There are folks here who will be happy to give you good advice, but it would help to know your location and too have a more complete description of your hardware.

Dave Nelson

I'm in a small apartment, so it's an indoor bin in my laundry room. I just use a shallow rubbermaid container with ventilation holes. :)

Just as a guess I would say that an 18 quart container will support 200 worms pretty easily. Do you keep a cover on the container?

Dave Nelson

It also depends on which species of worm you have and how mature they are. It's probably better to think in terms of weight of worms per sq. ft. If your container is ~1 sq. ft., it can house up to 2 lb. of worms if you are trying to produce vermicompost. At that population density the worms will not reproduce as quickly.

18 qt. is 4.5 gal., so your bin is pretty small. I suggest you try for 1/2 lb. to start with. That is anywhere from 400-500 adult red wigglers (E. fetida) or 200-250 adult Euros (E. hortensis). Since worms grow and reproduce very quickly, whatever you start with will quickly "fill" a well-maintained bin.

Andrew

Hi there,

I think what Andrew said is on the money. I ran some numbers and if you are patient, 100 worms (adults) should turn into 500 adults, + cocoons and babies) in about 22 weeks. I if everything is VERY good, it could be over 1000 adults in 25 weeks.

As for the amount of castings producred by 500 odd worms, I wouldn't expect to be fertilising the back 40 anytime thins century. lol. Every at full density, that size farm would only be feeding a cup, maybe 2 per week MAXIMUM.

With 100 worms, I'd feed 1/2 cup of BLENDED food scraps about every 3 weeks, maybe even less often. As the mature population grows, up the frequency of feeding, then slowly up the quantity. Be very careful. Better to underfeed than over feed.

Good luck and let us know what you decide. Just remember, you only buy worms once in a lifetime, be patient, and just let nature take its course. They breed VERY fast indeed. You won't start to see the population boom until about 18-20 weeks in.

Cheers

I currently have red wigglers, and they have been processing the food I've given them very well. I may purchase another hundred for the container, then see what happens.