Red worm cocoons in classroom worm bin.

I tidied up the classroom bin last night before sending it into school today. I was amazed to find that there were already a substantial number of cocoons in it. The bin was only started eight days ago, and it only had about 100g (1/4 lb) of worms in it. I hadn't fed it much since starting it up, (I wanted the worms good and hungry when the kids start adding things!) so maybe the worms were panicking that resources were running out. Or maybe they got frisky because they were all nice and warm and comfy indoors....
Should be really interesting for the kids.

More worm pictures

Just some more pictures to add to the last post:
My old wormery (still operational as a general composter with some worms.)
There's an access port at the bottom where you're supposed to be able to harvest vermicompost, but I've found that the stuff at the bottom gets so compacted that it collects too much water and gets very anaerobic and smelly. That's why I tried switching to the can o worms.
But the advantage of a large wormery as opposed to a smaller or tray system, is that there's more room for error. If you add something that the worms don't like, they just move to another part of the bin until it rots away or gets diluted enough that it doesn't bother them. Ditto with a wet or acid part of the bin. So you don't have to keep checking on the health of your wormery. You just go in and correct now and again



I also made a small classroom wormery for my daughter's class:
It's a simple plastic storage box, with the handle-holes covered with tape and nylon from an old sock. There are no drainage holes because that would be too messy, so I've put a car- cleaning sponge into it to absorb excess liquid. There's a fairly tight fitting lid, and thanks to the handle holes, I haven't had to drill any ventilation.

For full instructions check out: the excellent red worm composting site
to my mind, one of the best resources out there for anyone who wants to compost using worms.

The bin has been indoors in my utility room now for about a week, acclimatising to classroom temperatures, and the worms seem happy and eating well









And finally the worms themselves: some of the worms that went into the classroom wormery:

Wormy Update

I've had the can o worms for about six or seven months now, and I've had some teething problems.

One of the main problems is that being a layered system, that is with small sections, it's much easier to overfeed. I had a complete a worm die off early on and I'm still not sure exactly why. Possibly overfeeding resulted in a too acid environment. Another theory is that I maybe fed it a large quantity of non-organic banana skins. Bananas are sprayed heavily, and pesticide residues remain on the skins.
The can o worms also lets in water through the top, and although it has a drainage compartment at the bottom and I left the tap open, we had such a wet summer that the trays were permanently sodden and the worms spent most of the time clinging to the roof or the sides of the trays and very little time in the trays eating waste, making vermicompost or baby worms.
Now I've moved the whole thing into the garage for the winter and started from scratch. I chucked all the old compost/ food residues into my old worm bin and harvested as many worms as possible into a fresh tray using cardboard/ newspaper/ compost bedding. The worms are much happier and feeding furiously.
My daughter has also started a project in school about environmental waste disposal so I made a mini classroom wormbin for her to bring in. It's sitting in the utility at the moment, to acclimatise the worms to classroom temperatures, and the worms there seem to be VERY happy and have huge appetites. Which is just as well really because I suspect that no matter how much I tell the kids not to overfeed.... Well we all know what happens to goldfish in the first few months of ownership. (Fortunately worms can eat their own bedding so when the kids later get to the neglect stage they won't starve.)
I've found a really great worm composting site :
http://www.redwormcomposting.com
with loads of advice and useful information. The site of a true enthusiast and probably the best 'vermi' site I've found on the web so far.