Wood Worm Farms

From 9:30AM to 5PM, we were busy explaining, demonstrating, advising and answering questions and inquiries from enthusiastic visitors at the Botanical Garden of Montreal.

The weather was great and therefore allowed a good number of visitors to feel in no hurry, and to stop by our table.

Some new questions had to be answered, which was great both for us and the inquirer.

Other kiosks displayed various interesting things as well, such as natural colored salt, young bonsais, different indoor and outdoor plants, soaps of many smells and textures and various natural tea flavors.

Such a weekend is held at the Botanical Garden once a year and is definitely worth attending!

What's important for us right now is to get people's interest and understanding of vermicomposting. Everything else will follow, once they know what this fascinating idea consists of and how it works.

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This is one of the most popular questions.

We use untreated Canadian spruce. This wood doesn't rot fast since it contains some amount of spruce thus. At the same time it is good for worms. I have a bin 4 years in work indoors. This bin doesn't show any significant signs of rot.
We buy this wood from Abitibi Consolidated. They claim to be a "sustainable forest management certified" company.
I found on their web page only expired certificates, but they say they still didn't uploaded the updated ones.

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There are two polar opinions about those worms:

1. They seem to produce more castings and reproduce at a faster rate.

2. "Perionyx excavatus are undesirable to home composters and bait worm sellers. They will compost in warm outside conditions but take over worm beds and drive the E. foetida out. They never ever get big enough for bait. They migrate for no reason even during daylight or with bright lights over them. They will be all over the floor in school or home bins. They are very undesirable for tropical fish food. Cold temps kill them."

I think many factors are unaccounted there, and one of them is the bin structure and material. So I decided to test a wooden bin with P.E. (or vice versa?).

Hense I ordered a pound of Indian Blue worms (many thanks to 'Chickadee'
from thegardenforums.org) and started a new bin.
Let's see how will they do.

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Earth worms usually don't live in sand. It is hard to penetrate, has no nutrients and loose moisture easily.
So how did all those worms get into a sandbox in a local park in Kirkland?

I think they just got trapped there during one of their spring travels.
They usually get stuck in the sand the same way as a bicycle. The sand adheres to their mucus and virtually immobilizes them. With the sunrise the worms in sand dry out and die.

The same observation I found in Darwin's book
"The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with observations of their habits." (Search for "Hyde Park".)

Darwin claims that those worms are sick,
but I don't think so, since the worms from the last year lived 6 months in my bin after being rescued from the sand.

This time I washed them and took some pictures.
I think there are several species of worms. Please help me to identify them.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

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We participated in a Earth Day celebration at COOP Verte.
All the main parts of worm farming were there:
bins, compost, food scraps and even the most of my worms.

I was really surprised by how many people were interested in the vermicomposting. The passers - by stopped, asked many practical questions , showed great interest and support. One couple even bought a bin on the place and received free worms, bedding and instructions.

I think that the vermicomposting is one of the pieces of the puzzle of a sustainable future.

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