I started just a month ago myself. So far I haven't had a mass die-off, so I guess I'm doing o.k. And I have also found this forum very helpful. :)

---Amy

If you have too many kitchen scraps, you can freeze them until you need them. If I have an overage, sometimes I just bury them in the yard, but you may not be able to do that during the winter. As your worm population grows, you will use more scraps. Or you can try adding more little by little, and if you find the box getting too wet or starting to smell a bit, then back off.

Thanks for sharing the picture of your worm box. Do you have any other holes in the bin other than the ones around the top? If not, I think you need some holes lower and in the bottom. At least that's the way I do it. I drill the holes with my hot glue gun.

Do you know about the book Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up & Maintain a Worm Composting System by Mary Appelhof? It is an excellent book, and I think both you two previous posters would enjoy having a copy of it. Probably at your library too.

thanks! Yes my bin has 25-30 larger holes at the bottom, in addition to the ones around the sides you see in the photos.

I have an identical but currently empty bin for future migration. The one top has holes and covers the empty bin. The solid top serves as a base for the occupied bin, which sits up on some plastic flower pots. I used the directions from several websites for my set up.

So far there has only been a tiny bit of drainage out of the bin and everything looks good on the inside.

Interesting about using the hot glue gun to make the holes. I wouldn't have thought of that. I used my electric drill. I'll look for the book locally!

Ok guys,
I'm new too. I bought 5lbs of red wigglers a month ago. They are doing well. However I have no holes in my tubs. How do you keep your worms from escaping?? In the mornings I always have at least a few coming up the sides and sometimes ones that have actually come out that one hole in the handle (as shown in Mbfrezens pics) I do not have lights in the barn and probably won't anytime soon, so I close the lids at dark and open them in the morning. I know this is not ideal, but it seems to be working for now.

From everything I've read, worms are pretty single-minded: they go where the food and/or better conditions are. So if the conditions are good inside the bin, with enough food and moisture, they stay put. If you start seeing more than a couple adventurous escapees, might be time to investigate what's going on in there.

I'm sure more experienced hands will have suggestions for you!

The first few days they were definately trying to make a break for it. There were probably a few hundred total I had to capture. Mostly they were in piles in the handle parts of my tubs. Now I usually have less then 10 trying to leave home. I may have more than that in the morning though. I was curious to see how they all were doing, so I disturbed several parts of the beds to take a look see.Ohhhhh buddy..they are looking good! I think I even saw 2 egg casings if I know what one looks like. :-) I still didn't put any holes in.

I don't think they only wander around if conditions aren't good. Mine have always done that on occasion. I finally put some screening over the holes to prevent them from getting out.

Deanna