worm bin makeover

and a surprise!

I thought it was maybe too soggy at the bottom- have read that shredded cardboard, while time-intensive to prepare, makes excellent bedding, and wanted a bit of compost to pot up my Lettuce seedlings. Expected it was too early for harvesting, but I forged ahead- cut cardboard strips into chips (less than 1") enough to fill a third of the new, empty bin.

Then delved into the main bin. I thought if I picked out chunks and bits of bedding and food waste (not much in there, I haven't fed them in a while) I'd be left with some rough compost. It didn't quite turn out that way. Nothing broken down that fine yet. But I found baby worms!!

Size comparison with adults↓ Lots even smaller than this, the tiniest ones little translucent squirming threads.

And plenty of coccoons, or worm eggs. If you look close there's about eight visible in this picture. They're round with pointed end like a lemon shape, dark golden color.

So yeah, it wasn't ready yet. And it was very soggy, rather compacted at the bottom of the bin. But that's where all the coccoons and baby worms were. So I guess the worms like the moisture content, I just don't like how matted the newspaper gets. I think I'm going to quit putting shredded newspaper and paper-wrapped food packets in the bin. Just cardboard chips and dump the food in straight from collection bucket. We'll see how it goes. But even though I didn't get any compost to use, I'm mighty pleased!

Good, earthy smell in there.