Harvesting worm-free castings

I have a question- I have a bin of nothing but castings which I want to harvest. But I want to make sure I get as many worms as possible separated from the castings, but other than manually doing it (which takes forever) I don't know how. I've heard put down new bedding on one side with only food on the bedding side, so the worms will migrate to that side leaving the casting side. For the last couple months I've been only adding food to one side but there are quite a few worms on the non-food side still.

Any ideas out there?

You'll never be able to get them all to move. You'll have to evict them, each and everyone that is stubborn by hand.

Or get a sifter that allows the casting to fall through, but not the worms.

BULLOCKS!!! Okay, that's what I figured. I guess I'll just have to get a six-pack of O'douls, put on some tunes, and manually do the deed... Thanks for the information (I think).

Have a great day!!

If your bin has been running as well as mine, you can afford to sacrifice some worms. Mine's increased sevenfold since I started it with about 200 worms.

I've done the sifting through the castings and it's really messy and gooey. The last time I cleaned the bins out, I just took handfuls of worms from the muck, and moved them to the new bin. Anybody that was left was put outside in the garden when I dug in the castings and I saw a few of them out there the other day when I turned over a patch of dirt. So, they are doing good in the garden too, and I haven't been feeding them anything.

Yeah, I wouldn't worry about getting every single one either. If your bin has lots on the new side then taking a few on a journey to the garden shouldn't pose an issue for your bin.

Oh, newbies are no problem. In fact, I can find what I believe are eggs in almost the whole bin with microscopic little guys everywhere. Its amazing what they do to an old, unfrozen banana!!! It looks like something out of the apocalypse!! I've noticed when I water my bin, its like the rain outside- many worms head to the top and cover the surface. It got me thinking, maybe I could 'soak' a large amount of castings and maybe get them to come to the top? I don't know, maybe I should just get over the fact that I will have to sacrifice a few.

Thanks everyone! Feel free to give me feedback on my 'soaking' idea...

If you want compost tea you can soak them I guess. If you want the compost full strength then too much water will wash out some of the nutrients. Not to mention it will make very soggy compost, but that would be ok if you were going to put it right in the garden and not save it.

Qinx- so you would suggest taking the castings (unsoaked) and mixing them into the soil at the base of the plant? I haven't used my castings yet, so I am looking at the most effective way of doing it. Thanks!

Castings serve as soil amendments and can be utilized in various ways. They are VERY nutrient rich and fairly sterile. So, they can be used for seed starting. You can make a compost tea from them and use the water to feed plants. Castings can be mixed into soil around the plant just like fertilizer and compost. So many options!

I have been taking out about one small (1 gallon) bucket of the contents of my worm bin and just letting it sit in the sun for a while, then scraping off the top inch or so. The worms head for the bottom, away from the light, so they just do the 'separating' themselves. I repeat that until I know I've got a couple of inches of almost pure worms at the bottom of the bucket, dump them back into the bin, and start over. Just don't let all the contents of the bucket dry out, and it's easy on the worms.
Hope that helps a bit,
Julia

If you want to sort your worms from their castings without doing much worm handling, try piling up all the bedding and worms to one side, then adding a bunch of fresh (or rather, semi-composting) food to the other side of the bin. Within a week or two they will all migrate over. Then you can use the castings. I have also had success with using a lingerie laundry bag (from Target or similar) to gently shake through the worms; the castings will fall through the holes. If you're going to sort by hand, wear gloves; it helps with the creepy-factor. Hope this helps! Jen

Thanks to everyone who has responded to my question so far. Anyway, I have some good ideas (thanks to you all!). I appreciate it!

I have several bins in layers for my worms. When I get enough castings in their bin level, I just stop putting food in there and put it in the bin one level up. They eventually migrate up there and just leave the castings.
I've also put a big plastic cloth on the patio table and tipped the whole thing out. The worms don't like light so they will go down the deepest level of the pile. Bit by bit I sorted it out; putting the worms in a small bucket with some shredded newspaper in it (so they wouldn't be overly exposed to the light). It really didn't take that long and I truly believe I salvaged most of them (except for the eggs perhaps).

Thanks 'orchid,' you are the second person to mention the light- and I think I will give that a try, appreciate your input!