Are there plenty of worms all over? I'd say use a shovel, dig out only a portion at a time, say a quarter at most, fill what you've removed with manure or other food, it will be repopulated soon enough. Don't worry about losing some.

yeah there are a lot of worms and egg sacs all over

You are so lucky to have lots of worms coming to your garden bed. It might be more practical and a more castings concentrated compost if you'd set up a worm bin, populated with worms you harvest from your garden bed.

ill post some photos in the next few days. i have made a worm farm separate so i can use the worm pee in the garden beds mainly from worms harvested from those beds. ive attached the main garden bed which has become home to thousands of worms.

Looks like a nice worm home.

I wouldn't worry about trying to get worm pee, or worm tea - all you need to do is put the castings on top of your soil and wait for it to rain. Same result, lots less work :-)

problem is getting the worms out before using the castings. there's a lot of worms

It looks like you have a layer of burlap coffee sacks on top of the worm corral. You could use some of that burlap to make the worms sort themselves out.

You might try this: take a piece of a coffee sack that is a single layer thick, and moisten it. Take the covers off the worm corral and smooth out the surface of one part of the material, and put the burlap layer over it. Scoop out some vermicompost from another part of the corral and put it on top. I forgot to say to do this in bright light or sunlight. If the vermicompost is fine and granular, you can just brush off the top layer, go do something else for a little while, come back and brush off another layer, etc. etc. repeat until you get to the bottom. The worms will continually dig down away from the light and eventually burrow through the holes in the burlap and go back into the bin. Then you could fill up the hole you made with new food and re-cover. You can save that same piece of burlap and re-use it. It would work best if the burlap was a little bit loose-weave. If the vermicompost is more wet and muddy, you will want to spread it out on top of the burlap and give it some time to dry because you won't be able to "brush" it.

Thanks theparsley!! Sounds like a great plan so will try it this weekend. i have a lot of burlap sacks i picked up from two major coffee roasters here and some have bigger holes than others. Good timing too as I'm setting up another bed to plant lettuce in.

I'll refill with horse manure nuggets and kitchen scraps. Worms love the manure!

Pics to come over the weekend.

Happy Easter everyone

underneath the burlap

That is a very fine assortment of wormy pets. And the worm corral looks absolutely full to the rim with castings - better get that good stuff spread around your garden!

Worms love to get between burlap layers to rub off their cocoons. Also burlap housed lots and lots of MO. Can be kept damp containing lots of O2.

BTW. Toufic, where did you get the corners for your garden bed?

11OTIS - pre made bed that i put together https://www.bunnings.com.au/the-organic-garden-co-200-x-100-x-41cm-karaka-raised-garden-bed_p3321602

THX Toufic.