Today was harvest day for my plastic bin. I always look to getting the black gold except for the worm separation. Even with using the method where you hang strong light over the harvest bin and stir it up it seems the worms are in no hurry to move. Seems they have been in their own poop just too long . Some seem like they are nearly dead but they aren't.

My vermicompost is moist but not mucky and I have made a 2' x 3' box with 1/4" wire and it gets strained thru it first . Then It gets strained thru another wire container with 1/8" screening and the mix comes out really nice. Its 14" square and 11" deep and its some kind of file holder made of all wire heavy duty. I found this at meijers. Even during the straining process I still find more worms and I save every one I can, even so I must have missed some. Thats ok if they live they will eventually go in my garden in the long run. In the next day or two I may do my 360 bin. As you might guess this is all coinciding with my spring planting coming up very soon. This is the first year where I have had enough VC to add to all my plants.

I will tell ya'll that there is a lot to be said for manually separating a bins' contents of vermicompost (hopefully vermiCASTINGS), worms, and cocoons.

Inspections of the entire thing will give you lots of knowledge about how things are going. You'll be able to see how healthy the herd is, how plentiful the cocoons are, how wet the contents are, and actually how completely the contents have been finely composted.

Sometimes I've begun a bin separation only to discover that lots of unfinished and uncomposted stuff remains in there. Also find that manually going thru the bin is really a great way to de-compact the thing, aerate it, and put it all back together (minus whatever I want to remove).

Just saying....

cb2