Worm Farming

Worm Farming is a fantastic way to cultivate the a super beneficial lil creature for gardens.
It is very easy, cheap and abundant. According to what I have read, as I have not actually tested this my self. Is that temperature, moisture and food affect the reproduction rate of worms. Under the best conditions, one pair of worms will produce one egg capsule each week. Each capsule contains up to 20 worms that will hatch in 2-3 weeks. These new worms will be capable of reproducing in 2-3 months. That's a lot of worms!
It is very easy to buy or find a hand full of worms to start the process.

Worm farming is a very easy way of turning vegetable and fruit scraps into a great potting soil or soil supplement for your garden or house plants. It can be done year round, by apartment dweller, home owners AND businesses. Worm farming is particularly useful for people who would like to compost their food scraps but do not have space for a backyard compost bin.
Or for me because I do do lots of composting I actually have worm farms so that I can add the quickly multiplying worms to my garden where they will naturally fertilize the soil as they live!!!

Here is what you need to get started:
Take not this is only 1 way and there are many ways. I will list alternate ways and pics.

Container of wood or plastic. I use a sturdy plastic container that is about 9 inches deep, 9 inches wide and 14 inches long. The measurements are not real critical. This an easy size for many situations. If you are going to keep your worm farm inside, you will want it to be water tight. The worms are going to be happier when kept in the dark where it is moist. If your container is clear, wrap it to keep light out or place it in a cabinet or a opaque container to seal out the light. Have a lit that has very small holes in it like a 1/32 inch drill bit hole. That way they can breath but not crawl all over the place.
Make sure that the place you find to store the bin is away from vibrations. Worms will try to move to a better location if they are too near a source of vibration.

Worms. I really suggest that you use red worms. They are also called red wrigglers or manure worms.
I do have some night crawlers farms but they do require much more space and are not as easy to maintain.

Bedding material. Start with some shredded newspaper, moistened, not wet. Use the black and white pages or really any paper without much gloss or color. Add a couple of handfuls of garden soil, not potting soil, and a couple of crushed egg shells. Keep the bedding damp but not sopping. The moisture helps them to breathe, but too much water will drown them.

Food. You can feed your worms fruit and vegetable scraps and starchy scraps, like bread, oatmeal, and pasta. Do not feed them too much acidic foods, like citric fruits, coffee ground and tea bags. Also fatty or high protein foods are also not a great idea. I really don't use any citrus, fats or proteins at all. They do best with a pH between 7 & 8. You can use egg shells to balance the effects of coffee grounds, orange and lemon peels. Never feed your worms meat, poultry, dairy products, or salty food , like potato chips. These will create odors and attract insects. Your worms will eat about half their body weight each day. Take this into consideration when you are deciding how much food to add to the bin.
Worms require oxygen so keep the lid partially open to allow air to circulate. on in the farm.
Worms will function very well at room temperature. Keep the farm temperature between +40 degrees F and +85 degrees F. Remember that heat will build up quickly in the farm if it is left in the sunlight.

Red worms reproduce often. Small, oval shaped cocoons in the bedding indicate that nature is taking its course. Cocoons may contain several baby worms and will take several weeks to hatch. Watch for tiny white worms. Poultry egg shells added to the bedding will provide calcium the worms need to reproduce. Don't worry about red worms taking over the estate, their population is limited by the size of their environment.
Its very cool how worms just naturally know when there is enough worms existing in there area. When there is a certain amount they just stop breading!
Farming worms:

Place the damp shredded newspaper with the garden soil and crushed egg shell in the container. Don't pack it down. Add the worms to their new home. If you leave the lid off and the light on, it will encourage the worms to investigate the new digs. Don't forget to add some worm food before you move the bin into the dark.

As your worm population increases, you can add more food per day. Burying the food in the damp newspaper will keep mold from growing in the worm farm. Worms can live on just the paper so its not critical that they get food every day. If there is no food or paper in there its time to get them more but there is no need to get a huge pile going on in there or it will rot/mold or create other realities we don't really want.

If your bedding is too wet, carefully drain the water and add dry ingredients.

Soon you will notice an increase in the worm castings in your worm farm. This makes a great natural fertilizer. And all it cost you was a little time and some stuff that you were going to toss in the garbage.
You can use these castings in potted house plants or mix it with water to create worm tea to feed to garden or other plants. Super rich stuff! Your plants will appreciate it!

When you see that bedding is no longer identifiable, you will want to harvest. Worms cannot survive in their own waste. The dirt will be very fine, very moist and very homogenized. Use it in some way, make another farm out of the multiplied worms, add them to a garden or give them to a friend.
I started with 1000 worms and have many worms farms of hundreds of thousands now. I use the castings for plants and add the worms to the garden when there is more than I want to house ;-)

There is lots of info on the web about worm farming. Google it or check on youtube for videos of the process. You will find it very easy and very rewarding.
Farm On!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coj7oumY3TY