Ladders & Worms

I went to check out my worm bin today expecting to see great things after improving their airflow, etc., last week. However, when I opened it up this afternoon, all ready to give them some rare watermelon rind treats, I noticed that they hadn't even touched the papaya rind that I had placed in the top try for them last Sunday. This boggled my mind because this is one of their favorite foods, they wouldn't miss out on such a thing! There were a lot of other critters around, but no worms that I could see with the exceptions of a few crawling around on the underside of the lid.

Perhaps they were contentedly munching away in the second tray, I thought, although I would have assumed that the papaya would have been sufficient to draw up a few worms at least. When I picked up the top try to see what was going on in the second level, I noticed the problem immediately. The second tray matter had collapsed enough that the material was no longer touching the bottom of the top tray - there was no way for the worms to climb up except for on the sides, which they seem to prefer not to do. So I piled up the half-processed compost on the second tray so that it came into contact with the top tray. In a couple of days, I expect that papaya to be almost gone so that I can give them some of their hard-earned watermelon rinds.

6 Month Update

Sorry I've haven't posted for a while, but I'm back now. It's been 6 months since I cleaned all of the snails out of my worm bin and essentially started over with just a handful of worms. After 3 months, I added another tray, waiting a week before adding food to the bedding I placed in there. The worms are fed about once a week with whatever pre-composted scraps I have on hand.


A few weeks back things began to slow down. I realized that in the mid-afternoon, part of the bin was now in the sunlight because of the sun shifting its position as the seasons progressed throughout the first part of the year so I moved it completely under an evergreen tree against our rock wall. Originally it was not placed there because it is harder to get to, and I was concerned about the heat given off by the rock wall throughout the day. After checking in the mid-afternoon heat though, I discovered that because that part of the wall was in the shade, the rocks stay quite cool to the touch.

Keeping the bin cooler, however, didn't have as much positive impact as I had hoped that it would. A couple of weeks later, things were still very slow. Then, I read on the vermicomposters.com forum, that pre-compost needs to be kept damp in order for the microorganisms to thrive. Aha! Recently I had been putting in hard, crusty scraps that had sat out in the hot sun and basically been dehydrated. I didn't realize it would be a problem since I figured they would just absorb the extra moisture in the bin which is helpful in keeping it from getting too wet for the worms (adding dry bedding is the proper way to deal with this). Unfortunately, if you don't have microorganisms to process the scraps, the worms cannot eat them. No wonder my scraps weren't being eaten and the mites had moved in!

After making sure that I only put in damp or wet scraps and pre-compost, things picked up a little, but it did not function as optimally as it did earlier in the year. Clearly I was missing another piece to the puzzle. So I went down my checklist. The bin was warm, but not too warm. There was food, but not too much food. Damp, but not too wet. No nasty insect invaders, etc.

Last week, I decided to dump out my bottom tray that I haven't fed for three months, to see how much uncomposted material was still present. After digging around, I decided that it still needs to compost quite a bit more as there are a lot of leaves that need to be broken down. It was also very compact and several of the worms had gone into the leachate tray, most presumably because they wanted more air (you'll notice in my pictures that I leave the spout open to assist in both drainage and airflow).

I went to the hardware store and purchased some untreated douglas fir trim and cut it into pieces that I could put in each corner of the trays to keep them from compacting as the trays above get heavier. When I put the vermicompost back into the tray, I piled up the compost to make sure that it touched the bottom of the second tray.
This week, my worms are up and running again!

Lessons Learned:

Precomposted scraps need to be kept damp in order for the microorganisms to thrive (there is some controversy over whether the worms eat the actual microorganisms themselves, or the food itself after it's been broken down).

Good airflow is essential for the worms to thrive and continue breaking down bedding and food.

As the position of the sun changes throughout the year, make sure that the worm bin doesn't begin to get sunlight where it used to be in complete shade. Regularly check the temperature in different areas of the working tray during the hottest and coldest parts of the day to make sure it stays in a worm-friendly range.

A Natural Fruit Fly Repellent

About a week and a half ago I was starting to get some fruit flies interested in my worm bin. Since the trays aren't deep enough to cover the newly added kitchen scraps with enough bedding to keep the fruit flies out, I've been looking for other means to deter them by. I happened upon some fresh coconut husk that I decided to pull apart and add to the top of my tray as extra bedding since worms like coconut coir. Turns out it does a good job of minimizing fruit fly activity. As it breaks down and more items are added on top, it also provides excellent aeration.




UPDATE JAN. 24, 2010: The shredded coconut husk helped for a week or two, and then the fruit flies learned how to navigate through it.

A Desperate Mission to Eradicate the Extremely Invasive New Zealand Mud Snail

This past sunday, I embarked on a desperate mission to eradicate the extremely invasive New Zealand Mud Snail.

According to the Center for Invasive Species Research in Riverside, California, the color of the snail shell is variable, and can range from gray and dark brown to light brown. The snail is usually 4-6 mm in length in areas that have been invaded, but snails can grow to almost twice this size, up to 12 mm, in New Zealand where populations are much lower. New Zealand mud snail is a nocturnal grazer that feeds on plant and animal detritus, algae, and diatoms. Invasive populations have an unusual mode of reproduction. New Zealand mud snails can reproduce asexually and female snails are born with developing embryos inside them. Consequently, all populations consist of genetically identical clones. In New Zealand, native mud snail populations consist of sexually reproducing populations (the males make up less than 5% of the populations) and asexually reproducing females. Each snail can produce around 230 offspring a year, and reproduction typically occurs during the spring and summer.

Snails can live for 24 hrs without water, and for up to 50 days on damp surfaces. The snail is . . . tolerant of estuarine conditions and can live at depths of up to 45 m on solid and silty substrates. Once introduced into a new area, New Zealand mud snails can reach densities exceeding 500,000 per square meter. (http://cisr.ucr.edu).

Upon my discovery as to what the snails in my bin were, I set to figuring out how to get rid of them. After discussing things on a couple of different forums, I decided that the only way would be to get rid of all of my bedding, wash my bin with the hottest water I could stand, and rinse off my worms and cocoons the best that I could. Then I put them in fresh bedding and left them alone for several days. The best way to kill the snails is to put them in salt water, so I took all of my contaminated bedding and dumped it in salt water and then disposed of it.

Today I checked my worms to make sure that I did have a few at least, that survived the stress. They were happily munching away on the rotting food and bedding I had provided for them. Hopefully there are no remnants left of the snails so I won't have to put my worms through that again.

Building a Child's Worm Farm

Today I made a worm farm for my daughter. The idea was from a book with kid's crafts. It is a jar with a layer of sand, a layer of potting soil, another layer of sand and another of soil and then the worms and compost with aged leaves on top. Am hoping to teach her about what worms do and to allow myself the opportunity to observe them a little bit closer. I just it in a dark place and kept the lid off so that it can stay aerated. The sand I used was from the beach that I flushed several times with fresh water. Below is a time lapse of the worm farm taken over a period of one month.

Mission: Extraction

Today I invaded my worm bin trays on a mission. Since I learned this week that papaya seeds are very bad for my worm population, I decided that I had no other choice than to pull out all of the seeds. I quickly realized that was a hopeless task. There were papaya seeds everywhere, and very difficult to distinguish in all of the vermicompost. After a few minutes, I changed my strategy. I was going to have to extract the worms and worm eggs instead!

After sifting through the two trays which had papaya seeds in them and placing the worms and eggs in a different tray, I dumped the contaminated vermicompost and bedding into my husband's compost bin.

Fortunately, there were many fresh eggs and newly hatched worms, so I was able to save my worm population from an impending sterilization even though the seeds had been in there for several weeks.

Hopefully the transition won't shock them too much and they'll go back to eating, pooping and procreating soon!

Seeds, sterility & a hearty humbug!

What is the one thing you're not supposed to feed your vermicomposting worms? Sure, there are several things which aren't beneficial to the system, but what item can actually be quite damaging to your worm farm? Papaya seeds. Worms love the flesh and the rinds, but the seeds can cause them to become sterile. The seeds don't decompose for a very long time and continually leech a toxin into the bin which causes the worms to lose their virility. Which means, if you're not careful, your worm population could die off.

So the next time you throw your papaya into the bin, be sure to remove those seeds first. Incidentally, if you live in the right climate, they can be quite easy to sprout and grow trees from.

One more tidbit to remember, when feeding your worms, be sure to mix up the type of food you give them, if you constantly give them a lot of wet, fleshy foods, it is possible that the bin will become too wet which makes it all to susceptible to unfriendly conditions for your trusty little red friends. Include scraps of dryer items regularly as well to help keep a balanced moisture level in your bin.