Worm bin Bedding

by Bill
(Tallahassee, FL)

I have been raising red worms for about 2 years and wonder if I can improve on the 'home' I am providing. I use a 5 gal bucket. When I first started I drilled a bunch of small holes in the bottom and lid of the bucket. then I put golf ball sized rocks in the bottom of the bucket and then some dirt. The only thing I normally add to the bucket is food (raw vegetable scraps, coffee grounds with filter). When the bucket gets too full, I 'harvest' by taking out 1-2 gal. of soil/casings and worms which I dump into my larger composting pile. My question is, should I also be adding torn up carboard and paper for bedding? If so, is newspaper okay? Will the dye used for the print be harmful?

A second question: When it is hot in the garage, a lot of worms congregate on top of the soil and even up the sides of the bucket. This seems to be their way of saying it's too hot in here. Am I correct?

Thanks for your time.

Answer from BigTex Worms
Great questions.
To answer your first question, yes, it is suggested to add bedding with each feed. This will help your castings to not be like slop. The finished product should look like coffee grounds. Shredded newspaper is fine in most cases. Call your newspaper printer and ask them if they use vegetable based inks, if so (which is what most use) then all is ok. I personally dont use the colored inks. Shredded cardboard makes and even better bedding material for worms. (like pizza boxes or moving boxes) I say to make a little "nest" of bedding then put your food atop.

Next question about heat: Food scraps heat when they decompose, so yes, worms will try to escape it gets too hot. A garage can be tricky, make sure the bin is out of direct sunlight and the garage does not get hotter than 110 degrees and all should be ok. Condensation cools the bin, so making sure the bin contents are damp are really important in the heat. I personally dont feed any raw scraps in August here in Texas. I feed compost from my pile that has already gone through the heating process so I dont overheat my bins.

I hope this helps,
Liz
BigTex Worms