My worms love a mix of rainwater and rabbit manure that I make in a 5 gallon bucket outside. You may find rabbit manure on Craigslist. If not post your own ad on CL saying you want some. Or get a rabbit yourself. Cheers.

If you have a place selling fresh juice nearby, they let you have the pulp.

It's also corn time; so I always have several big plastic bags in the trunk and where I live, people remove the husk when they buy corn. The stores mostly let me have them. Removing the silk, I store/stock pile them in garbage cans or whatever (within the plastic bags) and they usually are good till next spring. Corn silk will make the stash too watery.

Thank you! Enjoying this process but even after watching what feels like every YouTube video ever made on vermicomposting... I still seem to come up with a lot of questions.

Depends more on how many worms you have wether you need 1 lb a week or 12 lbs.

I easily have 4,000 worms. Probably more.

One thing to keep in mind is how many cocoons you find in your harvest. It will be in relation to a growing herd. There were times when I was finding 50 or so cocoons at harvest and even more than that, but now I dont see any. Worms will self regulate themselves with the space they have. As the herd grows you may see less and less cocoons. Its just part of the cycle and not to worry on that issue. BTW I wouldnt even venture a guess as to how many thousands I have.

That is only my estimate based on what I started with compared to now. I could be way off, but I started with 2 pounds. I feel like I easily have doubled that.

Worms expand to fill the space allotted, then you need to start a new bin.

Ive been doing this for several years and my herd is at max. I most likely should start a new bin, but I dont want to go the homemade route already gone that route . I could sacrifice a couple of my trays to start a new bin but I only have one lid , maybe I could get another factory lid.

Another thought on getting more food is at halloween there are lots of pumpkins around most people ditch those things. You can cut those up and/or freeze what you cant use at the time.

one realizes the magic of the wonder worms and their powers over us when we're scrambling to forage and feed them :)

Lol. Isn't that the truth! I was yelling when I saw my family hauling out some Amazon boxes! I was like NO! The worms need those!

otcay: The power of the worms is when you start changing Your eating habits and start buying foods that They like.

With halloween upcoming and pumpkins everywhere you should be able to stock up You or/and your neighbors will be throwing away those when they could be kept cutup for the worms, enjoy.

Where do you store them all? I would love to stock up but I am not sure where to keep them.

I have some old 32 gal. garbage cans (with lid). Cut up the pumpkins into big chunks to save space. They will be in the backyard, out of the way and I just take what ever is needed once soft. I used to freeze them in ziplock but no more. Took too much space and I now try not to do too much unnecessary wormy tasks.

Hey Otis, I bet there might be a lot of red wigglers lurking under those pumpkins that sit rotting out in the farmers fields after Halloween?

Harry

I dont have a lot in my freezer so I have room to cut some up into small chunks into gal. freezer bags. Any excess can be stored outside as by then the temps should be about the same as a freezer. Might be a good idea for any brought inside from outside to freeze for a while to kill any unwanted critters and mites.

I like this idea. I can fit them into freezer bags and keep them in my shed... it will be cold and the pests should leave them alone.. then bring in a few at a time to my inside freezer and use as I can? That sounds like a plan!

Just be careful where/how you store them because when I left one outside near my garage, rats or squirrels chewed right through the side to get inside and chow down! They seem to love them.

I think the pumpkins for JOL is a different kind than the ones for cooking. The JOLs has a lot more water content than the other sort. As mentioned in my previous post, I had them in garbage cans. Well, once the big freeze is gone, what's left is mostly water with 20% substance max.