You will soon see if your worm composter is too wet – it looks visibly sodden. To check pick up some of the made compost/bedding and squeeze… It should have the consistency of a wrung out sponge. If water leaks out between your fingers – then it's too wet.
As discussed in our Worms breathe through their skin blog – keeping your worms moist is key to ensuring they can effectively dissolve oxygen into their bloodstream through their skin. Your worm farm environment should maintain a moisture content range of around 60-85%.
Worms love an environment with a moisture content of 70% or more. Food wastes usually contain about 80 per cent water and this will be released as the worms break down the food scraps. However, it will remain in the bedding for a long time before eventually draining out, so it's important to add water as well.
Worms are very sensitive to drying out as their skin is designed to be constantly moist. Too little moisture will kill earthworms but they also need to be breathe, so too much moisture will cause them to drown.
Add dry coir or shredded paper to reduce moisture in a worm bin. To correct a wet bin, add dry shredded paper or coir, which will help to soak up excess moisture. You can also stop feeding high-moisture foods (fruits and tomatoes) until your vermicomposter becomes drier.
Rain and wind can obliterate a worm farm or compost bin if the lid blows off, or if water enters and soaks the contents. Rain can be especially devastating for worm farms if they aren't open at the bottom or the tap isn't open, flooding the worms into exile or, worse, asphyxiating them.
Earthworms like moist soil. They can survive in dry soils but they are not active. However if the drought is severe, they will die. In dry conditions, they can burrow deep into the soil to 1 metre, tie themselves in a knot, secrete a coating of mucous about themselves which dries and helps prevent water loss.
If worm castings dry out completely, they lose most of the beneficial bacteria and other microbes. Unfortunately, once they have lost their moisture, you cannot re-wet them and revive the little critters. The same is true if the worm compost is exposed to sunlight or light from a grow light.
City drinking water from your tap often contains chlorine, which can be harmful to your worms. Buy dechlorinated water, or dechlorinate tap water by boiling or letting it sit out for 24 hours to allow chlorine evaporation.
These larvae are the progeny of a benign insect called the soldier fly which is a common inhabitant of kitchen areas particularly. The scientific name for these interesting insects is Hermetia illucens and they are a common inhabitant of compost heaps, manure piles as well as worm farms.
Earthworms can survive and recover after three-week drought stress.
Worms like red wigglers need a damp, but not wet, environment to thrive. The ideal amount of water in a worm bin is just enough to produce 1-2 drops of water when you squeeze a handful of bedding. Think about your yard or a local park, if you dig down a few inches the ground is usually moist but not dripping wet.
Yes, but be mindful of the chlorine and other chemicals often present in tap water that can be harmful to your worms. If you're using tap water, it's a good idea to let it sit out for 24 hours before adding it to your bin. This will allow the chlorine to dissipate, making the water safe for your worms.
A worm's skin is photosensitive and therefore they need a dark environment. Because worms have no teeth, they need some type of grit in their bedding that they can swallow and use in their gizzard to grind food, much like birds do with small stones.
To keep worms happy, feed them about once a week. If bedding dries up, spray with water. (If bedding gets too wet, add dry newspaper strips.) Fluff up bedding once a week so the worms get enough air.
Give the worms air! Every other week or so, move the compost around to aerate it. Don't overwhelm your worms. If you notice smells beginning to form you might be feeding them too much!
With worm castings, nutrients are released gradually, providing nourishment for approximately 2 months. However, you cannot harm a plant with an overdose of worm castings, while it is quite easy to kill plants by accidentally giving them too much fertilizer.
Can you use too much of your worm castings? Unlike commercial fertilizer, worm castings won't burn through the roots of your plants and flowers if you use too much. Your only issue with using too much worm castings is if you don't have enough to share with all your plants!
Over-Feeding Causes Odors
The worms' job is to eat the food before it gets super-rotten and stinky. If you add too much food at a time, they cannot keep up. Too much food can also push the air out of the bin, leading to foul-smelling anaerobic decomposition.
Unwanted Extras In Your Intestines: Worms
Most people have no symptoms, but some people may feel tired, have a hunger-like feeling in their stomach, or have an itchy bottom.
Worms climbing up the sides of your wormery walls indicates that they aren't comfortable in their environment and are trying to find the promised land.
Worms hate: meat or fish, cheese, butter, greasy food, animal waste, spicy and salty foods, citrus.” The food-to-worm ratio is not precise, nor is the amount of castings they will produce. The rule of thumb is that a pound of worms will eat one to two pounds of food in a week.
Worms require a moist, dark environment in order to survive. Experiement #3 – Which surface will worms prefer? Collect the flashlights and give each group a dry paper towel. Instruct them to place their worms so that they are half on the wet surface and half on the dry surface.
Worms need to live in a warm, dark place.
Red wigglers like the temperature to be between 40-75 degrees. They will not live long on a sunny windowsill or out in the cold.