What a great story and excellent pictures.

1) why aren't they eating food? It takes a thousand worms to satisfy vemi owners as to a decent out put.

2) how long (est) until they are a large enough population to process food/bedding and create VC for my garden or tea? Waaaay longer than you want to wait. But if you do wait. It will be worth it.

3) Does the bin look ok? I water it every 3 days or so when the top bedding starts to dry out. Photos taken after moistening (I add about a cup of water sprinkled on the bedding) Other posters will answer.

4) There are a lot of bugs. Lots of bugs like your stuff. Since you appreciate the spiders, I think you will do ok with the bin down cellar. You may want to purchase curtain material, finer than mosquito netting and drape this upon your system.

To combat fruit flys a multi prong attack is good. Vaccume sounds good. I did not do this.

Wine and water in a glass and put the glass up on a pedastal near the bin.

Gossimer cloth drapped over the bin.

When adding fruits add vermicompost, or much bedding. Think inches.

In the celar the bugs should disapear.

Although, I'm not quite sure where they go.

First, I'm not sure you've got the right type of worms. Some others can respond to see if they've ever had success with yard worms, but I don't know that they're the composting type.

Second, if they are the composting type they need some grit to help process their food. They have gizzards. So throw some coffee grounds in there.

Third, it might just be me, but your bin looks like it might be a little on the stinky side. And although I don't use a bin like that I think it still might need some air holes for circulation.

It's totally possible to move it to the basement in the winter provided it doesn't get too cold down there. And I think the bugs will naturally go away during that time anyway.

Hopefully a similar bin user can offer up some advice on your particular bin. Hope it works out for ya! Don't give up just yet. :)

A mixed worm bin is not a bad thing. Every worm (and micro-organism for that matter) has a purpose in the composting process. I do not think adult worms transition well from one environment into another. So it looks like you may have a ¼ to ½ cup of worms in an 18 gallon tote. Realistically, it would be very hard to tell how much this little crew eats. It may be time to feed cukes, melons with a slight dusting of grains and sweet water to fatten them up and help them to get busy.

Hi veronica your start is ok but can be improved on in several ways. I will list them in order of "your" comfort.

1. Use the bin you have 18 gal to store castings in. When Lowes has the 10 gal ones on sale buy 4 or five. Transfer contents of 18 gal to one of them. 10 gal will be easier to work, the compost gets very heavy when you have 4" in the bin. The 10 gal can be stacked. Put some air holes around upper edge 1" below lid.

2 When you can, get a paper shredder and open newspaper, turn it so you are holding it by edge fold into thirds and shred(gives long strips of paper. This is to make it easy for you to add a handfull when you think the bedding needs refreshing. The long damp strips will tear as you fluff the bedding.

3. The type of worm you need to compost can be picked up in your back yard. Put down some organic material (similar to your bedding material) in a pile wet it slightly and cover it let it be for a week or so. Then early one morning when rain is comming uncover and pick up as many worms you can (take a 10 gal bin easy to carry).

4. The worms you already have are red worms I would say more likely than not several species (Ef, Ea ,Lr are common) the hardier ones will out survive the less hardy.

1 For the worms comfort the bin you are happy with. It must have some damp bedding, Some dirt a hand full from garden or flower bed will due. They will also need some food breaking down so some mothers oats sprinlled on top of the bedding and dampened with a few drops of water or plant mister if you have one. The worms will then have all the materials they need to make you a happy wormer getting all the poo and babies they are able to deliver to you.

Thank you everyone for your quick and thorough responses :)

I apologize for not including the fact that I did include some soil in there. When I (and my partner, god bless him :P ) were picking through the sod, often there was still some soil attached to the worm, and I probably included about a cup worth for their gizzards. I also have fed them a little cooked oatmeal ... but the thing is, I *never* see them eating anything. I've seen some very cool photos in this forum where the worms jump on top of the food and attack it within a day or two... I have not seen any such activity.

Also, I see now it's not easy to see, but I do tear the newspaper into 1 inch strips. Do you think it should be smaller paper-shredder sided? I have one.

I have heard about the heaviness of an 18 gal bin, but I am planning on dividing it with a grate into halves (a la boreal wormer) and have one half process while the other half is empty, then fill the empty half with bedding, lure the worms over with new food, and take out the processed VC (yes, I've heard they are not easily lured ;) ) ... so, maybe it's better to say "sort" the VC side and put any worms still in there back into the new bedding side. Repeat. :)

I also read a bunch on "pests" on "the burrow" website http://www.jetcompost.com/burrow/index.html and I think I am more comfy with the other critters occupying the bin. I will probably still get some gossamer-type cloth (ty equinox :) ) to exclude the things such as fruit flies.

The bin actually isn't stinky at all. There's not a ton of bedding in it, and not a ton of food to MAKE it stinky. I will try a little more oatmeal today and see what happens. I will also tear up some more newspaper and moisten it to stack on top. I'll try to grow my population a bit before dividing the bin in half with a grate.

Thanks again, all of you, for responding. I've caught the gardening bug this year, which has included square ft gardening ideas w 12 4x4 beds, 3 outdoor compost piles, and a bin of worms in the garage. It's been a fun summer :)

Ok, so ... I finally decided to split the bin into two sections to have one side processing, and then have another side for the worms to migrate to when harvesting the compost....

So here's my question... WHAT HAPPENED TO MY WORMS? My honey and I EASILY put over 200 worms in that bin ... (and I know a lot more, but I'm being conservative)... and I dumped the bin today to insert a grate in the middle, and seriously ... we counted maybe 14 worms. :( :( :(

Even if we missed .. say ... HALF ... that's like 10% of what I put in there.

There are no little piles of dead worms around the bin. There are no major predators (like centipedes, or earwigs or anything ... just a few small spiders that seem to be completely controlling the gnat/mite issue that was going on) ... no dead worms in the bin. The worms we saw were not huge (I'd say teenager age)...

I'm at a loss.

Any vermi-Sherlock Holmes thoughts? *sigh*

If you got your worms from out of the soil, they're probably not composting worms. They're probably lumbricus terrestris, which is a soil dwelling worm that digs burrows several feet down into the soil. They're not suitable for living in a worm bin because that's not the type of environment they're designed for. And since their natural environment is down in the soil, they can't withstand temps much over 50 degrees.

If you want to get composting worms from outside rather than buying them, you need to look where composting worms are going to be - where there's organic matter to consume. Like under a pile of wet leaves or in a manure pile.

The worms that died decomposed into the bedding. They're mostly water, so they don't take long to break down.

Incidentally, putting soil in a worm bin isn't necessary, or even particularly desirable. So next time around, you can skip that part.

Deanna