I often talk about a Red Wigglers life. Basically, it’s just eat, reproduce, and poop….a LOT.
Red Wigglers have been chosen as the composting worm of choice because of these qualities. They compost 24/7/365!

After the worms have done their part, it is your job to harvest the castings. “Harvesting”, is simply the process of separating the worms from the finished bedding (Vermicompost). Usually, the Vermicompost is collected and applied to your garden or trees, and the worms are placed back in fresh bedding…. to continue doing what Red Wigglers do.

Now that we understand what harvesting is, we can talk about the multitude of ways to harvest.

There are LOTS of ways to harvest worms. Ranging from mechanical harvesters costing thousands of dollars, to picking worms singly out of piles of compost in your hand.

Before you harvest…always have fresh bedding prepared so the worms can continue the process for you. Here are some of the most common ways of harvesting:

Pile Method:
Lay out a tarp either on the ground, or on a table outside.
Bring over the processed bedding, worms and all.
Make some foot tall piles.
Go have a beverage, come back in an hour.
The worms will be at the bottom of the pile, trying to get away from the light.
Simply sweep off the castings, grab your worms, and put them back in some fresh bedding.

Follow the Food:
If your container is large, move all bedding to one side.
Stop feeding and watering the old bedding.
Put fresh soaked bedding and food in new bedding next to the old bedding.
Worms…like men….always follow the food!

Gravity Method:
Dump out your castings with worms on a tarp.
Put fresh bedding and food in your bin.
Lay a piece of cardboard full of pencil sized holes on top of the fresh bedding.
Dump the castings with worms back on top of the cardboard (Not too deep, as these are top feeding worms).
After a few days, most of your worms will gravitate to the food in the new bedding.

Reverse Gravity Method:
Opposite of Gravity Method. Worms migrate upwards instead of down.

Harvester Method:
Spend $3,000+ on a professional harvester.
Plug in, turn on, dump worms and bedding in one end.
Worms are automatically separated from the bedding, and dropped out the other end.

WHICHEVER method you choose. It’s almost always easier if you let your bedding go without water for a few days. Less soggy castings are always easier to work with.

Tags: Harvesting Castings, Harvesting Worms, red wigglers

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 8:53 am and is filed under worm blog . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.