Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Product sources Worm Food Free

heronblu, Thanks a lot for the detailed and enlightening posts. I may try this method which is why I asked so many questions.

Do I understand you correctly that you basically only use coffee grounds and the occassional egg shells to grow the worms?

Interesting concept that the worms are consuming fungi from the decomposing organic materials. Can you remember where you read or heard this information?. It was my understanding (although very limited) that earthworms ate mostly organic materials/particles. However I also assume that fungi are living on small organic particles in soils. Thus the worms get both as they injest the orgfanics. Someone may be able to find more info on this topic by searching the web sources.

I think a big key to your success is the type or species of worm that is thriving in your cultures. I have redworms growing in our compost pile. The reason I asked for a picture is to see if I could recognize what type of worm you were using. I am not a worm expert, but I think garden worms may be a different species than leaf worms. There are likely several if not numerous species of worms that live in soil conditions. Choosing the wrong species of worm may lead to poor success.

Proper dampnesss in the bucket may also play an important part in your success. Another key to your success may be the frequency of dumping and refilling the culture buckets. This process enriches and infuses the air throughout the soil especialy the bottom of the bucket. Worms need air to thrive and too damp of conditons depleates their air supply.

I also like the idea for the article in Pond Boss magazine because there are many readers of the magazine who do not frequent this forum and the mini-worm farm idea would be new to them. If you do an article include a photo of a handfull of worms and a close up photo of a worm or two. A photo of the kids digging through the worms would provide interest to the story.

Thanks for sharing your information. Many of us are worm anglers. I am slowly working on an article for PBoss magazine about using worm angling to check the overall quality of a pond fishery. Worms can be a very good and useful bait.