My wife and i have between 25,000 and 30,000 red wigglers that we’ve been raising since last summer. Started out with 2,000, bought another 10,000 in December. We’re thinking of upping our numbers to about 100,000 in the next year, which shouldn’t be hard since they double their population every 3-4 months in the right conditions.
It’s surprisingly fun and interesting. I’ve learned more about the digestion process of worms in the past 12 months than I ever thought I would know.
We have a big crate of compost worms. Absolutely no idea how many are in there. Frankly, though I was excited about the project at first, I’m not that into it. They take forever to break down the scraps, and there are lots of things they shouldn’t have (citrus, onions, peppers) so that means separating our compost…I’m just kind of meh about it. They’re much less fun than our other pets.
Sell the compost and sell worm tea. We’ve also had a few jobs this spring where we are helping people convert their lawns and gardens to organic, using primarily worm castings and peat. I’m as astonished as anyone that people are actually paying us (pretty good money, no less) to do this. We’re hoping to go full(er) time next year.
We eye-ball it. There are 1,000 worms per pound, give or take.
Never noticed any smell, other than an earthy aroma. If we put too much green matter (fruits, veggies, etc), and the worms can’t eat it quick enough, there’s a slight funk, but it doesn’t last too long. the worms catch up.
Sure, but not often. There’s very little reason to handle large amounts at a time. We don’t sell for bait, just compost, so harvesting the castings means just plucking a few worms and eggs out of the finished compost-- not large wads of worms.
Yeah, it is work. We run our produce through a food processor. It makes it easier or the worms to eat. Also, worms only eat rotting produce, so it you put fresher stuff in there, they won’t touch it until fungi and bacteria start breaking it down.
We keep them in a giant worm bin in the garage. We have a heating coil that regulates the temperature in the worm bed through the winter at a balmy 75 degrees.
I tried starting up a worm farm when I was a kid, but it didn’t go so well. Maybe I didn’t feed them enough, or I used them up too quickly, but they were all gone after a few months. Used them for food for my Jack Dempsey and a few other cichlids I had in my aquarium.
I raise worms at home, and I also have assisted some of my students in starting a campus worm farm. The latter started with a couple of pounds of worms; I started at home with one pound. I just harvested my first batch of vermicompost (got the worms last September). I put half in my asparagus bed and am saving the rest for my tomato garden. I probably harvested about 10 pounds of worm poop.
I really like raising worms. They are easy keepers–just throw in a handful of lettuce every week or so, and keep them in shredded newspaper for bedding. I used to feed them fruit, but these little insects (mites?) kept eating the fruit and the worms weren’t getting any food, so I switched to something the mites don’t like.
I’ve a few compost bins in the garden that are always teeming with red wrigglers - the bins sit directly on the ground and are open at the bottom, so I never needed to introduce the worms - they just found their own way there.
I read an interesting article once about farming worms in composted kitchen waste, then feeding the worms to catfish in a small-scale fish farm - I’d love to be able to try something like this, but I don’t have the space.
A few years ago I read in Martha Stewart Living a plan for a worm bin in the house under the sink for composting kitchen scraps. I was fascinated! She claimed there was no smell. Since my (OK my son’s) hermit crab died I need something to feed the occasional strawberry top to. But I’ve never had the nerve or energy to try and start one. Worms in the house! :eek:
I had a compost pile at my last house which was silly with worms. All I put in there was grass clippings and cantaloupe rinds (and the like). Unfortunately it didn’t seems to create the output I was looking for to fertilize my flower beds. We had some mighty impressive worms, though, which my kids liked hunt for.
I don’t know if it’s for the same reason, but tomato seeds are fairly hard to kill in compost, so you end up with a lot of tomato plants sprouting in the compost. Of course, if you do it right, the heat kills them and you have happy compost. I found it difficult, though. Maybe peppers are the same way, and maybe the onions sprout?
We kept a smaller unheated worm bin in our basement over the winter. No odors! Keeping it inside during the warmer months will bring fruit flies into your house however. During the fall, when it was a combination of too cold to keep them outside at night but still warm enough for fruit flies, we kept a jar filled with vinegar and covered with Saran Wrap poked with holes on top of the bin. Flies flew in, couldn’t get out. And there were no flies bothering us.
Citrus is acidic and will kill 'em. You also want to limit (not avoid) tomatoes for the same reason. But oranges, lemons, pineapple, grapefruit should be avoided like the plague.
Onions (and garlic) have a “bite” that the worms just don’t like, so they’ll avoid them for a long time. As the bulb rots, it becomes more palatable for the worms, but it gives off a serious funk. Finally, when the onion or garlic bulb is completely rotten, the worms *may *eat it. One story I’ve heard is that if worms haven’t been raised on onions, they won’t eat them. But as new generations hatch, and onions are present in their food, they will. Can’t confirm as I’ve just avoided putting onions in my bins.
Peppers contain capsaicin, which will burn the worms’ skin. Obviously milder peppers have less capsaicin, but I don’t like to risk it.
And FYI, the worms aren’t actually “eating” the food scraps you put into the bins, they’re eating the bacteria and fungi that are the rotting the food scraps. The food scraps just happen to be attached to the bacteria and fungi. For this reason, fresh fruits and vegetables will sit in the bin untouched by the worms until it starts to rot.
True. This is another reason to limit both peppers and tomatoes. Or at the very least, rinse the pepper seeds off of the peppers before putting them in.
