Raising Red wigglers

How to raise your own Red Wigglers:

Bin Preparation

You will need a least 1
square foot (12 inches x 12 inches) surface area per pound of worms and a depth of 8 to 12 inches deep.
 The bedding can be peat moss or coir (coconut fiber). It can be used 100
percent or mixed 50/50 with paper, However, we suggest shredded paper, leaves and aged manure as bedding.  We suggest this because Peat Moss is generally acidic and takes more preparing. If you decide to use Peat Moss , you need to soak it and rinse it 3-4 times to leach out some of the acidity.

Plastic bins are easy to get and make good worm bins. Let's start out with a plastic bin that's 24 inches long x 12 inches wide x 12 inches deep which has 2 square feet of surface area.  (You will need to adjust the size according to how many pounds of worms you are starting with accordingly).

This will be our PRIMARY worm bin that can hold 2 lbs of worms. Cheapest way to start is the Rubbermaid totes from walmart , the dark colored ones.  Get your bin with lid and at the top 2 inches on the sides of the bin, drill some 1 inch diameter air holes this will allow for air circulation.  You can hot glue some pieces of window screen over the holes to keep any worms from possibly escaping out the holes.  After you have this done,  along the sides of the bin, you can also drill very tiny holes along the sides using a very small drill bit. This will also allow for air circulation throughout the bedding.  Now your worm bin is ready to add bedding.

Adding bedding material:

I like to use shredded newspaper and aged manure as bedding, you can use leaves as well, any of these or all of these combined are great worm food and bedding for you new squirmy friends.

The smaller the shreds the better your worms will be able to work in them, I use a cross cut paper shredder but it is not necessary. Shred them at least down to 1 inch wide strips though. The smaller the better because the microbes will break these things down quicker.  The worms don’t actually eat the material, they have not teeth, they actually eat the microbes that break down organic material.

After you have your material ready, you need to moisten it down. You want it to the consistency of a wrung out sponge. In other words, when pick up a handful, you want to squeeze it and get around 1-2 drops of water, any more than this and you WILL have problems, it will become too wet and anaerobic and smelly and it will kill your worms. 

Once you have it at the correct moisture level, put about 6 inches into your bin and fluff it up, you are now ready to add your worms.  Pour your worms onto the top of your bedding and turn a light on above them, they have to get used to their new home which can take up to a week usually.  The light will drive them down into the bedding, they do this to escape the light. Worms like dark moist places with lots of yummy organic material to consume.  After a week, you can remove the light and put your lid on your bin and they will already be at work for you making the absolute best compost and worm castings for your plants or garden.

Care and Maintenance:

At this point, you have your worms new home built, they are happily munching away for you.  Now you need to know how to care for them and get the most out of them.

Red Wigglers will survive temps in the bedding from 40 F to upwards of 85.  There optimum temperature in the bedding is 70-75 from our personal experience.  The microbial activity is better at that range providing plenty to eat and beings your worms are cold blooded, they are most active at these temperatures.  So the closer you can keep your bins at these temperatures, the happier they are. 

After a week or so, you can begin adding your veggie scraps to the worm bin. Remember, these little guys eat around  1/ 2 to up to their full body weight per day. So a pound of worms will eat ½ pound to 1 pound of food per day.  But, this includes their bedding. So start with a ¼ cup of veggie scraps and watch it , once you can look in there and not recognize anything you have added, then you can add more, after a couple of weeks, you will get an idea of how much food to add for a week at a time.  Now don’t worry, if you want to leave on vacation, no problem, they will continue to eat their bedding with no issues at all if you want to leave for vacation for a week or two.

Always add your food to the top, do NOT bury the food, it can cause heating in the bedding and kill your worms.  You will notice sometimes the top layer of your bedding can become dry, don’t freak out!  You still want to maintain the same moisture as when you set up your bin. You can use a mist bottle to spritz the top but do not just poor water in there, plastic bins are known for holding moisture and you can easily over due the moisture. If you notice that your bin seems too moist, add some shredded paper and fluff your  bedding, it will absorb the moisture and get you back on track. 

In about a 4-6 weeks, you will start seeing lots and lots of tiny baby worms in your bins, this is a Great thing, that means your worms are happy and loving their new home.  Red wigglers multiply very rapidly.  They can double in bio mass every 60-90 days. So you start with 2 pounds, 90 days later you will have 4 pounds, 90 more days , 8 pounds. So keep this in mind, always have an extra worm bin ready so in about 3-4 months, you can divide your worms into another bin and then you have 2 bins going, this will go on forever if you keep dividing the bins accordingly.

Harvesting your castings:

Ok, so you have had your bin going for about 6 months now and you cant wait to get your hands on the best compost in the world.

You will find the majority of your worms will be in the top 2-4 inches of your bedding, with another bin ready to go, scoop off the top 2-4 inches of the bin you want to harvest and place your worms along with some of the bedding into the new bin.

You will still have some stragglers I like to call them in the original bin along with babies and lots and lots of worm cocoons.  I use a 1/8 inch hardware cloth to screen the remaining compost, this will catch a lot of the worms left behind and you can move them to the new bin. You can then use the compost however you chose for your garden or worm teas.  You can choose to incubate your compost in another bin and in 3 weeks all the remaining cocoons will hatch and you can use them to start another bin or you may choose to count them as loss and place the compost in your garden.  You will NOT save every worm, don’t even try.  This is just something you will have to accept as a new vermicomposter. 

Keep up this practice and soon you will be known as the crazy worm person that has thriving gardens and beautiful plants.