First, I highly recommend reading "Worms Eat My Garbage". It's an excellent book and will answer most of your questions. I am going to answer your first question myself. You cannot keep the worms from escaping if they do not like the environment you have created for them. It doesn't matter how big or small the holes in the bin are, they can get out. That said, they won't escape if you make it comfortable for them. Don't feed them too much, keep the bin too wet or too dry, or let the contents go anerobic. Your questions are great, but I suggest you read the book and all you can on the internet for now. You'll learn tons that way. Then just get started and you'll be able to ask questions here as they come up. I suggest you start with one rubbermaid bin, then add more as your "squirm" reproduces. I started a new bin each time I harvested the old one until I had enough bins to handle all of the food scraps our family produces. If you start too many bins at first, you'll need to buy lots more worms. Hope this helps.

Good luck,
Mariann

IMHO, for greatest efficiency in effort and $$$, buy 1 plastic bin, produce it and when it's ready to harvest buy a 2nd bin, divide the contents between the two leaving one side of each bin empty for new bedding and food (make 2 bins out of each). Let the worms migrate to the new side. When no worms (or few) are left in the older side, harvest and separate the few worms and eggs.

Chuckiebtoo

Veronica, I am fairly new to this process. (About 3 months into it) But being the jump in and try it, ask questions later kind of gal. I can tell you a few things I have noticed so far.

Doesn't stink. That was my number one concern when I started. I didn't even tell hubby boy about it because I knew he would be a no go. So I just plonked the rubbermaid container in the laundry room where my oh so observant DH didn't see it for about 3 weeks. He never smelled it once.

They don't generally leave. Think of it like this. Super cool condo with all the amenities. Darkness, moisture with out being too wet, food dropped in through the roof... outside your 4 walls is a light, dry, soiless environment. Why leave? Ive had the lid right off the thing to allow things to dry out, and nobody made a break for it. Just keep an eye on the conditions...

As for the other questions, I will learn right along with you... as I say I am still new to this. Im figuring Im due for my first harvest. (June is what I told myself) So Im reading here to learn. Ill keep an eye on your post, and we'll learn together!

Have fun!

MK

THANK YOU Didz! Those are the types of answers I have been looking for! I have read past posts, but was not really assured by the "if the environment is right they will not leave" kind of answer, it was a little to vague for me :) I guess I gotta have it spelled out :) And thanks to you as well chuckiebtoo, I thought I would start that way... but I kind of wonder how big this little project might get :) as in... does anyone have a large household that I might compare with? I have 3 kids, ages 5 and under, myself, and DH. which leads to my next thing... I would LOVE to have a copy of that book, but unfourtunately my means and time do not make it easy. I LOVE learning and books, but 2 of my kids have special needs, and 2 are in diapers, and one gets carsick (not just nausea...wet gross yucky kind of sick). I am 15 miles from the nearest gas station, let alone a library or book store :) so Garden Web is a HUGE source of info for me. The cost of that book will also buy 5 gallons of milk with a safeway coupon...(heck I even got this computer free as a hand me down!) I make tough choices :) So thanks for educating me with your experiences, it is a TREMENDOUS help to me, and I learn more all the time :)

*still wondering about speed, potato bugs, and worm sex* :)

Think about the library even if it's a trek. Maybe they have story time that would be good for the kids or something. The library is such a valuable resource. If you have one that's small and doesn't have the book I'm sure they could get it for you through an inter-library loan. I'm able to re-check books by phone or internet, so I can conceivably keep a book out for 9 weeks at a time. If you have no access to a library at all I feel for you. We're always happy to answer questions, but they're a little easier to answer if you ask them one at a time :).

My household consists of myself and my husband and our two children (4 1/2 and 2). My system has grown from 1 rubbermaid bin to 4 bins, but I also have two regular compost bins (earth machine). I'm not sure whether I'll add more bins or not at this point. I don't sit them one on top of the other, so they take up quite a bit of floor space in my garage as it is.

Take care,
Mariann

Veronica,
too the speed, potato bug and worm sex questions... I have 2 teenagers and myself and the Mrs and we get quite a bit of feed stuffs for my guys. I have a somwhat larger bed than many it is a 2'x4' wooden box. I don't get any strong smell from it. I would say a gallon a day of food would probably be a bit much especcially(oops! I can't spell, lol) if you are just starting your bins and don't have alot of worms. I give my guys about (guessing the size) 2 gals a week. and when I bring my wife flowers they get a special treat about a week and a half later (my wife likes my worm bed too, now) I have potato bugs in my bed and they don't seem to be a bother to the worms either, I haven't seen them bowling together but, they were sitting together at a ballgame and on a fishing trip. the extra critters I have in my bin all have to go in with the understanding of the risks too. any visitors in my bins are open for a fishing trip. as far as the worm sex thingy,I don't know about that enough to answer. I have seen them hooked up but I always turn away, I am a slight prude.
hope this helps, Jim

I've only been doing this about 6 months, and am still feeling my way, but here are my thoughts. A gallon of food a day would be too much for one -- or even a couple -- of Rubbermaid bins. If you really have that much kitchen waste, you might want to think about a larger outdoor unit. As I understand it, those attract additional worms naturally from the nearby environment as well. It will take a long time for your 63 worms to reproduce enough to process a substantial amount of food (I started with a pound of worms I bought from Ebay, which was hundreds of worms) I have about two gallons of food a week (similar sized family), and it's too much for my one bin; now that the worm numbers have grown enough, I'm starting a second.

Don't worry about smell; as long as you don't let the bin get anaerobic, there's no unpleasant odor at all. And I use the Rubbermaid stacking bin system, which does have a good sized gap around the upper bin; in the entire six months, I've only had two escapees (stiff little sticks on the ground next to the bin in the morning). They won't leave if their environment is to their liking.

I just thought of this and of course knowing nothing at all about you it may not apply, but here goes. My brother keeps chickens. They can easily eat a gallon of scraps a day. They can even eat meat and oils with no problems. Something to think about anyway.

Mariann

ROTFL Jim, ty, just be careful or you will have a red light district in there soon :)

TY fadoodle, My 63 worms were a small scale experiment to see if I would react well before investing any $. I figured if I needed more I could lure more by burying yumyums in the ground, and capturing them at the dinner table :)

Thanks to kitten :) We lost many of our chickens over the winter to coyotes. We still have one old girl. She will eat most things, but is not fond of lettuce and such. so I would not HAVE to feed them the whole amount. I was just curious about capacity because she is no spring chicken *snickering* We plan to get some more chickens eventually, but want to build a better yard for them. right now she is confined to a tractor to keep her out of the garden :) But we feed her most of what we have right now, and she composts faster than any worms on earth :) We are still also considering sinking a trash can with holes all over it into the ground and opening a "worm buffet" :) Thanks for the input :)

Also, if you check out the soil compost and mulch forum, you'll find that lots of people simply bury their kitchen scraps between plants in their garden. The worms come and eat and the plants get fertilized on the spot. I haven't done it, so I don't know if there's a problem with wildlife trying to dig it up.

Pill bugs generally like moist conditions, they do eat OM and somewhat compete with the worms but not too much.

The things that cause the big stink are too wet and too much food stuffs. Burying the can would be a good way to get in some extra worms. It would also help with disposing of your excess food stuffs at first.

Potatoes tend to take a while to break down, and ive found usually end up growing in your bin. To combat this i make sure they are run through a food processor. I also usually freeze food stuffs to keep fruit fly activity down.

Vernonia Id be willing to donate my copy of worms eat my garbage to a revolving book readers club ::grins:: read it make notes from it, sign it and then eventually pass it on. The more people we can expose to vermicomposting the less strange we look and sound. If youd like to be the first in this hopefully long list send me an email with your address.

Bryan

You've gotten some good responses here, Vernonia, so I'll just touch on a few points not already covered;

when worms mate they lay side by side with their heads pointed in opposite directions and press closely together. So closely will they press together, in fact, that it often looks as though one worm has crawled under the clitellum of the other. This is not the case, of course, since the clitellum is not a separate organ but is simply a glandular swelling of the body, but even on close inspection it can appear to be otherwise. While pressed together in this way they excrete a mucous film that coats both worms from just behind the clitellum to the head, helping to protect the exchange of reproductive material. Each worm then passes sperm to the other, holding the sperm they receive in a pore on the skin surface between the head and the clitellum. The amount of sperm received is more than sufficient to form several cocoons, each holding three babies on average, but is too small to be seen, so is unlikely to be the cause of the swelling you observed.

Once the worms have exchanged sperm they move apart and begin to excrete a thick, specialized mucous around the clitellum. They also, at this time, eject their own ova into another pore on their own skin surface, not far from the pore holding the sperm they recieved from the mate. The mucous surrounding the clitellum begins to harden, forming a hard outer shell, but remaining sticky and moist underneath. Once hardened, the worm begins to back out of the mucous band, sliding it along its body toward its head. I am wondering if it was this "shedding" of the mucous band that you were seeing when you described a swollen place between the head and clitellum. As the band passes over the pores holding sperm and ova they are picked up and held on the sticky underside. Once the band slips off the worm body both ends close with sperm and ova inside where fertilization takes place.

Base the size worm bin you need on weight of food scraps as opposed to the volume. The standard rule of thumb for beginning a bin is that it should have one square foot of surface area for each pound of food scrap you wish to process each week. As the system matures it will be able to process more than just one pound of food per square foot each week, but building the bin to this specification ensures that it will never be too small for your food scrap output.

A gallon of food scrap per day is an extremely large amount that would require a bin typically considered too large for indoor use. Is your household really producing that much?!? I have five adults in my household and we produce about a gallon of scraps per week!

A healthy worm bin will produce no odors unless very smelly stuff is added to the bin (like rotted broccoli), and even then the odor tends to be destroyed quickly and rarely leaves the bin when the lid is closed. Smell should not be a problem for your system.

Sow and pill bugs are beneficial to the worm bin process, aiding decomposition by shredding the tough, lignous materials like paper, leaves, banana stems, lettuce hearts, etc. These little critters are not bugs, but crustaceans, closer on the family tree to lobsters than to any of the other critters common to the worm bin. They do not compete with the worms at all, rather, their fecal matter becomes a nutrition source for the worms, which stabilize the pill bug poo into stable worm castings. The relationship between worm and pill/sow bug is not technically symbiotic, but it is cooperative.

Enjoy your bin, and be sure to let us know how it works for you!

Kelly s

TY TY TY for answering my most raging and nerdiest questions :) I do think if we put out scraps through the blender it would be closer to a gallon a week, cheerios and bread crusts would be pulverized and not so airy. but there is a lot because the kids waste more than any adult ever would :) The dog tried her best to dispose of stray cheerios :) and we have our chicken for now :) Thank you to all for the information, as I said before, you all are priceless for your information :)

Vernonia, my idea of a great vaction is a walking tour of the Cascades Range typing wild plants and weeds; I can't pass a compost pile or worm bin without sifting through to identify the various arthropods (which our younger daughter finds most disturbing); I can quote Star Wars dialogue, ver betim, and frequently do; I went to the opening of each of the Lord of the Rings films with my entire family in elven robes; my husband wore a pocket protector on our wedding day; and I think Yo Yo Ma is a god. Trust me when I tell you, nothing you could say would be too nerdy for me!

Kelly S

Okay, I have some questions about worm bins. I am new to the site and am excited by all that I am reading. I am doing some of my student teaching in a 5th grade Science class. I want to introduce worm bins and composting for the decomposers section. The thing is...I am a poor student. I want to do this on the skinny and I want to find out how to make the rubbermade tub versions...instructions. I have a vague idea, but I need details. Is it worth it to invest say in one of the tray or stacking composters. I'm thinking mess, harvesting the material?? I would really appreciate some answers. Thanks, Cindy

Try this site and it should help you get stated for not much $..You can also ask some parents to help out with funding.

Here is a link that might be useful: Easy Worm Bin

Participants in this thread seem to be interested in the 'natural history' of worms.

If you are not already know, Darwin's observations on worms are availed in the Gutenberg project and can be read on-line or printed. (I don't recall anything about evolution in his observation on worms so it should spook the faithful.) Lots of details on anatomy, habits, diets, pH and that sort of stuff.

It is quite long. Click on the link below and then select text or some other if you prefer, of course.

Here is a link that might be useful: Darwin's observation on worms.

Hi I just started 1 week ago and I've read alot on worm keeping mostly by internet search. I bought 24 red trout worms for $2.50. I have them in a plastic container, with shredded paper of all kinds, plus some old mulch from the garden. I keep it in my basement uncovered. I brought them up to count them and they were all alive and lively. I also have a rubber maid container with about 80 nightcrawlers which are also doing fine. I have a garden which I put alot of food stuff in for organic gardening and the worms just love all the stuff I put in as long as its not meat and grease. I don't have a problem with wild life in it except for the birds and I live back to back to the woods. I use rabbit and horse manure as well as grass clippings, straw, and leftover food from our kitchen. All this organic stuff helps keep the soil moist longer and produced lots of worms for the finding even in the day time. Plus the plants seem to grow faster and healtier. I just started keeping worms inside for the kids as a project. I hope the red trout worms are the same as red worms, just babies. I read somewhere you can keep them in a all paper bed. they do seem to prefer the paper so far. I also read that worms carry both female and male reproductive organs. I'm currently feeding rice bran left over from my horses. I only sprinkle a little a week since they will also eat the paper. I read that red worms will only reproduce if they have the space and food to do so, thus not overwelming someone who don't want alot of bins.

Just a thought about nightcrawlers. They aren't the type of worms that you want to use in bins for creating compost. Nightcrawlers can go as deep as 6 ft in the ground, whereas red wigglers and other close relatives, are the ones that you want - they are the ones that stay close to the surface and create all the wonderful castings.
JT

I read somewhere that the African Night Crawler is really from Florida and that they are surface dwellers...but they don't like the cold so much. I had always been under the impression that the so called night-crawlers that are slow moving and don't do well at hunting for fish in the water were from Canada or the northern parts. So, I was happy to find that the African Night Crawler is very active as a fisherman, a surface dweller that eats a lot, and can live quite happily in HOT summer weather and mild winters.

I have been lurking and learning. And thanks to sqh1's link to a picture lesson, I am going to spring for making a bin for the indoors! I am still on the plastic milk jug experiment, so far, and the worms seem to be doing quite well after 3 weeks. Thanks for all the information! It is much appreciated! =o)

shyspook: Hi! I am going to give you some information about a source to get information about the African Nightcrawler. It is a book titled Raising the African Night Crawler or Tropical Giant Worm. Copyright renewed 1986 the Book is written by Charlie Morgan. This book can be bought at many sites on the internet and at Shields Publications Eagle River Wi 54521 or www.wormbooks.com

Page 3 last paragraph:(Quote) "The mysreties surrounding the most common of animal life is a continuing wonder to those who know of them. Years and years of resurch fails to reveal some of the simplest facts. How, in the mysterious workings of man, nature and the elements did a worm that is common on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico ever come to be called the African Nightcrawler? The shrimp fisherman who brought the first box full of them over is still alive and actively fishing the waters off the Yucatan coast, yet the antecedents of the worm are completely shrouded in mystery and not one man in a thousand who raises them has the faintest idea where they came from, or how they were transported to the United States."

larry

Hey lkittle! Thanks for the information. So, it IS a worm from the Americas! Just a little more south and west than I heard. I ordered a video and some worms (allegedly full blooded nightcrawlers)LOL! some cocoons, too, to start an indoor bin. The folks where I ordered from said that they are currently sold out of night crawlers. So, I still don't get the worms, yet. Do you know of anyone selling Yucatan Night Crawlers? Must have full-blooded stock of course...LOL! I didn't know they will cross breed...do they? Thanks! Shyspook the frustrated! =o)

Hey shyspook: Na! No such thing as a hybrid in the world of earthworms.

Charlies book is $8.00 in most places. If you buy his whole series its $55.00- $65.00 + shipping I have all 9 books. They are more like pamphlets with 25-200 pages. Info is very good, for me worth the price. :^)

larry

Grasshoper, use the powerful "google" to find whatever you need! Use African night crawlers in the search engine and you will find 180,000 pages and plenty of dealers to choose from. It is not a nightcrawlers like the canadian one. It is really just a warm weather red wiggler. What better to name a worm that you want to sell than "nightcrawler". They don't survive well in colder climates and they like to just up and crawl away every once in a while! Red wigglers do better for me and less trouble.

If you want a bigger worm than the reds you might also check on the European Night Crawler, also known as the Belgian Worm, Super Red, Carolina Crawlers, Blue Worms, and a half a dozen other names. The Scientific name is Eisenia hortensis.