Adventures In Vermiculture

   I finally jumped on the vermiculture (worm farming) band wagon recently and thought that some people might be interested in my experiment.  Worm castings make fantastic fertilizer!  It can either be applied whole as a top dressing/soil amendment or brewed, put in cheesecloth and soaked, with water to make compost tea. After doing a little online research, including watching a few videos on youtube, I decided to get 250 European red night crawlers, for the castings and fishing bait, from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm.  http://unclejimswormfarm.com/  Although there are many other worm suppliers. Two days after placing the order I got an email notification that my worms had shipped.  After a full week of waiting for the package to arrive, I began to get really worried that they were stuck in a frozen warehouse somewhere between Michigan and Pennsylvania.  I called Uncle Jim's and it turns out that the email was generated by computer and my crawlers hadn't actually shipped out yet.  They were scheduled to go out two days from then.  Anyway, after they were actually shipped, they arrived in a timely fashion.  I had set their habitat up the previous week so all I needed to do was add them to it.  

   I started with my plastic 18 gallon tote.  They're cheap and readily available.  It's best to use to darker, opaque colors to decrease the amount of light that permeates the tub.

     Next, I drilled a row of holes along the top edges the longest sides and then drilled holes in the lid to make sure there was plenty of airflow as there would be in nature.  I also drilled several small holes in the bottom of the tub for drainage.  You don't want want your worms and media sitting in water and becoming stagnant.

   You'll want to make sure you have something to catch any water that drains from the bottom of the tub, I used an extra tote lid that I happened to have laying around.  You'll also want to have something to raise the tub up off the floor for increased air flow.  I started out using a small stack of recycled yogurt containers, but those proved to not be strong enough.  I switched to recycled aluminum cans instead, but you can use bricks or chunks of left over 2x4's.  The tub only needs to be raised a couple of inches.

   It's time to decide what media to use for the little guys.  It being January when I decided to do this really limited my choices.  I definitely suggest doing it in the spring or fall.  My choice of media was a 1:1:1 ratio of composted sphagnum peat, garden soil (mostly sand) and shredded paper.  After getting it all mixed up well, I added enough water to moisten the media, but not drench it.  When you squeeze a handful in your fist, it should clump together but no moisture should escape.  It'll take a lot more water than you might think to get the peat moist.  It's extremely hydrophobic (won't absorb water), but holds water very well once damp.

   If you find that the peat won't take in any water, you can add a few drops of dish soap to the media/water mix.  The soap helps the water molecules bond to the peat.  Just a heads up, this can also be done with potting soil in your house plants that won't take water.

   Time to add the worms.  It's not really a scientific method, just dump them on top of the soil and spread them out.  Leaving a light on above the tote will encourage them to dig down into the media.  I checked on them after about an hour and noticed that there were a few of them kept trying to escape no matter how many times I put them back.  I think I lost 10 of them total.  The worms need to be kept in a dark place with an even temperature, my tub is in the basement in the darkest corner.  45-70 degrees fahrenheit is the ideal temperature range.
   After about a week I noticed that the worms were piling up on the edges of the tub.  After some quick research I figured out that the peat made the media waaaay to acidic.  The fastest way to fix the problem would be to add a little lime to some water and pour it over the soil.  Since I have no lime right now, I had to use the next best thing, wood ash.  I built a small fire in the BBQ with a pie tin under the grating so catch the ash.  Once it was cool, I added it to a small pitcher of water and poured it in and mixed it around really well.  Problem solved after about 24 hours.

  After about a week to let them settle and to make sure you pH is correct, it's time to feed the worms.  You can give them pretty much anything that you compost such as dry leaves, grass clippings, kitchen scraps, etc.  Avoid putting meat scraps in the tub, these will rot and stink.  If you put your scraps into a food processor or chop it up really fine, the worms will be able to compost it much faster.  Keep in mind that you need to put in an even ratio of green compost to brown to avoid drastically changing the pH and that items like coffee grounds are highly acidic.  Dig down into one corner of your tub, about two inches from the bottom and pour your worm food there.  A good rule of thumb is not to feed any more than the size of your fist.  Your worms will compost at different rates, depending on how many worms, what type of compost and what size the pieces are.  I find that mine go through their food in about ten day to two weeks.  The next time you feed, repeat the process, but put the food in the opposite corner of the tub to encourage the worms to move around.
   I'll keep updating my vermiculture adventures as they progress.  Hopefully you're inspired to attempt this for your garden.  I have plans to start four more of these worm farm tubs once the weather improves here in Michigan.  If you decide to dismantle your worm bins, please don't release them into your gardens as they won't stay there.  These non-native worms are more voracious than our native earth worms and will quickly over take available resources.