growing earthworm food

michael

michael

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Do any of you use homegrown vegetables for earthworm food? Currently I'm raising my 4 bins of earthworms in Canadian sphagnum and feeding them shredded paper, grain earthworm food, and some occasional flake fish food and salmon pellets. This year I've taken the initiative to be in charge of our small vegetable garden. I'm growing squash, zuccinni, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes. It seems to me that excess squash, zuccinni, eggplant, and possibly cucumbers would be good earthworm food. I'm not sure about the tomatoes or peppers.


What do you think?
 
My earthworm bin grows entirely on vegetable and bread scraps from the kitchen. For bedding, I use peat moss with some powdered egg shells to moderate the pH.

I have fed them all of the veggies you listed, including the tomatoes and bell peppers, which we eat a lot of. And if you eat any melons this summer, be sure to give your worms the rinds, they go crazy for these.

Good luck with your garden, and your worms!
 
I use shredded newspaper and all kinds of fruits and vegetables that I take from the fridge at work (going bad, that people have left behind). Sometimes I buy potatoes and carrots if work has been slim pickins. They seem to do fine on that.
 
Thanks Jennifer and Dawn for your response. I especially value input from you guys. I don't trust using to many vegetables from the store for worm food. The reason I'm raising the worms myself is to be certain they are safe. I'll feel much better about feeding my organic vegetables to the worms than I would feel feeding store bought vegetables that have come in contact with who knows what. I was afraid the tomatoes might change the Ph to much. I did get a Ph meter and think I'm well on the way to some sustainable worm yields.

You would be real surprised if you knew what my earthworm and blackworm bills were for the last year.
 
My worms seem to love bananna peel. for the most part I feed them on tea(loose or tea bags) which seems to do marvels for breeding. I do only have a small tub though, and drink a great deal of tea!
 
My earthworms are fed on general kitchen scraps (coffee grinds, tea bags, egg shells, vegetable peelings of all sorts) and bits of newspaper when I think to add them to the bins. The bedding is damp CareFresh, coco fiber and the humus left from the food. The 'worm tea' makes awesome fertilizer for the orchids, and our modest garden gets the castings.
 
In my experience you can use almost all kind of kitchen and garden leftovers for the worms - mine go crazy for coffee grounds.
Important is (and that is especially for the cucumber and tomatoes) that the substrate does not get too wet or else the worms might die. If it does, make sure to add some dry substrate (soil, woodshavings) to regulate this.
 
I no longer put any citrus into the compost bin as my axolotl tended to reject any worms that had been found near the fruit. I try to make a point of adding a layer of cardboard / paper every now and then if I have put grass cuttings in.
 
My only caution would be careful about too much food with a high acidity (like tomatoes). A soil high in acidity will kill worms.
 
Mine are fed coffeedrab mostly. Sometimes an apple if they look inedible for me (keeping them in the cooler for 6 months doesn't seem to be healthy) I'm planning on growing some paprika plants in my house, since they do it very well and you only need some starter seeds. Naturally, if you have space, you can do bigger things. (how do you keep the birds from eating the stuff outside?)
 
michael said:
Do any of you use homegrown vegetables for earthworm food? Currently I'm raising my 4 bins of earthworms in Canadian sphagnum and feeding them shredded paper, grain earthworm food, and some occasional flake fish food and salmon pellets. This year I've taken the initiative to be in charge of our small vegetable garden. I'm growing squash, zuccinni, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes. It seems to me that excess squash, zuccinni, eggplant, and possibly cucumbers would be good earthworm food. I'm not sure about the tomatoes or peppers.


What do you think?
Click to expand...
Hi, I feed my worms tea bags and they love it, I normally cut it smaller, I read it's easier for the worms to digest it. I also grate sweet potaoes, one a week. Is carrots ok for worms?
 
My worms get carrot peelings all the time.
 
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    with axolotls would I basically have to keep buying and buying new axolotls to prevent inbred breeding which costs a lot of money??
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    @Thorninmyside, I Lauren chen
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