Unfortunately, my second wom bin didn't succeeded like the first time, however unlike the first time, I know the reason of failure this time.
It is THE WOOOOOOORMMMMS, I'm using the wrong worms.
The worms I use are called in the Tunisian fisherman language as "CHITANA" that I though that it is the same as the compost worm the red wiggler, but It is actually "sea worms".
This is a sea worm:
This is the red wiggler :
They don't really look the same, but I didn't care at the time, I just wanted my worm bin to start working.
Anyways, I restart making my worm bin with the same steps in the previous article, only this time I used red wiggler that I harvest them with my own hand from the soil, and I used a wooden bin So all my worm bin is 100% organic.
Some pictures of the new worm bin:
I'll check the bin in the next week and tell you the results.
Unfortunately my first worm bin didn't really work out. After one week of setting up the bin all the worms just disappeared. They got burned alive, ,my poor worms :( .I have to say that it was smelly the first days and I was a little suspicious about it.
mmm, It seemed that my doubts were trues, after some researches I found out that my failure could for one, some or all the next reasons:
TOO MUCH FOOD
The moisture level is too low
The worms are overexposed to lighting
The worms are sick or already dead
The worms quantity is low
To fix this I did the following:
Start by buying a new squad of worms, (more this time) they are more energetic than the previous ones.
Added more water to my bin to increase moisture and humidity.
Didn't cover the worms with soil
Changed the food: Added eggs' so they can breed faster, Bread to start eating fast and a banana to add some flavor :D
Surround the bin with a cover to decrease sun access without affecting Oxygen access
It has been a while since I started getting more and more interested in worms and all the profit that these little creature can make.
Today, I made this little experience for creating a worm bin to collect worm casting that I can use eventually for indoor gardening.
So making a worm bin is not really a difficult task, it only took me about 20 minutes to setup every thing and have a ready to go worm bin with hard working worms in it.
The worm bin I made is composed mainly of 3 layers:
The bedding
The soil
The cover
The materials I used are:
A 5 liters plastic blue storage box (I wanted a black one but there are only blue and pink boxes)
A newspaper
A cardboard
Some soil
food waste and some tree leafs
A water spray
some fish worms (I'm note sure if they are red wigglers but they look alike)
Steps for making the worm bin:
First of all, I drilled some holes in the plastic storage box from the bottom to ensure drainage and from the four sides to let some air circulation in the bin
Later comes the first layer; the bedding. My worms need to be comfortable and worm in their bedroom so I put a solid cardboard and cover it with a shredded newspaper, I don't know why but it seems that worm love shredded newspaper. It is important to add some moisture to the bedding layer, so I just sprayed some water on it
After preparing the bedding, the logic next step is to add the worms. So I just put some worms there. They seemed to love the bedding.
Later on, I added a layer of soil and leafs on the worms
After that, well my beloved worms need to eat something so I added to the worm bin some food wast (onion leafs, peppers and some oranges)
Last but not least I had to add a final layer, the cover which consists of a layer of soil and some newspaper (not shredded this time) and a cardboard covering the bin from above in order to prevent insects like flies to interfere with the the warm bin ecosystem.
Finally, I put all the worm bin above some old pair of shoes so the worm tea can have some place to go and won't stay in the worm bin.
That's it. I'll check my worm bin next weekend and see if the food is still there or not. I hope this experience will work.
