On 3/24/2016 10:02 PM, songbird wrote:

Supposed to be one pound, looked like about a double handful of actual
worms. The ones I'm going to order is 1,500 worms total. I wonder who
invented a worm counter machine?

you should not need to order more if you can find any
in there that are still alive.

cold will drive them down too.

It has been fairly cool the last two or three days.

how large is it? it could probably be a little wetter
than moist. do you have worm tea coming out the bottom
(if you have a drain hole)?


Not yet, but there's a spigot for it and a container under the worm house.

is it open? or if you open it does anything come
out of it?

I check it daily, no liquid as yet.


they may have been George! they should not have been
able to get out at all, small or big...

coir is a very harsh and unforgiving medium. i would not
use it in a worm bin in high quantities, especially to get a
worm bin started. was that supplied with the worm bins or
recommended? might be ok to use coir as a thin layer in
between other materials if you were trying to filter the
liquid from the rest of it. i would expect it to be among
the last things that will break down in there.

also, even though you are not using earthworms, instead of
using pumice (which has very little bacteria or nutrition) i
would use crushed eggshells and just a very small amount of
dirt. worms are eaters of organic matter, but they need a
healthy bacterial population going too and if for some reason
they don't have that they're effectively going to be starving
until one gets going. so by adding a little dirt you would
be innoculating the bin with bacteria. after it gets going
the eggshells should be enough grit.

once you have a population going then they will self-
innoculate any of the following materials you put in there.

you may find some worms in there, small ones, don't worry
they'll get bigger fast enough once you get them some proper
bacteria and organic matter to munch on. i'd not spend more
money on worms as you can find red wrigglers in your flower
beds that will work just fine. add them along with your
others if you don't think there are enough. they will also
help innoculate the bedding for the other worms.

does this make sense?


songbird

Yup, will give it a try. I just don't understand why the worms would
escape, evidently there is a small escape hatch somewhere.

Off to celebrate Easter with our get around noon. Dear wife is making a
lemon meringue pie and I baked a nice loaf of zucchini bread yesterday.
With a family as big as ours with many good cooks in it there should be
a feast today. Only day everyone can get together.