Worms like their Christmas Gifts

Last week I added some leaves and dirt. Conditions are good and the worms seem to be happy. I have added some fruit and other clippings. Christmas eve I added about a pound potatos skins and apple peals. The light is keeping the temp around 60 and the moister is staying between 80-90%. Some worms were on top of apples peals over the last 2 days. I added a layer of news paper and a couple of cardboard roll form Toilet paper rolls and paper towels today. Soaked the new paper down very well. Then I added about 2 pounds of snap peas, broccoil, a few orangen peals, a orange and a pomagranit ( all chopped up). I have added 20 egg shells on top. I check th water drain to make sure there is no excess water. All seams to be good. I have added allot of food this week so I will check to see how the worms are liking the apple layer from last week. I have just spread the food around and did not place it all in one place.

Worms are happy

Over the last week we have added some food and egg sheels. I purchased a hygrometer to measure wetness of the bed. It is between 80 and 90% and is staying around 70 degrees. Since the bed is in the garage it has been about in the 50's in the morning in the bed so I added a 15 watt lamp the faces down on top of the lid of the bid. Now the temp is around 70. The worms are moving around good and have found the food. I am measuring the PH an it is low right now so I am going to hold off on adding any more egg shells until it balances its self out. I added some unbuttered toast last week but it just got moldy so I removed it and won't add that again.

Worms are here

Worms came today. 1000 little red worms form Uncle Jim's worm farm. I was very supprised at how small the worms are. I assume they are young but will wait to see. The instructions page that came with the worms sad they are small because they loose about 70% of their body weight in shipping. We placed them in the bin and covered them with some very wet news paper and will wait a few days to see how many survived the trip to their new home.

The new worm bed

I purchased a plastic 28 gallon bin to start the new worm bed. I know rubber is better and will last longer but to try for the first time I saved a few dollars and went with plastic. I first drilled 1/16 inch holes all around the top edge of the bin. They were about a 1/4 apart. I made a drain at the bottom of the bin by cutting of the top of of a plastic water bottle and then drilled a hole at the bottom of the bin and glued in in. Since we live in Southern Arizona I don't we will have to much moister but its better to be safe than sorry. The bin is slightly lower on the drain side so the water can easily drain if needed. Then I made a 2x4 box for the bottom of the bin with a wire grid to provide space at the bottom of bin for air flow and to gather excess water. I then places a layer of news paper about 3-4 pages. I then ripped up a few Sunday papers into strips and added some finely torn up plain cardboard. I added about a pound of leaves and other clipping form my back yard. I soaked the paper with water so it was a wet sponge. I topped that with some soil from the first worm bed and then some more papers. and then some more water. I added household clipping every week since then. There is about 3 pounds of household clipping and about another 1/2 gallon of water. There is no moister at the drain so I know it is not too damp.

The Beginning of worming for Chloe and I

I have always been interested in worm. My father and I raised worms in a freezer for years when I was growing up. Not knowing much about worms I thought about starting a new worm bed a few months ago when I wanted to start a compost bin. I had a 35 gallon trash can almost filled with dirt from years work around my home. I have started adding grass clipping and household scraps to the bin. After a few months I wanted to add worms. I purchased some red worms from a pet store. 25 worms for $5.00 Chloe, my 7 year old daughter and I tried to keep them happy but we soon found out that they were not happy and they left us. RIP little worms. I am sorry.

Then I got smart and did a little research on line and found out that red worms don't like all that dirt and I am sure it was way to dry for them. I then decided to make a worm bed that would work in our garage and that would make a new family of words happy.