Red Wiggler Worm Facts

Whether you want to grow food in containers, houseplants, or a garden full of food plants and

ornamentals, every gardener extols the virtues of compost for plant health. But if you do not have the

room or the time to make a traditional compost pile outside, worm composting takes almost no space, time, or money, and produces the highest quality of all compost. Here are some red wiggler worm facts.

Red worm castings contain beneficial microbes and nutrients necessary for almost any plant. A properly maintained red wiggler worm bin will not have any odor whatsoever. You can keep a bin in

your house, basement, or garage, and it will take up only a few square feet of floor space.

How to Maintain Red Wiggler Worms

You will not have to worry about repopulating your worm bin unless you have a disaster, and you will not have to worry about finding new homes for worms since red wiggler worms naturally regulate their own population according to the space and environment available. If you would like to give away or sell red wigglers, they will quickly recover their population.

Red wigglers, with the scientific name of Eisenia fetida which is sometimes spelled E. foetida, are the best type of worms to use for compost bins. They thrive in the same conditions that humans can usually provide for them, at a temperature between 55° and 77°F.

Red wiggler worms will eat more food and be more active at the upper range of these temperatures and will eat less food and become less active at the lower range. When temperatures are above 85°, your worms will slow down and possibly die, and below 50°F they will become very inactive. At these times, you should feed your worms less food.

Worms must be kept in a moist environment since they breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon

dioxide through their skin, but cannot do so if their skin is not moist. For the same reason, your compost bin must have good air circulation. Red wigglers will thrive in an environment that is as moist as a wrung out sponge.

Red wiggler worms cannot see, but they can sense light through specialized cells, and they will avoid all but red light. Red wigglers should be kept in a bin that excludes light. They also do not have teeth, so their gizzards grind up the food. Worms will benefit from adding grit to their bin, such as crushed egg shells or a cup of gritty garden soil. They will eat fibrous foods like potato peels, broccoli stalks, and carrot tops, but it will take them some time unless you grind or chop them into smaller pieces.

Red wiggler worms each have both male and female reproductive organs, but it still takes two to tango.

Reproduction can be stimulated by adding a calcium source such as crushed egg shells. A happy bin will reproduce about every month by laying eggs that are visible to the naked eye and look like small pears. The cocoons can survive in the soil for several years or even decades, and hatch better in slightly drier conditions than those in which the adults thrive.

What to Feed Red Wiggler Worms

Red wiggler worms will eat anything organic that is broken up into small enough pieces, especially fruit and vegetable peelings, ground up egg shells, and coffee grounds and filters. You can feed them larger pieces of food, but it will take the worms longer to eat it and you will run the risk of causing an odor problem. Red wigglers will eat meat and dairy products, but you will risk attracting rodents and pests to your compost bin and may also cause an odor problem. Limit the amount of citrus, acidic foods, and oil you feed your worms since these will affect the pH of the bin and potentially kill off beneficial microbes.

You should provide your worms with bedding made out of shredded newspapers, shredded fallen

leaves, shredded paper egg cartons, shredded toilet paper and paper towel rolls, and shredded plain

brown cardboard. Shiny paper such as newspaper inserts and boxes covered with ink should not be fed

to worms since these materials have chemicals that will harm or kill your worms. The bedding serves

double duty as somewhere to bury your food scraps so that flies cannot find them and odors do not

occur.

Red wiggler worms are typically sold by the pound, which should contain about 1000 worms. For the

few first month or two, they will eat about 1/4 to 1/2 their weight in food each day, but as they reproduce and become more acclimatized, they will eat their body weight or more in food each day.

Separating red wiggler worm castings from the worms themselves is the most time-consuming and tedious part of keeping a red wiggler worm bin. By using the natural instincts of your worms, this process can be made much easier. For more red wiggler worm facts, such as how to harvest worm castings and make worm casting tea, see link.

Learn More About How to Use Worm Castings to Grow Highly Nutritious, Disease-free Plants That Do Not Attract Insects at How Grow High Brix Vegetables