Last month my goal was to start worm composting (vermiculture). I've been pretty excited about it. A few weeks back I got a few worms from the urban farm that I've been going to permaculture courses at the last few months. It's supposed to be pretty easy once you get started, but the first two weeks have been a little difficult. The first week I had them I went on a snowboarding vacation and came home to several dried up worms on my floor. (They were trying to escape!) Since then I've been trying to monitor their food and moisture in the bin, but I did a check today and I could only find a few worms. I'm a little nervous I will kill them all! So I upped their food supply and tried to put more moisture on them. Colorado air is pretty dry, so I'm assuming that's partly what I'm doing wrong.
So hopefully next month I'll have a positive update about my worm bin! I'm hoping to have a good supply so as to start giving them to some of my friends. So far my bin design is just two 18 gallon rubbermaid bins (one with holes for air). One bin is where the worms live while the other is to catch any of the water that might "run off". The bin containing the worms has about 5 inches of shredded newspaper as bedding. Handfuls of dirt are intermittently scattered to provide grit for the worms' digestion. Then I just bury the food under the shredded paper and place soaked cardboard on the top. (The cardboard actually dries out almost immediately, but we'll see if I can keep it as wet as possible.) Before today I've been misting the paper, but I think I need to start taking more drastic measures with the moisture. I haven't harvested any castings yet, but I plan to do that either tomorrow or this weekend.
So I am still not a successful worm farmer, but I'm guessing the moisture and humidity level is that which is "killing" me right now. I'll be providing an update on my worms' status as soon as I have something to update! It's kind of exciting that I'm finally doing something with my craft that warrants an update. I'm finally not just reading!
