bump

Sorry to hear about your leg. I wouldn't worry about small amounts of mold. I've not read that any amount of mold bothers the worms, but some people don't react well to certain molds. Here's more reading material to keep you occupied: DIY Flow Through bins: a collection of links

Cheers,
Andrew

Any chance of getting more worms?

I just wanted to be sure I had a boy and a girl :-) Actually about 5 worms. It is such a small space in the jar, and I wanted to be sure they would thrive and eat before going all out. More worms? Soon as I get this boot off my leg, I will be starting a big FT setup. We have a bait store that sells cartons of red wigglers, so I will be there with bells on some day soon.

I think it's a lot less expensive to get them from composting worm suppliers than bait shops.

Also, worms are hermaphrodites. That means that each one is both male and female. When they mate, each gives sperm to the other and each sheds fertile capsules. You don't need to worry about making sure you get at least one male and one female. Just 2 worms will do, any 2 worms of the same species.

Thanks Plumie for the links. V good info there. I have a question: Being from Florida, what about the frikken cockroaches? I am thinking of a small container, like a soda can with boric acid/sugar inside, tucked into the harvesting "hole". Or setting the whole bin inside a tray with water or boric acid. Are you guys bothered by the dreaded fire ant or cockroach?

Ahhh .... The dreaded La Cucarachas. If ya got'em ya got'em. If not, well I don't think they should be much of a problem unless the area around the bin is allowed to get to the point of attracting them. I live in central W. Fl and have had my 55 gal drum flow-thru worm ranch outside for a couple years. No roaches - knock, knock. Seems, to me anyway, a worm bin would be quite attractive to them, but mine hasn't been discovered - yet. I've been expecting to see them, but haven't found any. As to the boric acid tray, I can't imagine what harm it might do.

Keeping worms isn't rocket science and the herd seems to be quite flexible as to their environment as long as a few simple quidelines are followed - don't make/let things get too wet-or dry, don't overfeed to the point of things getting nasty/sloppy(wet), keep the bin out of too much direct sunlight. A small bin is going to be much less forgiving of mistakes than a large bin. If/when you do do something wrong, the worms will let you know by staging a jail-break. Usually it's something that's been done in feeding to make their environment too wet. After correcting the problem, remember what you did and don't do that anymore, and the guys should do just fine. I'm probably oversimplifying the process, but really, it's not "that hard" to keep the guys pacified and have a thriving worm ranch.

Whew! Cool to know, aufin. If roaches are going to be anywhere, they would be around a Florida worm bin, I was thinking. Good news.

Andrew
I just checked your list of DIY FT and to a newbie it looks like you just dump the food material in the top and wait for compost/castings to come out the bottom. Do you have to encourage it to flow through in some way? Shake it, remove part of it or what?
Dan

Usually scrape up from the bottom hatch to get the castings to drop.