The Earthworm Farm

It's hard to say what got me interested in earthworms. It might have been the article in the paper about the guy who composted practically every sort of household garbage his family generated by means of earthworms. Or perhaps all of those trips to the library in our early years of homeschooling, wandering around and just pulling books from the shelves and looking at them. In any case, somewhere along the line, I came across a book on raising earthworms as a business. I might have thought that if we got in a pinch, I could make some money at them. However, it also occurred to me that they would be a pretty interesting "science" project as well, so, after making a trip to the local bait shop for a couple of hundred worms, we began. Below I'll detail how we went about making our earthworm farm.

The first thing I learned, was that any worms picked off of the sidewalk won't do, because there are many kinds of earthworms, and they can be very different. Some worms make burrows and don't like to be disturbed. Other worms don't reproduce very quickly, and others actually smell bad. The only things all these worms have in common is that they all hate dry conditions, and they need an environment leaning towards alkaline pH.

So, if you want to raise earthworms in any kind of numbers, you want "Red Wigglers". They are practically domesticated. The reason I say that, is because these worms multiply fast, and they need to be fed. Since this is the case, they are more likely to stay put near where they expect dinner to show up, even if they are not in a bucket, but an outdoor compost pile. You can buy these Red Wigglers in pet stores, and bait shops. These worms will be full grown, at about 3 inches long. If you buy your worms this way, get at least a couple of hundred worms.

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You can also find ads in magazines such as "Field and Stream" for worms that you can buy in bulk, by the pound. These worms will be in various sizes, from tiny little threads to full grown. You can probably get more for your money this way, but you have to get them by mail order, which will mean a wait.

In order to make a home for your earthworms, you need a medium for them to swim in. There are a couple of choices here. The hardcore gurus use Canadian Peat Moss, which you can get at hardware stores. Peat Moss is lightweight, making it easy for the worms to swim around, but costs money, and has very little food value to the worms. Shredded cardboard, paper, or leaves is popular as well. My favorite is sawdust, or stove pellets. Or, you can use plain dirt, which is cheap and has some food value, but weighs more and is a little more difficult to deal with. However, any combination of the foregoing will work. Mix your chosen bedding with about 25-50% manure. Add enough water to the combination so that it's moist but not soggy. Set this mixture aside for about 2 weeks. During this time, your compost will probably heat up to a temperature that would kill the worms if you put them in before the 2 weeks is up. After 2 weeks, add your worms, and allow them to work their way into the bedding.

From this time, you can begin to add kitchen garbage. Figure that the worms can eat their weight in kitchen leavings each day. Avoid putting more in there than they can clean up in a day or two. If you do, the worm bin will become acid and sour smelling, and it will kill the worms. The more worms you start out with, the more kitchen garbage they can handle.

What do worms eat? They have a wide diet range. Vegetable parings, egg shells, paper, grass clippings & leaves, or as one long time earthworm farmer said, "Anything that has lived and died". A weekly handful of finely ground cornmeal gives them needed nutrients for them to multiply quickly. I have a vegetable juicer, and the leavings from it make a regular contribution to my worms. Also, we have pet rats, and their manure and soiled litter are greatly appreciated in my bin. If you are raising rabbits, rabbit manure is 4 star worm food. Raising earthworms along with the rabbits makes good sense, because the worms will clean up after the rabbits, making your job easier.

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On the whole, earthworms are easy pets to keep. They don't make much of a mess, and they don't bark and keep you up at night. It takes just a little bit of effort to keep them happy. First of all, keep the bedding moist but not soggy at all times. Dry bedding will kill them. Earthworms breathe through their sides, and their skin must be moist in order to take in oxygen. Next, make sure that their bins do not become acid. You can tell by the smell. A healthy worm bin will smell like fresh turned earth. An acid worm bin will smell very sharp and sour. Avoid being too generous with their food, especially in the early days when your population is small. Turning the bedding in the bins/piles about once a week or so helps to keep it aereated, and also makes it possible to check on their condition and admire their population growth.

Earthworms will at least double their population every 3 months. At some point, you will want to divide them up, either by distributing the compost and earthworms in your garden or flower bed, or by starting another bin.

If your goal is to build up your population for a business, you will want to sort them by sizes, keeping the adults together, and moving the smaller worms to a new bin. This can be most easily done by scooping the compost and worms onto a board or table in the light or sun. Pile up the compost to make a pointed pile. Let the pile sit for about 15 minutes and then gently scoop off the point of the pile. You should have just compost, no worms in what you have scooped off. Reshape your pile again, making a point, and wait another 15 minutes. Scoop off the point again, removing the compost. Keep doing this until you have almost entirely worms only in the pile. Then the worms will be easy to sort through and divide. Once divided, you could have as many as 3 bins made from the first bin. In one bin, you'll have the compost that you scooped off which has eggs, tiny babies, and a few missed older worms. In the second bin, there will be the young worms, and in the third bin, will be the adult worms. In three months, you'll have 3 bins full of worms again, ready to divide once more. So you can see that if you provide the right conditions, you can have a large population in just a few months.

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So, what is the point in doing this project? What education can a homeschooling child get out of this? For the very young child, it may be enough to let the child get the feel of the dirt, and watching the worms wiggle. An older child can learn to count, to recognize various bugs that live with the earthworms, how they live together and about reproduction. A still older child can learn about ecology, soil depletion, and the value of composting. In addition, if you choose to make your hobby into a business, you can add a whole new range of skills to the curriculum. On the whole, we found our Earthworm Farm a fun, educational project.

• Use a rather protected spot out of summer sun and winter wind.
• Keep the pile moist but not soggy. Too much water can encourage fermenting of the food waste, especially in the heat, and most especially if you are using an enclosed container.
• Make sure there's a constant supply of food. Red Wigglers will stay where there's food and will wander off and die if there's not.
• Red worms love corn meal. It also has nutrients that seem to fatten the worms up and make them hard-skinned, something desireable. In addition, corn meal, encourages red worms to reproduce prolifically. So, throw in a handful once in a while.
• Too much food will kill them as much as too much water, because the food will ferment and make the pile acid, so feed conservatively until you see how much they will eat over time.
• If you smell a sharp, acrid smell, stop feeding the worms immediately! Add additional bedding to dilute the food-to-bedding ratio. Take a yard fork and turn the contents of the bin or pile every day for about 2 weeks to let the air help oxydize excess food and to let the ammonia/alcohol escape.
• One sign of overfeeding is Black Soldier Fly Larvae. Technically, Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSF) will not injure your worms, but they love the acidic enviornment created by overfeeding, and signal that your bedding is becoming unhealthy for the worms. So if you see BSF in your bin/pile, stop feeding for a few days, add some additional bedding, and turn your bin daily for about a week or so.
• Recovering from diaster: Once in a while, it happens - you've overfed for way too long, and your entire bin is acid, or, you've forgotten to water for weeks, the and bedding is all dried out, and nearly all the worms have died. Remember that the worms have left many cocoons behind, and after you've corrected the problem, they will hatch, and you can repopulate.

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• Worm Composting Article
• My Grandfather's Earthworm Farm
  
• Friend Earthworm
  
• Introduction to 'Harnessing the Earthworm'
  
• Composting Rat Litter
• Black Belt composting: Humanure