Bought 600.... where are they?

Well, me again..... so I bought 600 worms (2 batches of 300, a couple of weeks apart), and it's only really been about a month or so. There's no way I can find 600 worms in my bin anymore. I know I should expect some death of those I purchased. And there are some alive, and some really big ones! Also, found some really tiny wrigglers, on the whitish side. My bin doesn't smell bad. Has lots, but I don't think too much, moisture. No gnats or flies. No mold. I have a rubbermaid 10-gal "tote" with holes drilled all along the top and towards the top of the sides. I think I've done everything pretty much okay. After a month, do you think it's normal to not see as many worms as I purchased? (Maybe I shouldn't poke at them so often.) {;o)

Sanna

Sanna, I don't know what to tell you. I just bought a pound myself and I found myself yesterday messing with them to much. LOL

Sannajane, what kind of worms did you buy? I'm surprised that worms would be sold in batches of 300. Usually they are sold by the pound, and in the case of Eisenia fetida, there are about 1,000 worms per pound.

Also, is it possible that you had two different species over the weeks you purchased them? Worms won't tolerate other species in close confines. They will kill each other.

When worms die, their bodies break down very quickly. I've only seen 2 dead worms inside a bin in all my worm farming days.

Hi ilexwhite.... my local source sells either the one lb. lot, or smaller lots of about 300. They were both the same "brand" (wholesaler to my retailer) and both red wrigglers. Since I was so anxious to start my bin a month or so ago, and I didn't want to wait for the on-line order from somewhere, AND I didn't want to pay the local price for a pound..... I spread my cash flow out over a period of time by getting two batches worth. I know, probably silly. I am probably just over worrisome ~ the worms I see are bigger. Maybe they just hide better than the amount of digging/prodding I'm doing. I think this weekend I'll try to get a picture on board so those of you who are more knowledgable can "see" what I'm seeing.

Sanna

Experiment Gone Arwy...It's time I confessed to a big mistake in an experiment I was trying with a heat pad to keep the worm temperature up in my four 20 to 30 gallon plastic worm bins in the garage. I left town for three weeks and forgot to disconnect the heat pad and came back to baked worms. The media (peat moss) was caked so hard I couldn't break it up and the temperature was way over 100 F. I immediately hydrated each bin with about 4 gallons of water and the next day began breaking up the clods. Did not see but a few worms left, but by the third day of mixing and hydrating, I began to see more red wigglers. There were easily several thousand worms left. Where they hide no one knows. I have a 60 cubic foot plastic lined outdoor bin for composting horse manure and even though I think I've completely removed every bit of the composted manure to the garden in the spring I still find red wigglers in the next compost batch. I tossed in about 4,000 worms (3-gallon coffee cans full) on two different occasions from the indoor worm bins this winter, and although I only see a few each time I turn, I would wager there's many more.

Sanna, if what your seeing is actually newly hatched worms, your probably doing things correctly. Don't fret yet!

morgan

Thanks for the encouragement morgan~! Yeah, probably overly worrisome. (Sure fun to look for them though!)

Sanna

Mraider, that's a really amazing story. Worms are really something. I'm convinced they will save us all.

ilexwhite...I'm still laughing at that one, but danged if your not right.

I can not get over the resiliance of these creatures. I was certain I had literally baked ever single one of them after my bad. I have been feeding each bin lightly about every third day and there is still uneaten food but there seems to be more and more worms in the feeding trench each time I feed and each of the four bins has a number of new worms. Apparently many of the egg capsules survived as well.

That should be testamony to convince most anyone that these red wigglers are tough enough to survive most of our silly mistakes. So if any of you, like myself, on septic tank systems...keep in mind your garbage disposal increases your septic loading by as much as 100%, and there are many advantages to composting with red worms. Sermon Over. m

We're on a septic system, and for a long time I was cranky at my husband for not "allowing" us to have a disposal. Now I get cranky if I find he has put any veggie scraps in the trash! :o)

Mraider, I'll see your sermon and raise it: It's my dream for household vermicomposting to become as common as indoor plumbing. So much organic waste (perfectly good worm food!) goes to landfills. If everyone had even a pound of worms in their house (and larger bins for restaurants, schools, and hospitals), it would reduce our landfill load significantly. It would also likely get a lot of folks, and maybe even whole towns and cities, off destructive and energy-greedy petrofertilizers- with natural gas as the primary ingredient, all that energy it takes to make the stuff, and even more energy to haul the stuff around via truck. Think about the alternative: free, organic, locally made, outstanding fertilizers for private lawns, city parks, and home and community vegetable gardens, which in turn would improve the health of the water tables, help reverse the acidification of the oceans, restore the biosphere in our soil, and vastly improve nutrient content of our food.

...Which always gets me going on Big Ag. Our national corporate-run farming system is a disgrace. Those giant holdings should be broken up into small, privately held polycultures like they used to be before WWII. It should be no-till, low-till or permaculture (low water use, light energy footprint). And, if everyone had vegetable gardens again (or rooftop and community gardens for those without lawns) we wouldn't need to haul so much food and petrofertilizer around in the first place. It's a simple matter of priorities. 5 hours of TV a night, or incredibly healthful home-grown food, not to mention exercize, for your family? Hmmm.

Though ADM, Cargill, Bayer, and Scott's wouldn't be too happy about it. Lobbyists and the corporations who pay them have far too much power over our lives in this country. There are provisions in the Farm Bill against CSAs and locally grown food- California growers saw to those inclusions. The restoration of backyard Victory Gardens would circumvent the commerce issue altogether. This time, it will be victory over corporations who only care about the next quarter's profits.

Ok- (deep breath) I'm done for the moment!

OK ilex...didn't mean to start something here but nice finish. Everything you mentioned ties in to the Gulf problem which will shortly be hitting us square in the face when the EPA sets standards for Nitrogen and especially Phosphorous. Although the Gulf problem is primarily a middle of the country concern, it's going to hit everyone like a ton of bricks. Advanced secondary wastewater treatment is going to make this country take a long hard look at the way we do things. Problem is the non-point sources like large cattle, meat processing, and ag farms are not currently being targeted by the EPA. But I will make you a small wager, once this happens American's will become very aware of what's going on in a very short time. If you think the cost of health insurance is out of control...wait until you see what it's going to cost you to cleaning up our environment. It will no longer be an out of sight out of mind process.

Hey, back to worms. Think we might invest in a worm farm to clean up ag-wastes. I knew a guy that raised pigs and did just that. We have about as many horses in the valley as people and I see monster piles of horse manure everywhere. In fact I finished cleaned up a monster pile belonging to a neighbor. It took me a little over three years. We could bag the stuff and call it 'Horseorganite'. From what I've learned from reading the DG composting, layered gardening, and vermiculture forms, I believe there is a future business in the making here. I also believe there will be more and more Americans growing a good portion of their own food out of necesity in the very near future.

Mraider, I agree completely. Americans are going to become aware very shortly. And, they will need fertilizer! Opportunity knocks...