After building the worm bin all I needed was the worms. Now this proved to be more of a challenge than I thought. The challenge was to find someone local so that I could pick up the worms myself. I did not want to pay shipping costs and have some of the worms die in the journey. I ended up finding a company called All Thing Organic.
They sold me a mixture of European Night Crawlers (Eisenia hortensis) and Red Wigglers (Eisenia fetida). They can live peacefully together, are very hardy and are fast composters. The major difference between these guys and earthworms is the direction they burrow. Earthworms burrow deep into the soil and would drown if they went into the worm tea. European Night Crawlers and Red Wigglers burrow in the top layers of the soil thus will move up into the next bin and not into the worm tea.
I bought half a pound of worms for $28 CAN (tax included). They were harvested in the morning and I picked them up in the afternoon. The worms also came with a generous portion of the soil they were used to living in so the move was less traumatic.
When I got them home I places a damp sheet of newspaper on the bottom of the 38L bin and a lot of shredded newspaper on top of that. Then I spread out the contents of the bag and the worms around the bin. I also gave them a small amount of compost in the middle of the bin. Then I put more shredded paper on top to prevent the compost from smelling. Lastly, dampen the newspaper with a little water and put the lid on.
Something very important to make note of is what your worms will not eat. They will not eat onions, citrus fruits, processed foods, meat or dairy. They do love coffee grounds and I like to mix it with the other compost to get their appetites going.
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