Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Worm breeding

Hello. I would like to construct a worm bed near my pond. Does anybody have a link to a good website explaining how to do this? Has anyone here had success growing fishing worms?

Thanks for the help.

Quite a few years ago. Actually a heckuva long time back.
I got an old metal military wall locker and filled it with enrichened soil. Not sand or sandy loam. Make sure it can be closed or put a piece of plywood over it. They are highly prolific. During rainy weather, they crawl out. No problem. There will be plenty left and you can also pick them up and return them to their home or toss them onto the lawn. Without a cover, your patio will be covered by worms.

I fed them corn meal spread on the top of the soil. You will hear that worms can be your garbage disposal for uneaten food. Yeah, but it draws a lot of flies that will also spawn there. If you do this, be sure to bury the food. Birds and various animals dig around in it without a lid.

I finally sold the whole works to a couple of hippies from Dallas. They got arrested for using the worms to grow marijuana quicker. They used the worms to enrich the soil. They do a job of that. The cops that arrested them questioned me as an accessory but realized that I was innocent.

Been thinking a long time about doing it again.

I have a small garden that has plenty of worms for growing my chilis and for fishing. Historically, they weren't there in quantity and size, but a couple of winters ago I worked in a bag of alfalfa pellets. I worked them in to about 12" deep. By Mid spring, there were many worms and they were fat things and I could tell there had been a lot of reproduction too. The alfalfa seemed to have made a big difference for them. If you did something similar, the enriched bed should attract native worms which would thrive in the enriched soil. If just for the purpose of growing worms for fishing, I think just spreading some on a patch and covering the patch with a good mulch like straw would work just as good or better provided you have worms already in the soil. Not a how to but they should do well if there is plenty of food for them. Didn't ask where you are from but armadillos and skunks will dig in them if located in the country where these would be present. A mulch like tin or plywood sheeting would help to keep them out.

I have done simple worm bins for 10 years, plenty of information available.

My easy feed tip, use non medicated chick starter, inexpensive and will help grow the population.

Worms are sensitive to temperature. A bin that's in the sun will get killed fast. If left outside in the winter it'll freeze.

If you decide to do indoor worms (e.g., european nightcrawlers, don't do the regular tiny red worms), make sure you start with "clean" bedding. Nothing that's ever been outside or it'll end up full of gnats that are impossible to get rid of.

A worm bin can stay outside all Winter if buried and deep enough for a worm refuge. Grandpa Gallus' worm bins were outside and buried.

Mine were outside and not buried. Never had a problem.