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.