Plan to sustain an environment that is moist and dark. If climate allows, outdoors compost is the easiest and best form of a worm system. Know that you can also raise worms indoors if you live in a cold climate or do not have space outside.
Plan to keep red wigglers in proportion to the amount of organic waste you produce. As a benchmark, one pound of red wigglers will eat a half a pound of food waste per day. Since red wigglers depend on a richer, denser feeding medium - such as organic waste - they will not leave an outdoor compost pile by burrowing into the standard soil below. Red wigglers will grow to 3 inches (7. 6 cm) to 4 inches (10. 2 cm) inches, and can be used in either indoor or outdoor vermicomposting. They also reproduce very quickly. One worm can produce as many as 99 offspring in 11 weeks. Red wigglers also make a great food item for chickens, pet turtles, lizards, and aquarium fish.
They will grow up to five inches long, and roughly 4x the thickness of a red wiggler. European nightcrawlers can also be used either indoors or outdoors.
The largest of the earthworms mentioned in this article, the African nightcrawler will produce a large amount of waste and breeds rapidly. They can also be used as fishing bait. African nightcrawlers can be used in indoors or outdoors vermicomposting.
Before adding Alabama jumpers to your yard or garden, have leaves, hay, manure, decaying plants, or another type of organic waste tilled into the topsoil. Moisten the soil with a hose or watering can, and add the worms right before the sun sets, distributing them evenly and covering them lightly with the moistened soil. If organic material is available, their numbers will rapidly increase.
If you’re only taking out a few worms at a time from a healthy colony, you do not need to make any additional effort to maintain the colony’s size. Optimal conditions are required for particularly rapid population growth. Aside from maintaining as close to ideal temperatures within the bedding, you’ll likely need to add additional food as the population increases.
An additional benefit of a basic compost pile is the increased likelihood that you’ll attract native earthworms to your compost as well. Monitor the moisture level of the pile. Make sure it stays moist, but not actually wet, as a pile that is too wet will get too warm for the worms to survive.
Start with about 3 pounds of red wigglers, and know that they will reproduce until there are about 9 pounds of worms in the bin! Build a shallow collection tray beneath the bin to collect the natural “tea” that drips from the bin, which makes an especially good fertilizer for your houseplants. Be sure to keep plastic bins in a relatively cool location, out of direct sunlight. If you live in a hot climate, know that you may not be able to leave a plastic worm bin outdoors year round. Further, keep indoor bins loosely covered to keep light out. Do not use a clear bin, as the sunlight will stress your worms and keep them burrowing towards the center of the bin.
Fluff or turn an small bin’s bed by digging to the bottom and bringing the bedding to the surface. Your goal is exposing the contents of the bin to the air, as oxygen facilitates decomposition. Turning the bin also allows your worms to move more easily.
Believe it or not, worms can survive on newspaper alone - though they stay very small. However, if you don’t produce many kitchen scraps, newspaper will keep your worms fed.
If using cow or horse manure, there are two important factors you need to be aware of. First, you must allow these types of manure to compost separately for two months. Further, you must be certain the animals were not fed de-worming drugs, as their manure will be fatal to your earthworms.
Since worms feed on the surface, you can also place the food on the top of the pile. They will come up to eat it. To aid your worms, chop up your kitchen scraps. Vegetables and fruits are perfect food scraps. Though raw veggies will take a while to breakdown, boiling them will make the process go even quicker. Aside from a list of dangerous materials included in a different step in this article, your worms will eat almost anything you do - including coffee grounds, tea bags, eggshells, pasta, and bread.
Avoid feeding your worms too many kitchen scraps. The breakdown of food items will lead to heat in your bin. If your worms seem to be trying to escape - they probably are. One reason they may be doing this is that the bin is too hot. You can remove decomposing food to cool a bin down. Further, if the bin begins to stink, this indicates you’re putting more food in than the worms can handle, and that you should remove some food scraps and feed them less the next time around.
You can even purchase food for worms from a local pet store. Alternatively, rabbit food or chicken laying mash will also fatten up your worms.
Junk food. Do not feed your worms fast food or salty snack foods. Salty foods can be soaked overnight and fed to your worms, but dispose of the salty water elsewhere. Pet excrement. Dog and cat food may be detrimental to your worms health, and may even contain toxins that are dangerous to you as well. Freshly cut grass. The early stages of decomposition of yard waste will create dangerously high temperatures in your compost. Allow yard waste to decompose elsewhere for a few weeks before adding it to your compost. Alcohol. Keep all alcohol out of your compost, as it is extremely toxic to earthworms. Too much citrus. While the occasional orange peel is fine, too much citrus can be toxic to earthworms. Pressure treated wood. Wood that has been treated with chemicals also poses a danger to your worms - and to you. Keep it out of your compost.
