Worms and Composting

[fisherhall]

I'm going to start a worm bin and it's pretty cool because they eat pretty much all of your leftovers and turn it into high grade soil. They also reproduce so I'll have a very good source of worms for fishing. Has anyone ever tried this before?

[Marc Martyn]

For about 10 years after moving into my house I composted because the soil was pure sand in my yard. I used fresh grass clipping and mixed them with dried fall leaves from the year before. I built a 3 bin turning unit and kept rotating the mixture to the next bin every week. I now have about 12-14" of excellent top soil.

Successful composting is mainly leaving out any animal fats from the compost. These will do nothing but stink. You have to have the correct Nitrogen to Carbon proportions to produce good compost. Worms do eat vegetation, but it takes a whole lot of worms and quite a lot of time for them to make a sizable amount of compost. I would suggest starting a compost system like I mentioned above and working it for a couple of years and building up the soil in an area of your garden. The worms will find it and they will multiply rapidly. Once that has happened, you can go out in the evening after watering and pick up some of the best night crawlers you can imagine.

For more info on composting, contact your local county extension office. They have some great ideas about composting.

Good Luck!

[panfisher]

i mix good top soil with dried horse/cow dung about 50/50. depending on how many worms you are wanting i've used 5 gal buckets to old freezers buried in the ground, this will keep the temps cool in the summer and warm enough in the winter. to much moisture will kill your worms so keep a lid on them. i don't do the year around thing any more but still keep them in the buckets, just fill them up on a wet night where i'm at. there should be other idea's on the web that may give you other idea's. <')//<

[zen leecher aka Bill W]

meat scraps aren't good for worms, but vegetable scraps are.

nightcrawlers are "dirt" worms. They won't thrive in vegetable scraps....those are for redworms.

[cavdad45]

We compost alot at my house because it keeps the trash bill down (and the trash can cleaner), and also helps the soil mixture for our garden because we are cursed with red clay and not soil. I don't dig worms in it because I rarely use worms for bait, except for when my daughter goes perch or trout fishing.

[The Quadfather]

As the Zen Leecher said...... remember that when you speak of doing a worm bin, those are called "Red Wigglers." They are nothing like the worms that you have bought for bait at the store. They are fairly skinny. I suppose in a pinch any worm is a good worm. But the Red Wigglers are the ones that will brake down all your recycle, carboard, vegies etc. Nightcrawlers will just show up once your soil in the your yard is sweetened up.