Hi Jerry,
We bought the Wriggly Wranch in March and the worms (From you) at one of the San Jose
Composting events. My worms did great up until this last week from all the
rains and the worms were all dead in the bottom tray with ALOT of water. The
bin is under the eves of our house. I want to try them again, how can I
prevent this from happening again.
Thanks

Hi Dorie,

Easy. Make sure you have plenty of drainage in your bin, or shelter the top of your bin so you don’t get so much rain coming in. Fortunately, we don’t normally get rain like this past week! As you have experienced, worms like it damp, but they rot in standing water.

Two other things you can do. Keep the spigot open at all times. That way, excess water drains freely from the base. Problem is, most people have a lot
of muck in the base, thus clogging the spigot.

To keep the spigot from clogging, I would suggest keeping a piece of weedstop (black mesh landscapers put under rocks) in the bottom tray that makes contact with the base. Not only will this help keep worms out of the base, but it will reduce the amount of “Mud” in the base, thus helping the spigot stay clear.

Glad you want to get back in the saddle again. Just chalk this up to a learning experience.

Recently, one of my readers asked that I provide updates on some of the earlier worm experiments that I published. Although most of the experiments were completed and documented on my blog, one experiment continued….until this morning.

Last October I placed a pound of Red Wigglers in a 12 gallon rubbermaid style bin loaded with damp, fluffed newspaper bedding. My contention was that the Red Wigglers could live off of the paper alone. If true, this would mean that you could on vacation for a LONG time without worrying about your worms running out of food! It also meant that there is absolutely no reason for anyone to kill their worms with excess food. After finishing their scraps, your worms would simply start eating all the paper bedding.

You are probably wondering why am I writing about this today!

Every customer that has come by to purchase worms has been offered my “How to keep your worms alive Pep Talk”. This mini lesson includes showing the foodless bin, with live worms surviving only on paper for the past 10 MONTHS.

This morning I was feeding and watering my worms (It’s a big job when you have LOTS of worms), I put the hose down with the mister nozzle attached. Although slightly dripping, I happened to place the nozzle on the before mentioned rubbermaid bin. I figured any random drips would dampen the bedding of the paper eating worms. 30 minutes later, I remembered that I had not turned the water off…WOOPS!

What’s the bottom line?

I cringed when I opened the flip top bin to see a bunch of worms climbing up the sides in an effort to avoid drowning in 10 gallons of standing water! I could look at it as my experiment being ruined. Instead, I chose today to end the experiment, claiming success that Red Wigglers can live indefinitely on damp newspaper. They don’t get big and fat (But neither would you if you just ate a diet of damp fiber)!…..but they survive!!!!