Since that time, I've set it up with 2lbs of red wigglers (eisenia fetida) and loaded it with shredded paper, cardboard, and rotting food. They've devoured at least 7lbs in the last 4 days and I've had to continue adding food scraps,shredded paper, leaves from my various gardens, cardboard stash, etc.
Tonight we even picked up some jumbo red wigglers aka European nightcrawlers (eisenia hortensis) from Walmart (only 75) with the hopes that they'd coexist somehow in the Worm Inn, even if they're only at the bottom, processing what the red wigglers won't.
I'll do my best to keep my various interests/hobbies updated!
How did the night crawlers work out for you??
ReplyDeleteDid they eat the stuff the reds would not??
Do they co-exist ok together?
Hello Georgie!
ReplyDeleteI dumped the nightcrawlers into the worm inn, which is a brand name of a"flow through" vermicompost system. The thing that I noticed after a week, was that my redworms congregated around the dirt that the nightcrawlers were originally in.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any nightcrawlers since dumping them in, but I did notice an increase in the food processing once they were added. I need to point out that not finding the Euros doesn't mean they're not there, but just that I haven't seen any. This could be for two reasons, one being that they might not have been the proper type of nightcrawlers and may not have been euros at all. If this is the case, they would have disintegrated and been consumed by microbes.
The other thing that could have happened is that they moved to the bottom and I havent looked there yet or harvested vermicompost at all, due to it being winter. I'll be able to tell you definitively If they survived when I harvest my vermicompost in the spring.