I used to freeze everything, then run it through a meat grinder. I decided it was more effort than necessary.

If you put your goo in a bucket out in the sun for a few days, you are likely to have a stinky mess on your hands. If you put the goo in the worm bin instead, in a few days the worms will be eating it. I'd go for the worm bin.

Yep, mixing in some VC will certainly speed things up. Gets the microbs there and holds moisture well which helps the process. Just be careful not to smother food with VC, or anything for that matter. Want it to breath so it doesnt' go anerobic. I've oftern found worms hanging out in the VC/bedding mix on top of a dose of new food. Also a good use of any sloppy soaked VC you've ended up with.

All the things you mentioned will speed up the process, but remember there's still the maximium rate worms will eat. If you create a large amount of ready food far in excess of what the worms can eat, and if it's gooey enough to trickle to the wet bottom of the bin, could be asking for problems.

Speed is more of an issue when you've got so much food going in that it doesn't have time to break down and get eaten before the system gets full (assuming you've got enough worms to process that fast). Or another way, if you've already got food in the bin that's going to take your worms two weeks to fully eat, not much point giving them another feeding of ready to eat now food and spending all that time doing so.

If you're going to be doing this long term, especially for a business, be nice to get a lower maintanence system worked out now. Weekly feedings of semi processed food (frozen and broken into smaller chunks) will give worms a weekly dose of ready food, even if it takes a week or two in the bin to get fully ready. As one batch is getting eaten, the other ages getting ready to be eaten.

JamesMarconnet, loved your post. Yup, yup, yup. Freezing, shredding, aging with vermicompost. But along the lines of sbryce I do not want to do this amount of work every day for my worms. They are supposed to work for me. If I throw in a cabbage every month or shred, freeze and vermitaminateandage, they still eat. Just I work less one way and the worms and most especially time work more. I can toss in chunks of food with bedding and go on vacation for a month. Time will do the work for me. It does take more space. On the other hand maybe one has a bunch of new worms and needs food fast. Then freezing, grinding and preconditioning the food with lots of bedding is what to do. Good to know both methods.

I weighed one of my Fast Worm Food Cubes at about 1 ounce yesterday. I weighed some used but still damp coffee grounds (CG) at about 5 heaping teaspoons per ounce.

My plan for a while is to put one cube and about 5 heapings of CG into 1/6 X 2 = 1/3 of my shallow bins each Sunday (feeding day!) and watch and see what happens. The area that I just fed, I'll cover up with some new shredded bedding. That makes it obvious where the newest food is, at least the first time around the 6 feeding locations in clockwise order route.

I've realized that the vermicompost (castings) that I'm getting are in such small volume that probably all they will be good for is for filling 6-packs for seed starting next spring. Perhaps I should mix it with some conventional potting soil?

Yes, I'm out to learn a little about small-scale, hopefully indoor vermiculture (since I live in the sunny South, and my garage is unheated and certainly un-air conditioned!) and to raise as many worms as possible from my small initial purchases for my other uses for them in my composters and my gardens. My way would certainly be no way to run a business!

Thanks for the suggestions. Shred I must!

Jim

Straight vermicompost isn't good to plant in. Mix it with potting soil so that the VC is about 1/5 of the total mix.

Last time I used vermicompost it was on a large yard. There were bare spots and areas where crab grass had been pulled. Grass seed was tossed down, then vermicompost chunky (think chunky style peanut butter) then seed with bright green seeding medium. It was good so I could see where the seed was. Then as that faded I could tell where I had seeded and how well the seed had taken in spots around the yard because pumpkin seedinglings started to grow. I do not think they will harm anything as they are mowed over a few times.

My feeding plan seems to be working OK after the first week. The night crawlers ate most of the blended stuff and some of the coffee grounds. The red worms ate all of the blended stuff and some of the coffee grounds. I'm thinking that the coffee grounds, even though frozen to soften them up, just don't get turned into live bacteria worm food as fast as the mix of pumpkin and other stuff that I blended all together thoroughly in the blender.

My dear wife got concerned about my worms shivering out in the unheated garage and suggested that I could bring them inside the house for the winter. Will wonders never cease! I brought them inside pronto, and they are much more active in 73 degree temperatures than the recent average of 50 degrees lately here outside!

I've found no coccoons yet. I'm Impatient! But I read that it takes worms a while, and I've only had them a few months.

Jim Marconnet

"My dear wife got concerned about my worms shivering out in the unheated garage and suggested that I could bring them inside the house for the winter." What an angel! You are a very lucky man!