Worm bin in the GH?

Wasn't sure where to post this, so I'll start here, and cross-post over on the Organic forum if need be.

I've been contemplating a worm bin for some time. But I don't think I can talk my family into having one under my kitchen sink, nor do I have the room for it if I could.

But I'm wondering: IF I keep the GH above freezing, just how warm would it need to be to have a worm bin in there? (I'm seeing a lot of pluses: easy to get my table scraps out there, since I'm headed that way already; good source of liquid and solid fertilize; there's lots of free space under my benches to house a good-sized bin (or two, even); may even be a source of CO2...

But I'm not sure about maintaining the minimum temperatures until I start running the heater late next winter. So it might get a bit nippy in there, even with my plans for added insulation. Has anybody else tried this? I could use some advice and pointers.

Go_vols I have a worm bin on my open back porch that went ok all last winter with only a shower curtian over it. The bin is a plastic box with a lid from wall mart with some holes drilled in it just below the lid . It is not as cold here as in Tenn. but we get below freezing weather. By the way that was some football game last week. I hope all goes well.

Thanks, Greenwood! (Yeah, it was a nail-biter, although I was blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding. I was AWAKE, waiting on DH and DS to get home from the game, but didn't actually WATCH the game - silly me :)

But I digress. Re: the worm bin - One of the commercial bins I saw appeared to be one of the large, rectangular clear plastic ones with a hinged, colored lid that has some type of "dove-tail" closure on top (kind of zig-zags back and forth).

Other instructions say to use just a 5-gallon pail (like a clean paint mixing bucket), and drill holes a few inches above the bottom, and set it in a shallow pan to catch any overflow.

'shoe gave me some ideas for supplemental heating over on the organics forum and I probably need to take that into consideration. We do get a bit cooler than ya'll (we can and do get down in the teens and twenties during Dec-Jan.) And I'm not turning on the heat until late February when I set out my 'mater seedlings. But I don't want to freeze my worms ;o)

Vols, how about a little heat mat for greenhouses/seedlings to go under it. You can set the temp anywhere in a wide range.

I have had a worm bed in my green house as long as I have had a green house It is in the back under a work bench.
If it is a floor bed rember to line it sides and bottom with hardware cloth to keep the mole's out they mlove worms. One thing I do in mine Pick up a used blender at a garage sale fine chop all your veggies and if avaliable half and half with steer manure it becomes a quicker meal for the worms.
Roger Poor
poorboy@alltel.net

I did a worm farm for maybe a week. I posted my horror story awhile back. I would think very long and hard before I tired it. It is effected by all sorts of hidden things. Such as humidity. worms crawl out where they tell you they will not. Don;t believe everything you read about it.( I had the 3 tray system)Oh! And you can't teach a worm anything. It is a good thing if you are very strong and able to lift the trays.I was not. I am sure alot of people have had great success. I wish I had found another way to spend $175. If you do go for it. I wish you alot of luck and let me say I would love some worm castings. Best wishes

I have had a worm bin on a back porch for over 4 years. At times it's been way under fed (added nothing for several months) way over fed and just plain forgot about. Through all this neglect the worms have survived. I have gotten many wheelbarrow loads of castings from it over the years. Have been taking much better care of it lately and moved it into my gh for the winter. Should stay more active given the costant temps. It would most likely get to hot to leave it in there during the summer, even in my very mild coastal CA climate. They don't like it much over 80 degrees.

I appreciate everyone's advice, and I hope ya'll will keep it coming. I got my GH cleaned out last week, and I'm busy bringing in frost-tender plants. As soon as I've got everything situated in there, I'm going to order the worms. Special thanks to whoever pointed out that a pound of worms is ~1,000 vs. buying them from a bait shop @ 100/container.

I found Blue Belly Farm http://gardenwatchdog.com/c/2084/ to have the best price for 2-3 pounds of worms, which is what I'm going to start with (Any tips on the size of bin I should purchase? I'm going to try making my own; the stacking ones are cool, but I just can't see the $$$ when a plastic tub is just as good, according to many vermicomposting sites.)

Mings, I can see where a worm bin might be a bit much to have in the house, but hopefully it's going to stay in the GH all winter, and since I already find worms (and other squirmy things) in there, I'm not too worried :)

greenhouse would be a good place to keep one. Like I said. If I were strong . Things would of been different. Dh does not get involved with my "projects' When I ordered mine, it came with the coconut shreedings and 2 thousand red worms. Best wishes. Hope it works for you.

If I get really organized, I'll try to get pictures as I get it put together. (A step-by-step, which may become a "how-not-to" depending on how it all turns out, lolol!)

Vols most of the home made ones are the rubber maid 10 gal
containers if i rember right a bin can hold 5000 per sq. ft. of surface red worms they won't over populate

I've been pondering this for a long time, but haven't gotten off my duff and done any research. The only vermin I've bought in the past has been mealworms and crickets. So I was taken aback by the price of redworms (same as red wigglers?).

Does anyone have interest in or connections for a worm co-op? I'll help organize -- even receiving and shipping -- if anyone has a business through which we can get wholesale rates.

go_vols, I don't have time to go through all these links, but this is an excellent page to find a wholesale company for worms. Also has lots of info on growing the little wigglers :-)
http://www.wormdigest.org/article_122.html
TL

Thanks, toadlily - that's a great site! (MUCH better than some older lists I had found on the web before now.)

I've added a lot of those on the list to the Garden Watchdog, and now we have almost 70 vermiculture sources to browse through: http://gardenwatchdog.com/vbc/70/

PlanterRik, if you find enough interest to make it cost-effective, I'm game. I need two pounds, and from looking at these suppliers, it looks like I can get them for under $20/pound as an individual. Any better price you can negotiate, I'm all ears :)

go_vols If you have a rabbit raiser near check him out most have worms in there manure pits it helps to hold down flies. The price may be better and they are the same.

Greenwood, that's a very good idea. In fact, our neighbor raises rabbits, but he doesn't raise worms in the rabbit berries (Since I get his rabbit manure for free, I'm not sure I want to suggest that he introduce worms!!!!)

Actually, the more I think about and read up on vermicomposting, the more I'm convinced that all of us should be doing this. It's an excellent source of mild fertilizer for plants, and it decreases the amount of waste that goes into our landfills. Of course, I think/hope that most DG'ers have compost bins going, which accomplishes the same goals. But in the winter, it sounds like worm bins are the way to go if you want to continue processing your kitchen waste during the cold months.

Go_vols At one time I and a partner had a very large rabbitery. One source of income was we sold the manure with worms to the bait store suppliers by the pickup load.

i was about to tell her those rabbits can get out of hand 16 jr. in the barn now just ready to start breeding now and room for 12 more first phase and this started because i wanted pellets

GV, with what I've found so far, if a co-op buys around 25+ lbs, we may be able to get them for $15/lb delivered. But that would just be delivered to me. Then I'd have to collect what was needed to ship them on to co-op participants, which seems to be the flaw in the plan.

Another raiser offers “bedrun” redworms (mixed sizes) for around $6/1000 delivered and breeders (adults) for around $14/1000 delivered, but the page consists of a scan of a price sheet and has a note appended warning that prices have increased because of the jump in Priority Mail.

I could ask the first company what they would charge to drop ship multiple orders totaling over 25 lbs, but I expect they would treat each shipment as a separate order and charge full price ($19-22.50/lb). And I could try to find out the new prices of the second supplier and the relative weights of their 1000-count units.

I’d be happy to follow up any other leads. Does anyone subscribe to angling or rabbitting magazines with ads they could check? Does anyone have personal or local contacts they could tap?

In the meantime, my sister has rabbits, horses and cows. I've collected redworms from under her rabbit cages before. Though there were a lot of worms when I turned the pile, it took a lot of effort and a long time to gather around a quarter or half pound of them. (I had forgotten how much work stooping is now.) But, she says that I’ll find 20 in each horse pile and cow pad, and, in the process, I’d be collecting bags of rabbit-, horse- and cow-generated soil additive, which I could also use to supplement the table scraps.

Blue Belly is $12/pound (including s/h) when you get to 11+ pounds. But you still have the expense of postage from you to the participants.

Their price for a retail order was also about as good as any I found; around $34 for two pounds, with shipping.

Of course, I could go traipsing through my neighbor's cow pasture (same one who has the rabbits), and shovel up a bunch of cow manure, which I need anyway. But quite frankly, I'm not sure I'm up to the task of digging through cowpies for 2,000 worms (that's the hard way to save $34, for sure!) I grin with glee whenever I plop a plop on a dormant bed or my compost heap, and see all those wrigglers wriggling around - it's two gifts in one: manure AND aerators/composters!

Hi Terry
I read this older post about your worm composting greenhouse ideas. Did you get this set up? And if so, how is it going? I too would like worms creating wonderful castings in and for my greenhouse and would like to hear just how easy or difficult it is. I did try worms long ago in a garage situation on the east coast. The experience was somewhat unnerving with worms escaping and appearing in many novel places. They seemed to love azomite- a mineral rich organic powder I was using and had stored in my garage. Before too long the entire colony had migrated to the bag of azomite and claimed it as their food source! Any experiences you are having with yours would be of great interest! Thanks! r. ivory

I did, and I still have my wormbin. (In fact, I need to move it from its summer home back into the GH.) A couple times a year I nudge the squirmers to one side and remove the castings. Great stuff for my houseplants!

I have done worm composting (very small beginner's bin to try it out) in the past and liked it. Haven't set up a new (larger) bin since we moved to WA, but now that we have bought a place, I will be setting one up.

I'm wondering about those of you who are ordering the worms. I have usually been able to find local sources wherever I've looked. Why don't you call some nurseries and see if you can find someplace where they don't have to be mailed.

Gwen

I grew up in California and my Grandfather had a great worm bed under the rabbit pen. It was a great place to grow big juicy red worms. Smelled strong but had hugh worms.

I have a worm farm in my cellar: I got about 250 regular earthworms from a cow manure pile about 8 weeks ago, put in about 3 inches of manure and about 2 inches of shredded, moistened newspaper. I periodically added kitchen scraps (banana peels, bad lettuce and tomatoes, etc). After about 4 weeks, the manure seemed very heavy and wet, so I harvested the worms and put them in new manure and newspaper bedding. The worms seem quite happy and, with luck, I'll have LOADS of worms for the garden in the Spring.

I tried the red wrigglers in the greenhouse, and every single one of them was dead within 2 weeks. I think it got too hot. The worms I have now seem to like the cool, damp conditions in the basement.

- Kathleen (Zone 6, NW Rhode Island)

Great basement worm info!!! Thanks for taking the time to post.

Judy