Getting Started: How many worms do I need? (2024)

FAQs

Getting Started: How many worms do I need? ›

Play It Safe, Start Slow: 1/2 lb per square foot

For most average sized domestic worm bins, we would suggest you start with 1 lb. (approximately 800 - 1000) mixed sized worms. If the worm bin is larger, or you are composting food scraps for four or more adult persons, we would recommend 2 lbs. of worms.

Fresh, healthy composting worms are available for purchase through the Tumbleweed online shop. If you aren't in Australia, contact your local Tumbleweed retailer for details of your local worm suppliers. We recommend you purchase a minimum of 1,000 compost worms to give your worm farm the best start.

The bin should provide a surface area of 1 square foot for each pound of waste per week. This large surface area helps pre- vent overfeeding and promotes air flow in the bin. For example, if your family produces 4 pounds of food waste each week, you will need a worm bin with 4 feet of surface area.

We recommend starting with 1 pound (approximately 800-1,000 worms) of worms for a healthy working population. You can start with fewer worms but it will take longer for your system to reach full operating capacity. The following instructions assume you will start your Worm Factory 360 with 1 pound of worms.

The amount of food that worms can eat depends on the size of your worm bin and the number of worms you have. As a general rule, worms can consume about half their body weight in food per day. For example, if you have 500g of worms, they can consume about 250g of food per day.

Even well-established gardens can see improvement from a few sacks of European Night Crawlers (Super Red). Just order Super Reds from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm. Healthy soil needs 5 to 10 worms per square foot of surface area.

The breeding cycle is approximately 27 days from mating to laying eggs. Worms can double in population every 60 days.

They are not generally harmful to humans but their presence in a worm farm is not ideal as the conditions that suit them are not optimal for your worms. They tend to exude acidic substances that are detrimental to earthworms and they prefer very moist conditions.

Should worm bins be in sun or shade? ›

Please do not keep your worm bin in direct sunlight (you could bake them!), and if you choose to keep them outside, just be sure to bring them inside during the colder months. We keep ours under a table in the laundry room during Winter and Spring.

How Many Worms Can Live in a 5 Gallon Bucket? A 5 gallon bucket can comfortably support 1 pound of red wiggler worms, which is equivalent to roughly 1,000 worms.

A good ratio is 75% top soil/peat moss and 25% shredded newspaper or cardboard. You'll need enough to fill the bottom of your bin to a height of ~4 inches. If your bin will be outside then we recommend a bedding depth of 24 or more inches so the worms have room to dig if temperatures get too hot or too cold for them.

Every week or so it's a good idea to flush your worm fam with half a bucket of water. collection tray with a vessel that will hold the sudden influx of water. lime or garden lime (a dusting over the top is a sufficient amount). make sure the worm farm is out of the rain and a thick worm blanket is being used.

Over-Feeding Causes Odors

The worms' job is to eat the food before it gets super-rotten and stinky. If you add too much food at a time, they cannot keep up. Too much food can also push the air out of the bin, leading to foul-smelling anaerobic decomposition.

Play It Safe, Start Slow: 1/2 lb per square foot

Worms aren't cheap, so I'd much rather see a newbie start a new worm bin with about 1/2 lb per square foot. For Red Wigglers, this is 2 lbs, or about 1600-2000 worms. For European Nightcrawlers, 2 lbs will equal about 600-800 worms.

Based on our experience a good guideline is 1-5 worms per square foot. So if your garden space is 800 square feet then 1,000 - 2,000 worms will be a great start.

Approximately 2000 adult worms (or 500gms) is a good number to start your bin. However, the more worms you start with the faster the bin will reach maximum capacity. A full population is approximately 16,000 worms, or 3kg (6.5lbs) of adult worms.

Additionally, if there are too many earthworms in one area, they can actually eat all the organic matter in the soil, which may leave plants without enough to feed off of.

25 earthworms per square foot of soil equal 1 million earthworms per acre. Studies in England have shown that in healthy soil forty tons of castings per acre pass through earthworms bodies daily. A new USA study indicates 12 million worms per acre which move 20 tons of earth each year.