Corrugated cardboard can also serve as food for the worms. Mix it into their kitchen scraps occasionally. However, composting worms cannot live exclusively on cardboard.
There's always some spare cardboard laying around at home, whether it's from your food box deliveries or online buys. To use as a blanket, simply cut to size of your worm farm and place it on top. Instead of throwing out your egg cartons after use, use it for your worm farm!
Shredded paper and cardboard, egg cartons, ripped up newspaper, receipts and envelopes should all be a regular part of the worms diet. LOTS of non-glossy paper should go in your worm farm - it is worth repeating!
When people think of what can be composted through a worm farm they often think of kitchen scraps; not only can you compost so much more than that, a diversify of inputs will ensure your worm farm is thriving. It's not only shredded paper your worms will love, they will enjoy many other forms of paper too.
Oxygen diffuses about a thousand times slower through water than through air, she says. “The worms can't get enough oxygen when the soil is flooded, so they come to the surface to breathe.”
A 32-ounce container with about 1-2 dozen worms and filled with moist compost should keep the worms healthy and active for about three weeks. Store them out of direct sunlight at a temperature between 50 and 85 degrees.
Worms can live for 4 weeks without fresh food.
Avoid feeding the worms large quantities of meat, citrus, onions and dairy foods. Some processed food also contains preservatives, which discourage the worms from eating it. These foods won't harm your worms, but they will avoid them and those scraps will break down and rot in the bin.
Unlike other pets, you can leave worm farms unattended for weeks at a time. Worms will happily eat wet shredded paper for up to 6 weeks!
The container or bag should then be kept at a cool temperature, around 10degC is ideal, a cool shed or garage is fine, we do not recommend putting them in a refrigerator but if this works for you, don't change. Dendrobaena, like all worms will continually feed and the bedding should be topped up as necessary.
Worms like hiding places, and the pieces of egg carton or a torn up toilet roll serve nicely. Wet the egg carton pieces/toilet rolls and the brown paper bag or cardboard.
Probably the easiest way to gather earthworms is to simply leave a flattened, wet piece of cardboard out in the yard overnight. This will attract the worms to the surface (for several reasons) and when you remove the cardboard, there will be loads of worms!
You can buy worm blankets, or they can be simply made from natural materials such as old cotton sheets, cotton pillow cases or old towels, cotton t-shirts, woollen material, corrugated cardboard etc. Whatever you choose to use, be sure to keep your worm blanket damp, but not soaking wet.
2- Prepare the bedding. Instead of soil, composting red worms live in moist newspaper bedding. Like soil, newspaper strips provide air, water, and food for the worms. Using about 50 pages, tear newspaper into 1/2" to 1" strips.
Banana peels are an excellent worm food.
Eggshells as food for composting worms
Composting worms can absolutely be fed with crushed shells from eggs. You should know that compost worms will eat just about anything that's organic (all except meat, seafood, poultry, dairy, oily, or spicy stuff).
The Seven Worst Things to Feed Your Worms:
Meat, bone, and gristle. Dairy and that includes milk, cream, butter, yogurt and cheese. Acidic foods which include pineapple, limes, oranges, and lemons plus their rinds, and tomatoes. Any food with preservatives and chemicals such as fast food.
Cardboard is the perfect bedding because it allows air and gases to flow freely, it holds water, keeping the worms moist and also absorbs water to prevent too much water from swamping your bedding! Uncle Jim's Worm Farm is a vermicomposting company that specializes in worm farms, kits and the famous red wiggler.
Almost all worms can regrow their tails if they are amputated, and many earthworms can lose several segments from their head end and they will grow back, the Washington Post reports. For some worms, however, the more segments that are cut off, the less likely they are to be fully regenerated.
Worms need moisture, air, food, darkness, and warm (but not hot) temperatures. Bedding, made of newspaper strips or leaves, will hold moisture and contain air spaces essential to worms. You should use red worms or red wigglers in the worm bin, which can be ordered from a worm farm and mailed to your school.
More earthworms went into estivation as the drought stress period got longer. Fourteen percent of earthworms died in the three-week drought, significantly more than in the other treatments. Still, the earthworms that survived drought, even for three weeks, were able to recover after rewetting.
Earthworms need moisture, so if taken out of the soil, they may live only a few minutes.
Like people, worms need air to live so be sure to have your bin sufficiently ventilated. Some people also prefer to drill about 10 holes (1/4- to 1/2-inch each) in the bottom for aeration and drainage. A plastic bin may need more drainage — if contents get too wet, drill more holes.