Step 21: Ready for your worms (and friends of worms)

From WormWiki

by Amy Youngs

Put your red wiggler worms into the bag. I took part of one overfilling worm bag to put into this one - with worms, partially composted materials and all. I've always had pillbugs in my worm bins and bags, so you'll see a few of those hanging out. I asked a worm professional about them once and he told me that they are "helpers of the worms". They process some of the food and getting the microbial action going that is the actual food for the worms. So I'm happy to have them around, even if they gross some people out. When the worm bag is disturbed, they do tend to crawl all over looking a bit menacing to some folks, but they settle down and find hiding places in the compost, so you eventually don't even see them. They become the hidden helpers of the worms, so don't worry about it. Even if a few escape the bag once in awhile, they just die off. They can't live in our dry world.

Why don't you see worms at the top in the first pic? Because they hate the light (ultraviolet light kills them) so they quickly burrowed down into the food stuff to hide. I turned over the material and quickly took the second detail picture so you could see them. I have red wiggler worms or Eisenia Foetida, which are great for composting situations. Don't try digging up some common Nightcrawlers out of your yard for this type of composting, they will be unhappy because they like to burrow way down into the ground and are not happy feeding at the surface of the soil like red wigglers are.

Food for worms should be about 1 inch thick at the top of their bag. All types of vegetarian leftovers make great food - wilted lettuce, stale bread, dead houseplants, coffee grounds, tea bags, fruit and veggie peelings, apple cores, melon rinds, corn husks and cobs, rabbit and chicken poop and more. Don't feed them any poop from animals that eat meat, oily things, meaty things, citrus or super rotten stuff unless you want to endure the stink that will result.

To learn more about keeping worms, and to connect with like-minded worm people, I recommend visiting or joining up with the free and friendly community at vermicomposters.com

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