harvestable' is a relative term. I see a number of pics of 'worm castings' as most people like to refer to as their harvested material, which a dark black and loamy looking. What I like to term as "used media" which is taken regularly from the tops of my four indoor bins is not as black, and contains some of the recently added peat moss, coffee grounds, and probably some uneaten food which was trench feed, but manages to get into the top half inch of spent media which has been removed.

This spent media does not have to be diluted for potting mixes if so chosen, and using it undiluted for germination mixes only requires it to be rehydrate with a mix of one cup of hydrogen peroxide (3%) to a gallon of water to prevent dampening off.

My bins have been operational for years without restarting, and mucn like Peter I keep the media somewhat on the dry side, so extraction of about 10% of the spent media weekly from the surface of these bins is fairly simple.

When reading about 'harvesting' by the various means which people go through, it can get a bit tedious, and it's often not an ongoing process. The question of when to harvest keeps popping up and it just seems arbitrary. I don't see how this can be reasonably answered for any type of system.

I have horses so I add composted horse manure to my bin. I use a 100 gallon water trough that is divided in 2 sections with a board with holes in it. I add manure and kitchen waste to one side until almost full then start filling the empty side. When most of the worms have moved to the new side I empty the mix into used chickens food bags. Usually get 3 bags full and takes about 3 months. Its alot of VC. More than I need. I make tea and give to friends.

Well the first snow of the season grounded some of my garden thoughts for now. I shoveled 8 inches of really dry fluffy snow this morning and we're on our way to about -5 F tonight.

I know the value of cow and horse manure in these systems but don't have easy access to it. I hope someday to keep rabbits but my space doesn't allow that even.

I'll continue to feed the kitchen scraps my three person family generates to the worm bins. I'm sure that I'll use every bit of the compost I can pull out of the bins.

With luck I'll grow enough worm population to start several more bins by winter next year. I'm sure I can find a way to store frozen yard scraps to augment my kitchen scraps.

This reminds me it has been a few days since I last dug around in the bins.

I ferreted around in my large bin (15x15 inch cross section) this morning and the progress in a week was amazing. Last time I fed it was about a week ago and there was about 6 inches deep of food and bedding and I did a hefty feeding when mixing all that up. Today it was at most two inches deep of bedding and food and there were casting mixed in with all the bedding and kitchen scraps.

When I opened the zippered lid there was a fruit fly explosion though. In hopes of controlling the flys I added a few inches of cross cut shredded news print to the top of the bin media and placed a vinegar trap on top of the bin cover.

I am about to add another gallon zipper bag of scraps to the bin and mix in with fresh bedding and pour more water over that. I'm running a home made worm inn and these nylon sides dry out the bin fast.

I should start recording the weight of the scraps and the date added. I was incredibly organized like this with my garden last year - I can tell you I brought 112.68 pounds of produce inside to eat during the 2011 season - but have not brought that record keeping to my worms yet.

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equinoxequinox said "There is nothing funner than a big bowl full of torn up egg carton :-) It is fun to run my hands through. "I'm rich!" in worm bedding. "

I hear you on that. Last week I was cutting up cardboard while watching my kiddo eat. She's at the age where boxes are the best toy on earth. I was cutting into a 18 gallon tote. When she was done eating she wanted to get in the tote with 3 inches of corrugated bits in it. She proceded to empty the bin of cardboard and wanted out when the cardboard was all out of the bin. Once out she put all the cardboard bits back in the tote. We repeated this process once more.

Guess it is best to start them young huh?

I think it's important to distinguish weather a worm bin is located indoors or outdoors. I have never introduced any kind of animal wastes to my indoor bins, but my outdoor bins containing horse or cow manure receive garden scraps when available.

I have never heard of anyone vermicomposting with animal wastes indoors. I just didn't want to give newbies the wrong idea. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I have read about people adding rabbit manure to indoor bins but this is usually when the rabbits are kept indoors anyway.

There is an old thread I read on this forum where someone was doing an extensive system with aquaponics, worm bins, and rabbits all interweaving. The thought was to have 4 layers in their semi-subterranean greenhouse plants on top, rabbits, worms, fish. The rabbit solid waste would be diverted to the worm bins, the urine would go into the aquaponic water.

I am trying to figure out where I can place an outdoor bed or if I can try to blend an outdoor bin with my main raised bed. This bed is 4' wide, 7' long, and about 18" deep. This is then set on a concrete pad. Why the pad? The pad is at least 50 years old and it was just easier to build over than try to rip out a 10'x15' patio. I filled it at first with straw bales topped with compost. For the second season I removed the straw bale remains and rebuilt the bed with lasagna garden ideas. At the end of the second season it I added shredded leafs and peat so now it is about equal parts compost, peat, and shredded leafs. And now it is topped with 6 inches of snow.

I have been throwing earthworms into this bed as I come across them in the yard. Maybe a few cups of worms from my bins will help. Or I'll just kill those worms.

mr yan the 4 tier thing was probably me. So far it only exhists in my dreams.

I have only added one specially choosen "ball" of fresh and toasty mule waste to my indoor bin. Maybe it was just my imagination but it seemed to work wonders.

I do not see a problem with building on top of the patio.

Equinoxequinox, I like the 4-tier idea and want in on it also. I was reading threads to learn about vermicomposting before I jumped in when I found that thread. My wife was about to say no worms when I read her parts of that thread. I've wanted all aspects of that system but had never thought of putting them together.

Space keeps me from doing the rabbits and green house.

I could fit aquaponics but cost is the big thing there. 500 gallons of leca would cost a fortune. That and needing some type of power backup. I had done a few seasons of hydroponics and if you lose power you lose the system.

mr_yan: Why thank you! That is so kind. I am glad a post of mine inspired someone. My vision was more pocket change than $$$. The rabbits would not have individual cages so watering and feeding would be easier. I read about keeping rabbits in colonys. I was thinking for the aquaponics part crawdads until I ordered them in a restaurant and they were looking back at me and they won. Mostly I know I do not want many seems or edges and little imput of work from me. Just water, feed and harvest. None of that cleaning the cage stuff. Maybe just open the cage bottom and let the stuff fall to the next level. You might enjoy permies.com, lots of reading there. Another link I do not have right at hand a guy had the worm bin be the middle third right down the center walking space of his green house. It was under foot, covered with plywood. He also had chickens in there. I guess there is something to be said for us prototyping before going or even ever going full scale. I never thought there would be so much to learn about worms. I figured I would read a few forums and learn it all. I guess that is why as I think bryce? said it is an art.

I tumbled onto an interesting video about aquaponics using black soldier fly larvae as fish food. Black solder fly composting is also a fascinating topic which I discovered here, while reviewing some old threads. I accidently started a colony of black soldier flies when doing a 'worm kashi' experiment, and at the time I no idea what they were. This started me thinking about several experiments I would like to try this spring.

In grad school I became involved in a project of pond raising Tilapia nilotica, which was on the cutting edge at that time. T. nilotica and T. mosambic are now commercially raised across country as a source of protein. It is much like catfish farming, only more productive.

There are a number of symbiotic relationships between gardening, vermiculturing, composting, and aqua farming, and it doesn't take a huge investment to make it work.

This post has me thinking about trying a hydroponic system again. While I would like to do aquaponics and hate buying hydroponic nutrients I don't think I want to jump up to aquaponics yet. The little I have read about aquaponics points to wanting 1000 L (250 gallons / 40 ft^3) of fish tank and at least a 2:1 plant grow media to fish tank for bio-stability.

I've had a worm bin in a 50 degree barn that had an internal temp of 110F, so yeah it's possible to overfeed. :)

The point is that it's more important what the temperature is IN the bin vs. the air temperature around it. As a matter of fact I use temperature to determine when and how much to feed. I use a cheap digital meat thermometer and stick it in the center of the bin. I try to keep the temp around 82-85F. (and sometimes even warmer)
Note that while the center of the bin is this warm, the periphery is in the mid 70's so that the worms have a place to go if it gets too hot for them. I've also seen EF happily munching on the periphery of an outdoor compost heap at 170F when it was around 40 degrees outside. They tend to find the optimal conditions on their own and don't really care about the ambient air temp. [Unless of course it's really hot in the summer and the entire bin temperature is over 90F or so]

> Speeding up

I had the rinds from a couple of melons plus a bunch of banana peals, too much and too thick for my couple of 5 Gal pail bins. So I ran it all through a food processor first. It all disapeared really quick that way.