2018 Annual Running of the Worms

[flowerbug]

ok well really it's more like walking funny while carrying a bucket...

most of the worms went into the two tulip gardens which sorely needed a boost and a few buckets went into another garden. i restarted all of them a few days ago and bumped my bucket count up to 12 instead of 10. the gardens need all the help they can get and it's not that much more space taken up by two more buckets, besides having that one odd bucket sticking out in the group looked, well, odd...


this is just one of the trenches i put in:

and a closeup of the end:

too much wormie cuteness there...

 

[canesisters]

Aint they just adorable!
Bless their little hearts


.. .do worms have hearts??

 

[Nyboy]

Here come the robins

 

[flowerbug]

Aint they just adorable!
Bless their little hearts


.. .do worms have hearts??

five. but they're not as complicated as ours and are often called aortic arches.

 

[flowerbug]

Here come the robins

i've never had any animals dig them up or search for them. once i've covered them with a layer of normal garden soil and plant into them they aren't bothered. and well, most of them probably do not survive the change of conditions for very long (the youngest ones that you can't see in the pictures are the most likely survivors). and of course, some of those worms are not native species and won't survive the winter even if they do manage to survive the hot spells of the summer.

the worms inside in the buckets have a very cushy life in comparison.

 

[so lucky]

So you had 12 buckets full of worms and worm castings to put in the garden? Were you using the buckets as worm bins, and just dumped out the contents? I may have missed your explanation of this somewhere.

 

[flowerbug]

So you had 12 buckets full of worms and worm castings to put in the garden? Were you using the buckets as worm bins, and just dumped out the contents? I may have missed your explanation of this somewhere.

i'll go on, at length given a chance on this sort of topic. i'm sure i have already here in TEG...

as a side note, if i ever post a picture here it is very likely i'm linking to it from some place (likely a project) on my website (and a non-thumbnail version of the picture will also be available there):

http://www.anthive.com


here are some of the details:

http://www.anthive.com/project/worms/
http://www.anthive.com/project/taters/


plus a bunch of references and various topics including dirt/worms:

http://www.anthive.com/project/notes/

the shorter answer is, yes, simple system, worms, 10 buckets this year, last year i had 16 buckets and one larger square bin i used, but it was too much space taken up so i downsized, covers (to keep the worms and bugs in or out (or both))... no drainage holes. i control moisture levels by evaporation and only adding some wet items once in a while and extra water if it gets too dry. the worms will do fine in a bucket of dirt and organic materials to eat up until nearly saturation, but it is very heavy to move and smelly (like a swamp) when emptying so i try not to get them that wet.

i dry veggie and other food scraps or store them in the fridge until i can add them to the buckets.

melon/melon rinds are worm crack. those i put in fresh and they're gone within a few days except for a bit of skin left.

i restart the worm buckets each spring from some of the worms i keep back, so i can't use the full contents of each bucket, but about 20-25% are used to restart and then the process repeats each year. so what you see there is one year's results and one bucket of 10.

 

[so lucky]

My favorite thing with red wigglers was to put a baked sweet potato shell into the bin (the insides had been scooped out for us humans to eat) After a couple days, the shell was filled with worms. Like a handy little "to go" pack.

 

[flowerbug]

My favorite thing with red wigglers was to put a baked sweet potato shell into the bin (the insides had been scooped out for us humans to eat) After a couple days, the shell was filled with worms. Like a handy little "to go" pack.

banana peels too. the red wriggler population in the buckets is probably not that large because i do use dirt and mix of other worm species. belgian night crawlers easily outdo any of the other worms.

 

[thistlebloom]

Love their tiny little running shoes.