I used to poke around with a stick when I first started out, and now i just dig in. I did run a light to my bin house, so that I can check on the guys at night without burning up the flashlight. And I don't know if my wicking jugs and wicks could be considered tools... But I'd say yes, and valuable ones at that.

And as I said in another thread, I think a feed cam would be a fabulous tool for learning about the guys.

I use one of these shelf brackets attached to a piece 1 x 2" with a couple of screws. It has a rounded tip and flat to insert into bedding and VC to loosen it up a bit and get some O2. I also use that to harvest the FT, insert it between the grates. I was thinking that using my hands disturbed them too much especially if the purpose was just to take a peek what's happening down there. I use a chop stick for the smaller bins.

Yeh, I have a plastic 'hand cultivator' that I use for your exact reason parsley. I either have to put on gloves or use a tool because no sink nearby. I prefer the nitrile gloves over the kitchen gloves because the kitchen type give you no dexterity. If you have a harbor freight nearby they sell the exam room style gloves in a box of 100 for around $6.50 with a coupon (plus you get a free item- http://www.hfqpdb.com/ ).

Thanks for the tip, thirstypotato. It's true that I really shouldn't alienate my doctors by shoplifting from their offices - it's ever so much trouble to find a good doctor in the first place and it takes several to keep me going. But it's easy enough to legitimately shop for medical supplies in Center City - no Harbor Freight here, though there are a few in the burbs - there are so many major hospitals around here that scrubs are common street wear. I should get the glove thing sorted before my next harvest, because that's a job that really massages the worm leavings into your skin.

Many places have them http://www.walmart.com/ip/Curad-Nitrile-Powder-Free-Exam-Gloves-100-count/34900646

Also you can ask your local pharmacy and they will have them for a reasonable price or likely give you some for free (if they don't, consider switching pharmacies, no need to go to walgreens/cvs=the mcdonalds type of pharmacies). Or, if you ask your doctor they will be plenty happy to let you take plenty of pairs, a standard visit would cover thousands of them :)

thirstypotato, .......yes I use a three-pronged garden fork in my bins. I just move it slowly through the bin. Haven't heard any complaints from the worms!

My bin is small - just a small bucket with a few inches of material - and I don't feed the earthworms anything that's not pureed, powdered, or finely diced, so the bin contents are like loose dirt. When I need to dig, I use a spoon.

I purchased disposable gloves as I found the same issues with my hands. You can buy them in bulk at Sam's Club or Costco.

For moving without gloves like everyone else I use a three pronged cultivator.

Interesting discussion...I use most of the fore mentioned tools however a bit differently than most of you. The hand fork (cultivator tool) is a must for any vermiculturist, and you need not worry about harming the worms...they are tough enough to withstand all sorts of rough treatment, and believe me I've done them all in the past 50 plus years. I use a glass bowl blender to feed worms in my four indoor plastic bins, and trench alternating sides of the bins when feeding. The fork is used to incorporate peat moss, coffee grounds and the blended peelings, etc. Although worms do not like to be bothered, I do a thorough mixing of one side of each bin when feeding leaving a couple of inches on the bottom undisturbed. The bottom couple of inches is a good place to put some corn cobs which the worms really like for depositing their eggs.

The kitty litter scoop and a plastic window scraper are used to remove the top layer of "spent media" as I prefer to call it. By using a florescent light fixture above my four indoor bins I get a half inch layer of this ready made germination or potting mix each time I feed my worms. This may not work for some of you since your media may be a lot more moist than mine. Worm activity on the sides of the bin or top cover (which I don't use) would negate this method of removal of the the spent media.

I replace the removed, spent media, with soaked peat moss using the rubber kitchen gloves and a six inch aquarium net to ring out as much of the acetic water as possible before adding to the bins. Using a five gallon pail to soak your media weather peat moss, choir, cardboard, newspaper, etc., helps remove some of the impurities which your worms will appreciate, and it will allow you to control the correct amount of moisture content for mixing in with your vermicomposting media.

I use a 1/4 mesh framed screen to grate my spent media, and a larger version for my six sunken raised beds which also serve as outdoor vermicomposting in the fall and winter months. Grating this material makes it really easy to work with when filling cow pots for garden seedlings, or larger potted plants like peppers.

I was vermiculturing well before plastic tubs came along and ultimately switched to vermicomposting for gardening, The 18 gallon RubberMaid tubs (without holes drilled in them) are now by far my favorite means of indoor vermicomposting. I know many of you have the fancier versions which produce pure castings in a shorter amount of time than my methods, and there never seems to be enough of this material for all the things we like to plant. I have about 7,500 sq ft of garden area and I go through a lot of vermicompost each year, so I use the simplest and least expensive means and methods possible for my gardening operations.

As a side note thirstypotato, I use a great deal if my outdoor vemicompost (aged cow or horse manure, grass clippings, ground cardboard, etc.) when planting my seed potatoes. I have six-60 ft rows for potatoes which are planted in trenches dug with a Mantis tiller and plow attachment. After trenching I use a post hole digger to make holes about a foot apart in the bottom of the trench where the seed potatoes are deposited. Then I mix some of the top soil with the outdoor vermicompost and back fill the trenches. I also dig 18 inch deep and wide holes for squash, cucumbers, pumpkin, and tomato transplants using the same composition for backfilling these holes. So as you can see there is never enough of this wonderful material to go around. But we can all thank our worms for making vermicomposting 17 times faster, and 4 to 5 times richer than just plain composting.

Duane, lots of great information, thanks. I am going back to using a hand cultivator. I used my hands last time and I must have upset the worms more somehow because I had one try to run away,

I am doing pretty much what you describe when feeding, I think? I make a trench on one side, leaving a few inches of bedding, add the feed then cover it back up. But I don't mix anything beyond the mixing that occurs from moving the material out of the way for the feed hole/trench. For new bedding/peat moss I just spread it on top. I don't 'turn' my 18 gallon bin because it pretty much has a window screen for a bottom and based on what I had read if you have plenty of air you don't need to turn the contents of the bin? What is your take on that or do you have any experience running bins like that(high air flow, no turning)?

OK thirstypotato, lost of things runnin through my head at the moment. As previously mentioned my bins are probably dryer than yours and most people's, even though I add a second blender full of water after feeding time which is about half food and half water to start. We have very low humidity where I live and things dry quickly. But, a number of years ago an engineer friend of mine from work also raised red wigglers. His bins were made of pressure treated wood and tin bottoms with holes in them. He fed his worms from the top with ground alfalfa meal (w/o oil) and rarely stirred his bins which had a media depth of about about 14 inches of the blackest most compacted media I have ever seen. It worked for him, so I don't really buy into air flow problems unless the media is saturated with water at the bottom of the bin.

Lots of people drill holes in the bottom of their bins to allow air flow and the escape of purged water which they collect as "tea" for their plants. If this is how you run your bin than you are probably safe.

However, if you are using a wire screen only,: have no holes in the bottom of your bin,: and have media which is super saturated with water; than you could have a problem with air flow at the bottom of the bin if you leave this area undisturbed for long periods.

Worms can breath through their skin and can survive for a days in water as I discovered once when I moved a ten gallon cooler of worms outdoors and forgot about it. It rained filling the cooler to the top and the worms were trapped in a completely flooded bin for a few days. Later when I discovered what I had done, I drained as much water as I could, and added new peat moss to soak up the rest of the water. The worms which stuck around, which were most of them, were just fine.

But, that said, unhappy worms will either rush to the corners of the bin, or try to escape by crawling out of the top, or holes in the bottom. If you see this happening in mass then you need to start looking for problems, which could be quite a few things. If you do not use a light above your bin, or it has a lid on top, you can expect some worms to be climbing up the sides at night, or under the lid as well. Don't panic at this, it's just their nature. I always leave the light on my indoor worm hotels!

Getting back to perched water, or saturated media in the bottom of the bin. The method you use to feed your worms would probably cause putrefaction if the media is too wet, and again this will lead to migrating worms as well as a nasty aroma. Bins should always have an earthy smell to them, and even some overfeed, usually will only cause a bit of a fermentation smell, which goes away quickly if you hold back of feeding.

I'm guessing you have been doing this for a while thirstypotato based on your questions and comments, so you realize this is not rocket science even though some newbies get overwhelmed by reading this stuff. Actually it's just looking for a 'happy medium' which is different for any setup, and just takes a little time and patience to figure it out.

morgan

I 'swiss cheesed' the bottom of the bin and used the window screen just to keep the bedding from falling through. I also have been leaving my lid off with just a layer of newspaper for shade and everything seems okay so far. The people that want the drainage are looking for leachate and not worm tea, I think there is a lot of confusion about that. I just wanted plenty of airflow and to check and make sure I didn't see any water/leachate (signs of too much moisture) in the bottom bin.

Right now with no light on at all my worms are staying put so my habitat must be to their liking. I only had escapees when I first got worms but that is an entirely different story and likely due to the post office using the box as a wheel chock lol.

My worm bin smells perfectly fine, I have to make sure no one is looking but I sniff pretty frequently(maybe I am weird but I think they are making my peat moss and left over scraps smell better...end point...I think I like the smell of a good worm poop in the morning?).

This thread was just to see what other worm farmers use tool wise in their bins. See if anyone has had any tools that did damage or any tools that were very helpful. I run strongly on the principles that the only dumb question is one that is not asked, you never know it all, and it never huts to ask (if it hurts to ask then go somewhere else).

Wow, “Swiss Cheesed” the bottom of your worm bin…now that conjures
up all sorts of strange visions in my head, and I would certainly call that a
tool or mechanism which does not stray from the topic at hand. I am a collector
of unusual ideas and that is why I found your thread interesting. I have read all
sorts of books and papers on vermiculturing and vermicomposting and after a
while they all sound alike. But some of the best ideas come through forums like
this one.

Are you a “Pure or Applied” Science type of person…Well I am the
applied science type where you can deviate from your main objective and go off
on a bit of a tangent if something off the subject comes along.

So tea vs leachate is my idea of an interesting side line. Face
it, tools are involved here as well, and it’s definitely a part of
vermiculturing. So, you are absolutely right, that nasty smelling leachate is
nowhere near worm tea, but how often do you see references to that?

Worm Tea: A mixture of unsulfured molasses, kelp, and a nylon
hose stuffed full of fresh vermicompost. My simple mix…but for equipment I use
a Ramco aerator, 150 watt aquarium heater, and a heavy duty aquarium pump.
Tools of the trade...yes! Makes up 45
gallons of the best darn garden spray in just a few days. Give it a couple of
more days and you get some even more benefits in some low level invertebrates.

I don’t mean to throw a curve ball here, and I’m sure there are,
and have been many discussions in this forum on worm tea and collecting leachate. But tools are things which fascinate me. I
actually walk through our local Good Will store on half price day browsing
through the utensil section looking for anything I might be able to use in my
vermiculturing, seed planting, etc., and I have come up with some amazing
things which I had no idea at the time of purchase what I would use them for,
but somehow knew I had to have. So how’s that for crazy!!!.