castings

I have been wondering a little at the state of my worm bin. First, because I rarely see any worms. Just one or two here and there. But then, I don't dig deep into the bin. It turns my stomach a bit to see decomposing food bits that close up. Different from the composting I used to do outside, where working with the pile was usually done at arm's length- or the distance of a spade's handle! The worms all seem to be in the lower depths of the bin right now. I think I filled it with too much bedding when I first set it up, it is all the way up to the top. But since I add my scraps wrapped in newpaper, I don't think it matters too much.

My main concern was that every time I open the bin, water rains down from the underside of the lid. It seems very moist but again I think this might be okay. The bedding is not soaking wet, there are no pools in the lower levels when I push stuff aside, and when I lift the entire bin off its supports, there is no water dripping out the bottom. On the contrary, there were sprinkles of dry brown stuff.

I think these are worm castings! So the apparently the system is working. I brushed up the little bit of castings and top-dressed a plant with them. The Coleus, as that one seems to be actively growing more than any other plant right now.

It will be a long time yet before I have enough castings or vermicompost to repot plants with and feed them all, but none are ready for the extra nutrients until spring time anyways.