Things I wish I knew #1: Worms are indestructible

Hey, this is my first blog post, and I thought I would start out with my new series, “Things I wish I knew”, sharing some rookie tips, rookie mistakes, cool recipes, stories, and other things along those lines.

Now the first thing I would like anyone starting out to know is this: Worms are indestructible. Mostly, at least. When I first started, I kept thinking “Oh no, the bedding is too dry! Eek! Now it’s too wet! Wait, I don’t have all the cardboard shredded small enough! AHH, the food is moldy! Oh no, they are in the sun!”

Now of course, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying worms are literally invincible, but they can take quite the beating.

Throughout my time as a worm farmer, my worms have held their way through food poisoning, soaking bedding, dry bedding, below-freezing temperatures, sun, and a lot more.

While I’m sure they weren’t exactly in their prime, they still made it through, with only a few worms on the surface that didn’t make it.

Worms will eat almost anything that’s organic, so as long as you know the basic rules, you are going to not have any problems. Just don’t feed them any meat, anything that will mess up their pH, any printer paper or colored paper, things like that. There are countless charts and lists online you can find, like this one.

And with the wetness level, as long as it isn’t soaking, and isn’t dry, it should be fine, aim for about a drop or two of water to come out when you squeeze a handful of your soil. Be sure to have drainage holes and remember, too wet is better than too dry.

With temperatures, these fellas are quite hardy. The day I moved the worm bins outside to their new location in a barn, it got below freezing, for two days. I left them out there to test my worm bins, (total success) and make sure they could handle the temperatures, because no matter how much you try, things like this will always happen, no matter how watchful you are, so be prepared.

With the sun, definitely be careful, especially on hot days, but if they are left in there for a short amount of time, or just an hour or so a day, they usually are fine, though this is one you should be very careful of. Make sure to have plenty of ventilation holes so they get plenty of fresh air.

So just remember to be watchful the first few days the worms arrive, and if they are crawling on the walls, then something is wrong and you should take action. Otherwise, just leave them alone, and they’ll thrive.

To close this out, I want to tell you a story that happened a long time ago with the new worm bin I made, and things weren’t going well. A lot of worms crawled on the walls, they always were always sluggish, and I didn’t know why.

I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but the next time I checked on them it hit me like a bullet.

I forgot to drill ventilation holes! :0 All they had was the drainage holes! I instantly got to work fixing it, and within a few days, they were energetic and happy, plus, since they were in danger mode the number of cocoons exploded.

So even without proper oxygen flow, these unshakable little guys survived and even thrived. So remember, be watchful, but if there is nothing wrong, don’t worry about them, leaving them alone is the best thing to do.

This is Josiah Wills, have a great day, and keep on worming! 🪱 :)