I use a worm 360 bin that i got for $50 free shipping on Ebay months back. My other bin was homemade and they all died... 360 worms are doing great this time tho.
I do my worm composting differently then most. I do NOT use paper in my bin anymore because it clumps up and becomes a huge pain in the butt. Instead I use dead dried tree leaves. I do NOT use any dirt, no coconut coir, NOTHING except tree leaves. This also makes it much easier for me to tell whats actually black gold vs soil content.
At first i was scared having only that but OMG these red wiggler composting worms are THRIVING and reproducing like crazy. They L❤VE it!
One thing I changed about how I use my 360 that differs from whats reccomended is at the very bottom - not the trays but where you sit the trays on the support with legs. This is where the leachate or compost liquid drains to then out the spicket into the black container for collection. On my 1st harvest MONTHS back I noticed many dead worms down there eventhough the water/liquid drains out and they werent drowned. I also noticed my worms were dumb and even with the tray system and the food always being in top tray theyd still go down there and die. So I added dried dead tree leaves to that area and now thats mainly where they go to lay their eggs other then in the peanut shells which i will get into in a bit. I realized my worms liked to reproduce as far down as they could which sadly for the 1st attempt they died or some died. The added leaf layer there has now fixed that, and OMG the babies down there are INSANE - so many of them lol!
Another thing I saw on many vermiculture NO NO LISTS was to NOT put peanuts or peanut shells into the bins as they dont break down well. With being pregnant, supporting my mother (not that i should be but hey...), and having 4 kiddos to feed I treat them like my children. They get whats made / leftover in the case of the worms.
On March 9th it was my son Tyler's 13th birthday so we went out to Five Guys burger place for dinner. They have complimentary FREE PEANUTS. None of us really cared for them because they tasted stale, but i filled up one of their boats for them which held probably 15-20 full sized peanuts still in the shells. That may sound like i took a lot but mind you this was for 6 and a half (baby in belly lol) people so it was fine lol. We ate and I got a to go bag for what we didnt finish to take home for later - their food is DELISH and HUGE portions lol. I stuck the paper boat of peanuts in there to take home for the worms. They get what they get lol. Well within a couple weeks I noticed two peanuts grew 😂 and the rest the worms ate the peanuts from inside and layed baby wormy eggs inside of ALL of them. So while the shells do not break down well they love to lay babies in them 😂 So next time you go to Five Guys or Texas Roadhouse or whereever has free peanuts in the shells I suggest you take home a handful! Not rob em blind but take a few with you for your bin.
Another tip or way I found to harvest more often is to sift out your bin even if theres still larger pieces of food clearly visable in it. Mine still had hunks of leftover portobello mushrooms from a feeding a day or so ago in it and i still sifted it out today anyways.
Oops i skipped a step. Sorry. The night before i plan to harvest I "Flush" my bin with half a pitcher of water. Most people freak out if the bins are too wet. I found that doing this makes it less stressful for the worms when i harvest the bin. My 360 has the drain spout and liquid catcher so they do not drown. PLEASE DO NOT FLUSH YOURS IF IT CANT DRAIN OUT- THEY WILL DROWN. I flush it soaking it all well so that when I take my container outside to harvest and the sun hits em it doesnt dry them out as much killing them. Worms need moisture to live.
As for sifting my bins I dump them out onto a large amazon box and lightly with my fingers move some of the dumped out contents around to have light hit the worms so they tunnel down closer to the cardboard so i have less to pick out when i sift.
I am using an old rubbermaid under the bed storage container to collect the fertilizer (black gold) in as its wide and I can easily see any worms that may sift through. As for my sifter its actually an old grate off a grill i had years ago. I bent it the best i could with my girl strength 💪😂 so the larger pieces dont shake off the sides as much. If it falls through the holes i consider it fertilizer and ready. If its too big to go through the holes it goes back into the bin for the worms to go at it more. I grab any large stray worms that may go through the sifter holes and toss them back into the worm bin as well. I stopped chasing every little small baby worm that fell through. I used to spend almost an hour alltogether trying to nicely pick them out and save them. I have since given up on that lol. Theres still a lot of baby worms that survive the sifting process and remain in the bin to grow and become adults. The ones that i miss go to the garden where i tell myself they will live a great life eventhough i know they probably die, but hey...lol
After its all sifted I add in more dry dead tree leaves if needed and take my bin back inside. once inside i take a 20oz bottle of water and soak the top tray all around because the process of sifting eventhough i Flushed it soaking it the night before, still drys out the worms and the contents a lot. Then it sits there untouched until next time, minus adding food to the top as it becomes available and leftover from the kiddos. I know theres charts based on worm qty needing so many pounds of scraps and such every how many days. I do NOT follow that lol. My 1st bin I had (homemade bin) I followed all the guidelines, weighed out my scraps, avoided lots of citrus, made sure they had grit like crushed egg shells, etc... AND EVERY SINGLE WORM DIED. I took over a year off from worm farming because i felt like a failure. Then this February that just passed I said screw it im going to try one last time, but this time not stress about the damn worms as much. I told myself if they all died again i was completely done and wouldnt try again for the worms sake lol! Im SOOOOO glad I tried again because I have probably twice as many big worms now vs what i bought in Feb. I dont count the lil ones cuz i loose em into the compost and they are just so small lol.
I add in used coffee grinds maybe once a week, whatever leftover FRUITS and veggies we have within reason. If the kids eat an entire watermellon I wont put the whole thing in there. Instead i will take 2 small to med. Sized pieces and dice em up and toss that into the bin. I toss in the greens from fresh pulled radishes from the garden after i cut those up, etc. They are doing great. They are reproducing like crazy so thats a sign they are fed good and happy.
I do NOT turn my soil or mix it up or whatever thats called. Instead like I mentioned above I dump ALL trays even the top one with food in it and sift EVERYTHING probably every 3 to 4 weeks. This sifting and refilling the bins with the stuff that did NOT sift through the holes due to it not being ready is my TURNING or AIRATING the soil. I found it less stressfull for them and the more you just leave them be the more they do their thing more effectively. I do not worry that leftover food gets into trays other then the top tray after im done sifting it. They eat at all tray levels and head to the bottom to lay eggs it seems.
If you notice the huge balls of worms its ok. They do that when stressed out. And being dumped upside down onto cardboard to be sifted tends to stress them out. I do NOT pull apart or sift the balled up worms. They freak out and group up like that which is normal. I just lightly pick the ball of worms up with my fingers and place ontop of the bin and they come apart on their own to dig down to get away from the sunlight outside. Dont pull them apart they can get hurt or die if you do.
This is what i do. Im not a wormtologist (is that a thing😂) but hey they are alive, making babies, and eating well leaving me with great garden fertilizer. So this may be breaking all the worm rules, but it works for me and more importantly them ❤
If my top tray looks or finger touch feels dry inbetween harvests i add a 20oz bottle worth of water to them to keep them hydrated. If you notice worms on the top of your lid where theres water condensation its normal, they arent trying to escape. They are actually going up there to do one of two things depending on how wet your bin is:
1.) If your bin is super wet they are trying to not drown - like after it rains outside youll see worms on the sidewalks, they do that to not drown from the water / rain.
Or
2.) If your bins not too damp they go up there to get the water condensation to hydrate themselves so they dont dry out and die.
I started my bin with 1,000 red wigglers from uncle jims online web shop. People say they send blues or something... i dunno anything about that or what blues even are. My worms look red to me, and even if they are red blues or whatever these lil guys do their thing and give me great fertilizer, so whatever lol
Hope this helps someone
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