corster

where do u find worms when its cold out

sientbob

"A study of neem products and their effect on mortality, growth and reproduction of earthworms in soils was conducted. Positive effects on weight and survival were found in soil treated with ground neem leaves and ground seed kernals under greenhouse conditions. Reproduction was slightly favored over a period of 13 weeks in a neem-enriched substrate in rearing cages. Various neem products were incorporated in the upper 10-cm soil layer of tomato plots. None of the materials had negative side effects on seven species of earthworms (240). No significant effects on other wildlife were reported (238). "



I found that HERE. Just thought it was interesting.Peace.

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Ready to see some updates! Very exciting!
Later

HyDroHawg

I know these damn banana trees in my backyard would go nice in your box! Any updates?

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Lizzie Borden

Sorry. I wasn't around last month and just realized this thread had new responses.

Corster, I don't know if there's a way to find worms outside in winter. I bought mine online.

Thanks for the interesting info, Sientbob. I wonder where I could get some neem leaves or seeds.

I've been getting these bags of coffee grounds from Starbucks. Thanks for the tip, Choker.

I have also been feeding them all the leaves and trimmings from my grow room floor.

The picture of the inside of the worm bin is from several weeks ago. Lately it seems too heavy for how much is in it and I think it may be too wet. The worms do not seem to be keeping up with the amount of food I give them. I do eat a lot of fruits and vegetables but still, it seems like they have had enough time to reproduce enough to keep up, and they also should have produced some useable castings by now. I do not know whether this is related to the moisture level. Today it was warm and windy so I took it outside and let it sit out in the open air for a couple of hours. When I first dumped it out there were worms all over it but a few minutes later when I took the pic they had all crawled inside the pile. When I shoveled it back in I added some dry leaves and dirt from outside. I might take it out again tomorrow. If it's not the moisture, my next guess would be maybe it's the temperature. It's recommended to keep them between 50 and 80, which it is most of the time, but sometimes the area above the table the worm bin sits under gets up to around 90 so the worm bin might have been a little above 80.

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smash101

Cool idea having them in your grow room. Not only is it the ideal temperature, the areobic process of the worms will produce more CO2 for you plants! yay

The local green grocer has plenty of scraps that he's willing to give away. So O always have more scraps if the kitchen isnt producing enough. The supermarket has scraps too, but not the same variety as the green grocer.

Seeya,
Smash.

outdoors

Hey Brindie -

My past experience with worm boxes tells me that it takes a pretty long time for there to be enough castings to actually harvest some. Many many years of kitchen waste from a family of 3 and I pulled out very little "compost".

Reducing the bulk of what you put in can make the worms work a bit easier.

I'm sorry to say that I never was able to use my worm box compost to help my garden much. It takes a lot of worms and a lot of waste to get the place I wanted to get. Have never given up composting, just using the worm box because I've moved to a location where the compost area is now about 12 feet by 5 feet. Having my worm box all those years gave me a great deal of satisfaction.

Peace - Outdoors

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Lizzie Borden

I just think something's wrong because they were keeping up with the scraps from my house before, but aren't anymore. I want to get enough worms to eat everything from here plus more from grocery stores to produce more castings faster. Won't more food make more worms?

Bubba Lou

Hi Brindie,
Have you checked the pH of your bin? I haven't found any info on the ideal pH range for worm bins. I'm close to harvesting about a gallon or two of castings produced since early November. I started a new bin then with remains of pumpkins. From what I can gather, they've reproduced a lot, but I haven't fed them much else.

I don't know about you, but my bin attracts fungus gnats and I think mites. I'm afraid to keep it in my growroom for fear of infesting the plants. Do you ever have that problem? Just curious...

Bubba Lou

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Lizzie Borden

I checked the pH just now and it's 6.9-7. I haven't found any information on recommended pH for worm bins either, but I figure neutral is probably within their range. It's a little surprising that the pH is as high as that given the amount of acidic coffee grounds I've put in there (the caffeine in them is also supposed to increase the speed at which the worms eat and produce castings).

The bin does attract fungus gnats, which is another reason I suspect it is too wet. I have not seen mites in there nor have my plants suffered any infestations since I've had the worm bin.