Mother Earth

From Mother Earth News, June/July 2000

Sort out citrus rinds, avacado pits, and onions. ... Lawn grass and leaves will be the mainstay of your earthwroms diet. Kitchen scraps are a secondary, albeit important, source of food. In addition to vegetable and fruit scraps, you can add egg shells, tea bags, and coffee grounds. Do not use meat scrap or fat. ...

[Worms add] all of the nutrients your plants need - including as much as three times the magnesium, five times the nitrogen, several times the phosphorous and 13 times th potassium of the surrounding soil. ...

In general, through, worms reproduce rapidly, a pair will produce an egg capsule weekly containing up to 20 eggs. These eggs will lie dormant until the proper temperature and moisture conditions allow them to hatch - normally within two or three weeks. Within eight to 12 weeks of hatching the new worms are themselves ready to reproduce. ...

For bin-based vermiculture, it is generally recommended that folks use red wigglers (Eisenia foetida). ...

The worms tend to remain most active near the pile's surface, where they are continuouly lured by newly applied organic material. ...

If the worm pile is built too high, the weight of the organic material will speed decomposition, boosting the pile's internal temperature to levels dangerously above the worm's ideal 70 degrees F.) ...

Soils high in clay or organic material lack the grit, or small pieces of soil material, necessary for worm digestion. .. you can try mixing the sand into your soil.