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John Savage

writes:
most worms I've seen for sale as compost worms are called "red worms".
Most people around here call native earthworms "nightcrawlers" which
are much larger and not as red, although there are small red worms
that you can find in manure piles and such. So am I concluding
corrected that red worms are typically considered compost worms and
nightcrawlers are the deep worms, but both will work adequately for
decomposing your compost?

Yup. You don't HAVE to buy worms. Eventually they will find your pile
of decomposing compost, but I have found this to take about 12 months.
It's very sandy, low fertility, with no gardening neighbours here. The
compost worms are short, thin, and orangey-red. Earthworms are fat,
longer, very dark in colour, and they live in soil. Both sorts will
find your pit of household scraps, but the compost worms will breed
in it, the earthworms will live around or under it.

I had a thriving in-ground worm farm and went away for 3 months.
When I returned it had dried out and all the worms were gone. It has
taken exactly a year of maintaining the pile for them to reappear.
They still haven't built up in any numbers, though.

To get your farm off to a fast start, I'd recommend getting a handful
of worms from a neighbour who has an established worm farm.
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)