my Worms are coming!!!!

[deeaimond]

The vermi-composting thread rekindled my interest in vermicomposting so i googled for vermi-composting worms in Singapore and wow! I found 2 pple selling the worms, harvested from their own worm farms. I'm gonna start my own worm castle!! they're arriving later in the afternoon and I already have their worm tower ready (home-made, recycled from some large plastic bins we had ard the house) some soaking cardboard and scraps from last night's dinner preparation set aside for them. can you tell i'm super excited?

the guy is charging me $60 for 200grms of worms, slightly less than a 1/4 of a pound and about $40 USd.... I think its quite a steep price but then I don't have any other sources and both these guys sell at the same price. He says his worms are nightcrawlers, not the other kind, I'm not sure though, he says the only difference is that his are less prone to escape from their castle. Wonder is anyone knows more about these. I'm worried they won't be able to deal with mostly vegetable scraps I'll be giving them...

Dee

[badger]

Hmm, according to Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof, the nightcrawlers do NOT make good vermicompost worms. They apparently require large amounts of soil and the bed temperature cannot exceed 50F, or10C. They also apparently don't like to have their burrows disturbed, so turning, dumping scraps and otherwise disturbing their tunnels will upset them.

In short, they're not good for confined space but excellent for your garden where they can aerate the soil.

Is it too late to cancel your order??

[crazycanuck]

Hey Dee, I don't know if you can import worms from another Australasian country but it might be worth a shot?

Good luck with de wormies!

[deeaimond]

badger, the good news is, they aren't nightcrawlers! hehhe.. they're redworms. He must have told me the wrong thing on the phone the other day.

Anyways, they're here, they look like redworms. rather thin and tapered/rounded on both ends. It doesnt look like alot of worms... but i'm not about to take them out to weigh them. I'll let them rest for a week or two then start feeding them veggie scraps. I'm concerned about the temperature though, the plastic pails, even with the holes drilled in, might get rather warm. It's really hot here these days. 32 - 34 degrees celcius usually outside. so about 27 inside with no fan on...

no pictures, coz i'm too lazy to deal with that. I found my mother's stash of plastic bags and i'm thinking if i should still keep them to reuse or just throw them out. I'm talking about hundreds of scrunched up plastic bags, some from more than 5 yrs ago (I know because that grocery store changed their bags from these yellow ones to white ones about 5 yrs ago. they might be older though...) So i'm sitting here with all these plastic bags stuffed into plastic bags in front of me. I'm not gonna fold them all even though that will tidy everything up.

so, keep them and let them have this space in the house, or send them out of my life into a landfill???? haiz...

D

[badger]

oh that's good. I wouldn't bother letting them "rest", though, I threw scraps in mine straight away.

My compost bin is quite small, probably similar in size to your plastic bin. In the summer I have it in the shade amongst the large potted plants and put one on top of it to hopefully keep the temperature down somewhat.

Good luck with your new friends!

edit: I was just reading the information sheet I received when I got the compost. They apparently really like sweet snaks like kiwis, apples, and melons, so why don't you get them started on some sweet fruits?

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

The vermi-composting thread rekindled my interest in vermicomposting so...I'm gonna start my own worm castle!! ...can you tell i'm super excited?
Dee

Cool, Dee!
If anyone else is interested, here is the TE worm composting thread Dee is referring to, which is ongoing and has lots of info so far, plus pictures:
http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=30052

no pictures, coz i'm too lazy to deal with that. I found my mother's stash of plastic bags and i'm thinking if i should still keep them to reuse or just throw them out. I'm talking about hundreds of scrunched up plastic bags, some from more than 5 yrs ago (I know because that grocery store changed their bags from these yellow ones to white ones about 5 yrs ago. they might be older though...) So i'm sitting here with all these plastic bags stuffed into plastic bags in front of me. I'm not gonna fold them all even though that will tidy everything up.
so, keep them and let them have this space in the house, or send them out of my life into a landfill???? haiz...
D

Don't they have plastic recycling where you live? Seems awful to dump them in a landfill. Here you can put the plastic bags in the recycle along with other plastics.

Dee, the worms don't need to 'rest'. Put them in their bin and start feeding them- but be careful not to overfeed them the first month, and don't let the bin get sopping wet. Keep them in the shade if it's hot. Good luck!

[deeaimond]

Lisa and Badger, I heeded yr advice and put in a bad tomato, within a day it was crawling with worms. I've gone ahead and put in some other decomposing food scraps, some rice and whatnot (can't help it i'm chinese, my worms recieve the chinese staple too)

well my problem is that the bin seems to be too warm. I think the problem might be that there was just too much damp newspaper/cardboard bedding in there to start with (the guy put it in! and then it was too late to take out coz worms went on top) It's very moist in there all the newspaper i put on top is soggy. and it does not smell too great (not enough compost to scrap ratio i think) So I decided to put the whole bin outside, in a super shady spot and see if the worms do alright. If they do, then I think I'll just leave them there permanently. or at least until there is enough compost in there to lightly bury the scraps?

D