Worm Update

The worms are still alive and pooping. They have pooped a lot.

It's been tricky to get all of the variables right, but I think I'm getting the hang of it:

Add twice as much bedding as food.
Don't add food until they've eaten the previous food.
Saturate the bedding with water when you add it, but don't add water directly.

Mostly I feed them used coffee grounds. Sometimes I add vegetable scraps.

Here's the system.

Three buckets. The top one has a lid with holes, and holes in the bottom.

The worms mostly live in there. Previously, they lived in the bucket below. The idea is that the worms will wiggle up to the top bucket (through the holes in the bottom) in search of food.

That's mostly happened, but I still see a lot of worms in the lower (middle) bucket.

The middle bucket is now filled with castings, and some worms. There are holes in the bottom of the middle bucket, allowing excess moisture to drain into the bottom bucket. There's also a mesh screen to prevent worms from wandering off.

The castings resemble crumbly, lumpy topsoil. There's a shimmer of vermiculite left from the potting mix they were originally living in.

I'll use this in place of, or to supplement, compost in my soil mixes.

It's been about six months since I got the worms, so they haven't pooped as much as I expected. I've probably been underfeeding them.

Their bedding is paper bags that I've shredded by hand with scissors. Come sit-on-the-couch-and-watch-youtube time, I grab some brown bags and shred them into this plastic bag.

That's about all there is to it.

Soon I'll be mixing a large batch of soil for my planned rooftop garden. Most of the castings in the middle bucket (worms and all) will go into that soil. Then I'll dump the contents of the top bucket into the middle, and place the lid on the middle bucket. Back to square one for another batch.

Wiggle on.