I built a sifter from a square frame of wood and a piece of hardware cloth. I position the frame on my wheelbarrow and put handfulls of castings on it. I sift them and most of the worms don't go through. What doesn't go through the sifter goes back in a cleaned bin. I take the castings and put them in a 12 quart container. I harvest castings from the top. When I find a worm I put it back in the bin.

Another method I've used, but which takes longer: make a new bin. Put the finished castings in one side of the new bin and put new bedding and food in the other side. Feed only in the new bedding. After a few months you can harvest the castings and spread the other bedding through the bin.

Good luck,
Mariann

I agree, harvesting can be a real pain. The castings are somewhat moist in my bins and really do not separate out over the harvesting basket I bought. I end up doing the sifting by hand which is very tedious, particularly picking out the tiny baby worms.

As my bins will no where near meet my gardening needs, I did by a couple bags of retail "Soil Builder" worm castings and man, is this stuff nicely processed and rich! I am wondering what they feed their worms to get worm castings like that.

If you leave the castings out to dry for a few days they're much easier to sift. When they're wet they stick together like clay, but unlike clay when they dry they just become fluffy and loose. In my experience, that is.

Yes, there is. Lay some window screening on top of the vermicompost. Put new bedding on here, and feed here now.

Most worms will move up there.

When you have a good number of worms up there, you can move them to a new bin, and either sift through the rest, or let it sit for a while, and repeat the process with the window screen.

Happy harvesting

Moni

On ebay they sell a worm sifter. Think its 5 plus shipping. If the castings are somewhat dry a strainer/colander works fairly well.

Ive even seen some sifters for compost that look like they would work well and fit over a wheelbarrow or 5 gallon bucket.

Bryan

I built a 1/4 inch mesh screen that separates my worm box in two. When one side is full, I fill the other and put another screen on top of the full side and put their new food on that as well. When they are finished with the first bin, they will migrate into the new areas to munch and the finished worm post will be relatively worm free and can be removed. Then I dump everything into one section, put the screen over it, and I fill the top of the screen and the empty section with the new grub. It is nice to have a big plastic wbox to do this with. Three sections, separated by worm permeable screen is ideal.

I take off the top 8 to 12 inches and put it in a new bin. Then I use a trap over the bottom 10 to 12 inches. The trap is a square box with 1/8 inch screen. The worms and babies go through leaving only finished compost and a few babies and cocoons. Fluff up the remaining castings and use the trap again. Use shredded paper next to the screen and cantaloupe or bananas or both in the middle and more paper on top. You only need to handle the traps twice and it gets most if not all the worms. No sifting no sorting.
I am disabled and I absolutely must keep the labor to a minimum.

I also use a rubbermaid tub for a bin. When the bin is finished, I put another bin on top with regular drainage holes on the bottom and fill it with new bedding and only water the top bin. The worms in the bottom bin will follow the scent trail back to the source and end up in the new bin. You only handle this once. The bottom bin will still have a few worms and cocoons so I use it itn the flower beds and garden.

Good luck with your harvesting.