the container should be fine - put some coarse material in the bottom [maybe 2" coarse sawdust, bark mulch, gravel, even styrafoam packing peanuts]] and put some fly screen on top of that, then put the wet bedding - I"d skip the peat - no nutrients to mention and not eco-friendly

get your bin set up with some food added [like kitchen wastes] a week before you add the worms so there's time for some bacterial action to get started - mixing a small amount of garden soil with the food wastes will ensure a good charge of decomposer bacteria

even 6 worms will get you going, so whatever you can come up with cheap and easy, but you'd be better scrounging some bigger worms from the yard for fishing, compost worms take awhile to grow big enough, and aren't as active on the hook - good luck and happy fishing!!

Bill

You can also just use soil (with or without the shredded paper covering). It will absorb the small amount of liquid that your kitchen waste might release (if your worms don't get it first), and any spritzing you might need to do to keep the bedding damp.

The indoor bin I had last year was 14" x 20" x 6". I had approx 200 yard-dug worms in that bed. I started with soil for the bedding, and replaced it with organic humus/manure ($1.29 for 40# at Lowes) after about 1 month. The humus/manure provides the worms with both a bedding and food.

I never had any problems with moisture, run-aways, or carbon build-up (that I could tell), and I did spritz it with water once a week during summer.

Sometimes I think we just get too hung up on doing it just so, and over-analyze whole vermi process.