This is really going to be embarrassing.

1. What type of worms? Garden worms and just plain wigglers that come from a bait shop out on the highway and look like garden worms to me.
2. What kind of bucket? One 5 gal. bucket and one storage bin, maybe 20 gal. I don’t fill them above 3/4.
3. Where do I store? In the garage.
4. As to feeding- I have been adding grounds whenever I had a full coffee can, but this was just not enough carbon and would not keep the numbers up high enough, so I started adding torn up paper (which I read somewhere was a great source of non-smelly carbon for worms when it deteriorated in the soil) and chopped up rinds, etc. in small amounts. I microwaved the rinds briefly to kill off any fly eggs when I used them.
I do the adding by dumping the bucket and putting the dirt back in reverse order (‘cause the top is pretty dry and the bottom is pretty wet). When about half is back in, I mix the grounds into it, then return the rest of the dirt. The only real problem I have had is that if very many grounds are mixed in the upper layers of soil, flies lay eggs, maggots hatch, and soon there is a squirming mass which kills or crowds out the worms. Actually, the maggots are also very good bait, but there is the yuk factor to consider, especially since some of my best fisherfolks are grandgirls.
5. About crowding: I have 16 grandchildren. In the winter, the worms are very crowded, but the rest of the year, I have to supplement their numbers from time to time. Today, when I added the Starbucks grounds, I found that the bottom half of the bucket was about half worms. They don’t seem to mind togetherness and are plenty fat and big. They must not secrete any sort of growth inhibiting factor.
6. Any major worm die offs? Well, a lot of them drown and a lot end up as fish food, but not otherwise, except when I was learning how much to feed them and before I figured out how to keep fly larvae out.
7. What temperature seems to be best for growing these worms? Somewhere between 32 and 100 F. I don’t let the garage freeze because there are water pipes in there, but I don’t air condition it, either. I have been surprised to see that they seem to reproduce and grow in the winter as well as in the summer. This may not really be true, though, since they don’t get impaled on hooks as often in the winter.
8. Do you have to add moisture to the bucket and how often? Whenever it feels dry, I carefully measure out a splash or two.
9. Do you keep a lid on the bucket? I used to, but it didn’t accomplish anything. If it were outdoors, I would use a lid to keep the coons and possums out.
10. How long have you been doing this? About three years. Before that, I tried to raise them in the garden, but it didn’t work nearly as well. The coons dug them up, for one thing. Fire ants seemed to like to nest in the beds, for another.
11. Any photos to the operation? I am really, really honored that you would call it an operation. If I took a picture, it would be a photo of a bucket.

As you can see, this is not a high-intensity hobby. The greatest reward is dumping the dirt out in a pan and letting my citified grandchildren paw through it for worms. The little ones squeal. The girls make faces and noises, but they still like doing it–they are just keeping up appearances, I suspect. The boys begin to get stoical at about 6. And, I must admit that when I feel like it, I leave the fly rod in the corner and do a little worm fishing, myself.

I hope this was helpful and not TOO disappointing.
Lou