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

[badger]

I'm certainly not the best at this, but I guess I'm not doing that badly since I've had to give away a ton of worms twice from over population.

When I brought home the bin, there was some starter scraps, then on top was some torn/shredded newspaper mixed in with some hay and dirt. Sprinkle that with some water and leave it alone for a week (they stressed this quite strongly). What they taught me to do was to put the scrap in one corner, then the next week another corner, and so forth so you give the scraps some time to be broken down. Make sure to keep everything covered, though.

If you think it's too moist, try to get as much cardboard out, and maybe put some shredded newspaper in there. If it's too moist then they'll try to crawl on the sides to escape the moisture. Can't be too damp, and can't be too dry.

Try putting a potted plant on top of the compost bin's lid. It should absorb some of the heat.

[deeaimond]

oops... i think i put in too many scraps yesterday, and its only been 3 days. But the tomato was disappearing pretty quickly and the worms were on top of the tomato, eating i presume...

its not really moisture like - dripping liquid, but just very damp in a humid kind of way... ah well, i'm just gonna leave it outside where I'm less tempted to peer into it. It's in the shade of a two large trees and a banana plant... so I'm thinking it should be relatively cool. no potted plant on top, but plants all around.. does that help?

Maybe i need a bin with more surface area. I guess I'll do that when these worms multiply and I need to find a bigger place for them... My dad suggested I just take the top off to let the heat out. But i'm worried about flies.

I guess I'll check in on them and see what happens. I'm beginning to realise it will be months before I have anything able to cope with ALL the vegetable scraps we generate in my house though... (5 people, big veggie eaters)

Thanks badger!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Dee-
If you put too much grain stuff like bread or rice, it will start a hot compost reaction and your bin will start heating up- no good. Also, too much grain gives the worms 'protein poisoning' and they start to become deformed, like tied sausages (eew) and die.
Try to never put more than 1/4 or 1/4 of the food as grain-based scraps. They really love fruit and veggies scraps best, plus teabags and coffee grounds, and ground up eggshells. they also need the FIBER of shredded newspaper and cardboard- the fiber is good and also it keeps more air in the bedding. torn up cardboard egg cartons are a favorite, or brown cardboard box material.

It sounds like you are adding too much water to your bin. Leave the top off during the day. The daylight will keep the worms from trying to escape during the day, then put the lid on at night loosely. If your bin gets too sopping wet the worms will try to escape and the bin will smell bad. There is no way to 'seal' the worms in a bin when they don't like the conditions- and sealing up the lid and airholes just makes things wetter, stinkier, and worse.
Air circulation is your friend.

I drain the rotting scraps in the sink and squeeze the excess liquid out of it before adding to the bin.
If you bin gets too wet you can adding more dry shredded newspaper and mix it in a bit gently, and leave the lid vented open more.

[deeaimond]

Dee-
If you put too much grain stuff like bread or rice, it will start a hot compost reaction and your bin will start heating up- no good. Also, too much grain gives the worms 'protein poisoning' and they start to become deformed, like tied sausages (eew) and die.
Try to never put more than 1/4 or 1/4 of the food as grain-based scraps. They really love fruit and veggies scraps best, plus teabags and coffee grounds, and ground up eggshells. they also need the FIBER of shredded newspaper and cardboard- the fiber is good and also it keeps more air in the bedding. torn up cardboard egg cartons are a favorite, or brown cardboard box material.

It sounds like you are adding too much water to your bin. Leave the top off during the day. The daylight will keep the worms from trying to escape during the day, then put the lid on at night loosely. If your bin gets too sopping wet the worms will try to escape and the bin will smell bad. There is no way to 'seal' the worms in a bin when they don't like the conditions- and sealing up the lid and airholes just makes things wetter, stinkier, and worse.
Air circulation is your friend.

I drain the rotting scraps in the sink and squeeze the excess liquid out of it before adding to the bin.
If you bin gets too wet you can adding more dry shredded newspaper and mix it in a bit gently, and leave the lid vented open more.

Hi Lisa,

I've not added any liquid at all since day one, I think it was just too warm inside so the bin wasn't ventilating properly. There is no leachate (haha. I've been reading vermicomposting forums! linked from yr blog lisa )

i don't leave the bin open in the house, the tropical climate means that the fruit flies are fierce, the shredded newspaper a foot deep does not keep them away. Also I didn't want the dog to get inquisitive.

As I said yesterday I moved the whole bin outside. It rained today as well so when i came back, the lid was all wet. I checked inside and good news! the newspaper was damp and there are ants inside, but then the worms were all over the food and the bin was not sweaty anymore!! hooray!!.

I think I'll just leave it for a few days and see how long it takes for the worms to work through that quantity of food. I have frozen some lotus root and radish skins, and well as some mustard green ends, banana peel and teabags (I actually brought them home from work.. I'm going insane) So I think on Sunday I'll defrost that and feed them that after I squeeze off the water.

I didn't know about the grain and protein part. goodness I found out early. don't wanna kill my expensive worms.

Thanks Lisa

oh and by the way I love your garden. I'm green with envy can you see??

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Sounds like you are managing your bin well! After a while you start to sense what is going on in your bin.
I'm glad you are reading at the vermicomposting forum- that's where I learned much of what I know- a great worm compost knowledge source!

Thanks about my veggie garden- I am so excited this year about growing food!