Simple Garden Vermicomposting, 1 year update

 Just a short update to let you know how this project is moving along.  

People say that red wigglers are composting worms, and are not really suitable for the garden.  I would agree, in general.  However, I have 1 year of data that suggests they CAN survive and thrive in a yard setting.  

Back in 2020, most people did something new or unusual due to Covid.  One of my new behaviors was to spend much more time in my yard.  As I am growing avocados and oranges, it seemed like mulch was something that would help reduce my need to water and feed my trees.  I also have a pomegranate and persimmon tree.  All of these trees received an abundant cover of mulch.  Also in that spring, I put a few cardboard boxes under my avocado tree with some red wigglers and horse manure in them.  My goal was to breed some red wigglers to sell.  What happened was I didn't ever "harvest" any worms, the boxes decayed, and the worms went wherever.  Some months later I was digging under an orange tree about 25 feet away and was surprised to find an abundance of red wigglers under there as well.  They made the journey from the adjacent avocado tree to find another place of refuge.  This was part of what inspired me to create the bins under some of my other trees.  

Today I explored thoroughly the three worm "Rotters" in my yard.  What I found was two of them loaded with large adult red wigglers, as well as lots of juveniles as well.  The third, the one under the pomegranate tree, was not as loaded, in fact the worms were fairly scarce.  One contributor may be that roughly 4 weeks ago I pulled back a ~4 square foot area of mulch and put down maybe 20 pounds of cut up apples.  Maybe they have moved into that rich food source instead.  

Another thing I found was that the level of material was no longer going down.  All the bins had received some paper products a month or two ago, and they were all still basically "full".  The material at the bottom of the rotters was fairly compacted, and apparently the worms were no longer carrying that out into the garden.  My solution was to simply dump the contents into a cleared section nearby, put some new material in the rotters, and put some of the old material back on top.  The worms will work that material for awhile and continue to grow, breed, and feed my trees.  

If I had the option, I would used Rotters with a higher surface area.  I think the worms would do a better job of depositing the compost if that was the case.  I also considered just cutting off the bottom of the containers, as then there would be nothing to inhibit a free flow of compost out.  But for now I'll just see how it goes with the roughly annual maintenance.  I did move a couple of the rotters before now, as what can happen is the trees nearby know there's a great food source inside and will send roots up into it.  Not necessarily bad, but then the bottom gets clogged, and if you ever want to move the rotter then you'll break those roots.  

I continue to find red wigglers in the mulch all over my yard, as well as in the grass.  Often when I pull weeds up, a red wiggler will be somewhere in the roots.  That's part of the symbiosis between plants and the worms, the plant roots produce carbohydrates (I think?) that feed the surrounding fauna, and the worms are very interested in consuming the microbes feeding on those carbs.