Thank you all for the kind remarks. I will add that I have tried mixing whole leaves into the buckets, but they just rot too slowly and make a mess when fooling with the soil. Ground leaves would be better, and well mulched ones would be just right, I would think. I once mixed in composted cow manure, but that didn’t seem to make them any happier, and the aroma is hard to remove from the hands after digging around in the stuff. The Queen of My Heart was not amused. Chemical fertilizer is a very bad idea. What they mostly need is sources of carbon, I think, and the fertilizer burns them. I do add eggshells which I have crumbled up in my hand so the worms will have some grit to help them grind up what they ingest.
Ewest mentioned using oatmeal, cornmeal, and grits. I have used cornmeal in the past, and it worked OK, but there is something about getting extra use out of what I would throw away (or Starbucks would pitch out) which I find appealing. As I understand it, the kind of worms I am raising mainly eat the fungi, etc. which grow in the substrate food, rather than the food itself, but this may be wrong.
One of the important questions Bill asked is what kind of worms I have. I am sure the red wigglers which don’t really need soil and can compost fairly fresh organic material would reproduce and grow faster, but they require more care, and I raise the things for fun, not to have a post-retirement job. The same holds for the holes in the bottom of the bucket and the screen which ewest was kind enough to mention. It sounds like a great idea, but the bucket would dry out faster and there would be that bit of extra time whenever I upended the bucket. Further, any water which drains would end up on the concrete in the garage, not likely to make me popular with She Who Rules and Hates Dirt. Since I quit the daily grind, I have become a full-time expert at avoiding complications around the house.
If Bob Lusk would like a short piece on bucket vermiculture (maybe pitched as a fun project for the younger fisherman around the house) I would be happy to oblige. I think, though, that I have said pretty much everything I know, thanks to Bill’s comprehensive questions. I sure do look forward to the magazine every month, and I really enjoy this forum. If I could give back one percent of what I take out of here, I would feel like a rich man.
Wormy Lou
