I have to say that I’m totally enjoying this new hobby. It’s not one that I have to do much with, but it doesn’t seem to mind if I open it up and check on it every day.
Kind of like the fish tank in the office. I’ve had that going for almost 20 years now. I’ve got it down, so it really isn’t much work. I pretty much ignore it for a few months, then clean it add more water, and try to remember to feed the poor fish daily. At a min they are feed 4-6 times a week. Currently, there are two Oscars, two Blue Acuras, and a Placko aka alge eater. Every few years or so, I have to replace the fish. I’ve also discovered that I can use the tank water to add moisture to the worm bag. Plenty of bacteria in that water for the worms to eat. Once I started to use that water instead of tap, the worm activity picked up. It also beats letting the Cl off gas for at least 24 hours before using it.
I did break down and buy a shredder that can handle cardboard. That way I can use it for bedding instead of paper, which didn’t work as well as I thought it would. In the picture below you can see the clumps the paper formed. You can also see that the worms seem to be okay with it. It is taking a great deal longer for it to incorporate than the coir does. The paper in this picture had been in there 5 days.
The cardboard is cheaper by far than buying loads of coco coir. I am currently leaning toward alternating the coir and the shredded cardboard for bedding each time I feed or maybe even only using the coir once a month. I’ll have to see how it goes with the cardboard.
After the paper had been in the bin for 5-6 days, I added a really large feeding from the composting jar on the counter. It had watermelon rinds and some other scraps from my prepping meals for the Trials event. The paper took until the 17th of May to really get broken down. The watermelon had only been in there 10 days for this picture. You can still see clumps of the shredded paper.
I think the watermelon was a huge hit. I’m sure that it being covered in mold just made it that much more appealing for the worms…. Not really my thing. 🙂 I was happy I had some latex gloves around, so I didn’t have to put my bare hand into the composting canister. Ick. Funny, though I don’t mind handling the worm balls with bare hands. I like the dirt feel. Loads of castings in the picture below. The worms are doing their thing!!!
This one was also from the 17th.
I added the rest of the contents from the composting canister along with fair bit of cardboard. The canister contents had a lot of liquid, so I needed the bedding soak that up and cover up the feeding to keep it from smelling. It worked out really well.
This is what the bin looked like a couple of days later.
The cardboard didn’t clump, that should make it easier for breakdown. I did have to add a lot of water to the bin a few days after this picture was taken. As you can see the cardboard is rather dry in spots.
On the 19th I decided to “fluff” the bin. I was trying to figure out how much moisture was really in the bin. It was actually too dry, using the squeeze test, when you grab a handful of the bedding you should be able to get just a drop or two of water from the bedding. It felt wettish but no water drops, and it crumbled pretty easily. I took this to mean I needed to add a great deal of moisture to the bin. Instead of using a spray bottle to mist it, I used water from the rain barrel outside and a watering can to soak the bedding down.
It looked much better a few days later, I soaked it one more time and added worm chow to the bin. I also added some more scraps from the kitchen. I think they like the scraps more than the worm chow.
A few days after I added the kitchen scraps, I found a great worm ball.
They like peppers!!!
I decided that over the long weekend would be a good time to check the bottom of the bin to see if it had gotten too wet. Also to see if there were any worms down that low trying to escape. I was kind of happy when I checked it out. There weren’t any worms, but there was some really dry coco coir. It makes sense, since I used a brick of it in the bottom. I just didn’t expect it to be really dry. I decided to water the bin down a bit more, since it seems to be so dry.
4 days after the picture of the worm pepper ball. I added some watermelon I had forgotten about. They loved that too. Here’s what it looked like 24 hours after adding the watermelon.
This brings my worm bin to the two-month mark!!! They look happy and healthy. The moisture level seems to be better.