Seasonal changes affect the way one raises their red worms. When winter arrives we concentrate on keeping our red worms warm. It is much easier when raising red worms to keep a worm bin warm than trying to keep it cool enough during the warmer months.

Moving from the summer through fall and into winter is actually easier since even though the temperatures drop, so does humidity. Once summer arrives the humidity rises in most parts of the country which can make your red worm bin become an oven similar to roasting a roast.

Even if you live in areas such as Arizona where the temperatures are hot but the humidity remains low, remember your worm bin has trapped moisture within it, hence creating humidity within the worm environment.

Another reason why it becomes easier to raise red worms during the cooler months is the fact many are composting by throwing in loads of food scraps such as vegetables. This helps to heat up the worm bin which works fine during the winter.

During the transition from winter to spring, things begin to heat up. While adding plenty of nitrogen rich, green products, such as leftover vegetable scraps work well during colder, drier months, this can prove detrimental when transitioning from winter to spring into summer.

Raising red worms and transitioning from winter to spring can be relatively simple if you approach it properly.

Start by making sure your worm bin does not have too much moisture. Moisture and heat do not mix when it comes to raising red worms. A soil moisture meter can be purchased at most hardware, home improvement and even discount stores this time of year. A good year round moisture percentage to maintain is 60% to 70%.

I know many people purchase a worm farm of one sort or another offering a spigot at the bottom by which is advertised to produce worm tea. First, this is not worm tea but rather leachate, which can be anaerobic and detrimental to your worms. Leachate can be full of detrimental anaerobic microbes rather than beneficial aerobic microbes hence why landfills for example need to build retainers to catch the leachate to prevent run off into local soil and drinking wells. If you are producing liquid within your worm bin this time of year as well as during the summer months there is a good chance you will kill off your red worms.

To reduce the heat within your red worm bin, slow down on the green products and begin adding more brown which are carbon products. Carbon products consist of shredded newspaper and cardboard for one. These products will not generate nearly as much heat within your worm bin as green products do. At the same time they do not increase the moisture content but rather absorb it. Green products not only generate heat but also produce moisture content.

Certain vegetables produce more moisture than others. This is a good time of year to avoid melons and vegetables such as cucumbers for a while.

If you are raising red worms in a garage or basement that becomes hot during the summer months, now is the time to start thinking about where you can move them to. Garages that reach even 80 degrees Fahrenheit will end up cooking your worms as the internal temperature of the worm bin will exceed this.

Think of a sauna and how the steam literally heats up within the room and makes you hot. The same holds true when raising red worms within the worm bin and the heat and moisture content builds up within.

If raising your red worms outside, now is the time to find a nice shady spot for them if you have not done so already. Direct sun on the worm bin will bake your worms quickly and leave a foul odor.

Heading these precautions will save you and your red worms much aggravation and are the same guidelines used at Red Worms For Sale worm farm to insure healthy red worms. For additional information on raising red worms, be sure to sign up for the Worm Composting Newsletter!

The result was that the red wigglers avoided the computer paper side of the bin like the black plague. I decided to fool around with this experiment further by taking bunches of the shredded computer paper and moving it to where the worms has settled in comfortably within the worm bin. This actually chased the worms away from these areas to other areas of the worm bin.

Unlike years ago when households relied mainly on well water, today most homes depend on local municipalities and utility companies for their drinking eater. It is suppose to be better water which could be correct due to contamination of thousands of wells across the country.

In order to be sure that our tap water is free of any unwanted bacteria, the water treatment companies add chloride to our drinking water.

This is when it hit me when a number of people have had problems with worms trying to escape and they state their pH, moisture and temperature levels are all correct. There was a common denominator here; they all used tap water straight from the faucet.

The tap water can actually have more chloride than the residue left behind during production of computer paper.

So how does one resolve this issue? It is actually pretty simple and does not cost anything.

First I have seen where some people state that you simply aerate the water to remove chlorine. This will NOT work!

Anyone with a pool can relate to the consumption rate of chlorine on sunny days compared to overcast days. This is because the chlorine is broken down under the influence of the UV radiation in sunlight.

One of the simplest ways to remove chlorine from your tap water for your worm bin and garden areas using worm castings since they too consist of bacteria and fungi is to set a bucket of water out in direct sunlight for a day or two.

Another way to obtain chlorine free water is to collect rain water. One problem with rain water can be the impurities within the air that are washed out when it first begins to rain. These impurities can be harmful to your worms especially if you live near a factory for example putting out a lot of smoke or other atmospheric pollutants.

Another way to obtain chlorine free water is to purchase a gallon jug of natural spring water. Just be sure they have not added chlorides to help preserve the shelf life. For the average worm bin, a one dollar jug of water can go a long way!

A last note, if you are trying to produce the best possible worm castings, the chlorides will kill off a majority of the beneficial microbes you want. When watering plants using the worm castings, always use chloride free water otherwise you are defeating the purpose.

Good Luck in Your Worm Composting & Gardening Adventure…

Bruce Galle

The first thing is to check a few things such as temperature, pH and moisture levels of your worm bin. If any or a combination of the previously listed are off, your worms maybe trying to get out of unfavorable conditions, in search of greener pastures. If this is true, you will want to rectify the problem so as not to end up killing off your worms.

Temperature plays a vital role not just in keeping your worms happy and the rate at which your food scraps will begin to breakdown permitting growth of beneficial microbes for your worms. An ideal temperature is 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit inside the bedding material of your worm bin.  If you add to many green products to your worm bin, raising the pH level, the temperature will also increase, heating the bin, potentially to high.

If your pH is off, usually the result of being too acidic, eliminate adding anymore green scraps to your worm bin for a while until you rectify to an acceptable pH level of 6 to 7. You could add some agricultural lime or crushed egg shells to assist in lowering and maintaining proper pH levels. Also add more brown products for a while such as shredded newspapers and cardboard.

Moisture levels are a common issue as the food scraps added to the worm bin release additional moisture as they decompose. This is especially true for certain fruits and vegetables such as cucumbers, melons… This is probably one of the most common reasons I hear from people having an issue with worms trying to escape. Moisture levels should be approximately 70% to 75%, no matter which type of worm you are raising, red wigglers, African nightcrawlers or European nightcrawlers.

To begin drying the worm bin and to assist in keeping your worms from escaping, add some shredded newspaper to the top few inches of your worm bin. Worms prefer not to crawl through dry newspaper; hence usually this will keep many of them below the dry paper.

Another trick is to leave the lid off in a room where you can leave the light on. This serves a dual purpose. The first permits more ventilation, hence allowing your worm bin to dry out faster. Secondly, the light helps to keep the worms from poking their heads out as light disturbs them, hence keeping them down inside the bedding.

The last trick I have been meaning to post, something I tried a while back with effectiveness, is to build a flap under the lid of your worm bin.

Basically you need strips of newspaper approximately 6 inches wide. Next crease the strips in lengthwise so as the 6 inch strips now or folded in half, 3 inches wide as in the photographs below.

Tear off a few smaller pieces to cover your four corners. Then use longer strips for the remaining four sides of your worm bin.

Carefully place your worm bin lid on top and snap down into place.

Be sure to check daily for worms stuck up on the underside of the newspaper that are trying to escape. Simply place them back on the top of the bedding in the center of the worm bin.

If your worm bin is to moist or in the event numerous worms get caught up on the underside of the newspaper, replace the flapped newspaper when it becomes to damp, as it will lay down on the side of your worm bin, allowing worms to crawl out again.

Good luck in your vermiculture adventures,

Bruce Galle

After a week of a number of rainy days and the rain being cold as temperatures only in the 40′s and 50′s while raining, the worms are doing well.

I pulled back the hay and decomposing materials and carefully used a pitchfork to turn the top few inches of the clay and sand mix. The Alabama Jumpers were right there doing fine and active!

When I ran a temperature test of the soil it ranged from 54 to 56 degrees Fahrenheit.

Since there are no hard facts or statistics on Alabama Jumpers as compared to other red worms, I figured I would keep an eye on these guys and monitor them. I will keep a record of my findings here on the blog. Be sure to bookmark or sign up for the Worm Composting Newsletter to keep abreast of the latest updates!

Alabama Jumpers are available from Organic Worm Farm and are great for clay and sandy soils.

Be sure to drop buy The Worm Expert new discussion forum and join us. Introduce yourself while you are there!

Bruce Galle

Of course composting worms do not like candy or even going out for trick or treating, however they do love pumpkins.

This year do not throw your pumpkin out in the garbage. In fact you may want to ask a neighbor or two if you can have theirs after the holiday.

The reason I am telling you this is the fact that red worms love pumpkins; probably more than anything else you have already fed them.

First off, pumpkins begin to decompose very quickly, making it worm accessible within hours to a couple days depending on the original condition of the pumpkin and the worm bin conditions.

All you need to do is bust up the pumpkin into several pieces and throw into your worm bin.

Now this does not hold true for the new record pumpkin weighing in at 1,016 pounds. Renninger, the grower of the record pumpkin, credits his success in 2009 to his use of compost tea soil to grow the winning pumpkin.

Have a Great Day,

Bruce Galle

Follow Me On Twitter…

I have also just started The Worm Expert, red worm discussion forum and would like to invite you to become a member. Yes it is Free! (link opens in new window)

Thanks and enjoy the video.

Bruce Galle
The Worm Expert

The nice thing about this is the floor saving space as well as being able to hold over 6,000 worms!

Enjoy the video.

Remember, to get your worms, check out Organic Worm Farm for the best quality worms online!

Thanks

Bruce Galle

P.S. – Remember you can always follow me on Twitter.

Now for anyone unfamiliar with Alabama Jumpers, these red worms that readily live in clay and sandy soils. They have a tough skin which enables them to survive under the harsher conditions most red worms would have difficulty surviving.

Alabama Jumpers will borough through and aerate your soil. At the same time, they eat organic matter, shredded paper and cardboard, grass clippings (not piled up), hay (not straw) leaves… but will not harm plant roots, or anything else in your yard or garden. They will come towards the surface to release their castings (worm poop) also known as “Black Gold”. This produces a naturally balanced PH soil as well as adds millions of beneficial microbes to the soil.

Just two weeks earlier I placed 1,200 Alabama Jumper Red Worms outside and covered them with some hay, notice I did not say straw as you do not want to use the straw! I placed them outside our main yard area near the edge of the woods since we have ample property here. Now over time these critters will migrate and spread out in the backyard.

Just amazing to see the new growths within two weeks while the surrounding edges of the woods are almost barren of living greenery.

Here is the picture I snapped yesterday.

If you are looking to get your hands on some Alabama Jumpers or other varieties of Red Worms, visit Organic Worm Farm as they offer some healthy worms at a great price.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter if you have an account or sign up for your free account today!

Have a Great Day!

Bruce Galle

Scott R. – Illinois

Scott,

Raising African Nightcrawlers is very similar to raising red wiggler worms. Actually the African nightcrawler is a hardier worm than not only the red wiggler but its cousins such as the European nightcrawler. I personally prefer the African as it eats more food, hence producing more worm castings faster.

Setup your bin as you would for red wigglers with one exception, make the bedding thicker. I recommend 6 to 8 inches of bedding such as shredded newspaper and cardboard. Moisten to about 70% to 80% moisture content on a moisture meter.

The feed is the same as you would feed your red wigglers.

Sit back and get ready to harvest your worm castings!

Bruce

Mark D. – Texas

First off Alabama Jumpers are different from other worms we sell. One, they do not eat food scraps but rather organic material from leaves (limit oak leaves) hay (not straw), shredded newspaper and cardboard… Basically carbon based products.

Setup an area with clay or sandy soil in your yard or garden area. Place some bedding material and be sure it is wet down so as it is damp.

I recommend you release your worms outdoors once the sun sets behind the tree or landscape background so as not to burn them up.

Place your worms on top of the pile and mist a little water on top of them to get the worms moving.

Do NOT spread your worms out throughout your yard or garden. Rather place at least 500 in each pile. The worms will eventually begin to breed and spread out as they multiply. If you spread them out to thin, they will have difficulty finding each other to breed.

Bruce