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How to Breed Earth Worms

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Hello again folks, I want to share with you some strategies and tips that I’ve figured out on how to breed earth worms from the 20 years or so that I’ve spent doing just that. Here I’m going to be talking most about breeding red worms or red wigglers. These are the kinds of earthworms that most folks are familiar with and most folks find in their soil.

But first a little background on breeding worms in general. There are a bunch of different varieties of earthworm that you can use to make compost. My favorite are the red wiggler which are a species of eisenia fetida. You can also use European night crawlers which don’t multiply but seem to be more robust from some of the information I’ve read out there. The European or Belgian nightcrawler is also known as the Dendrobaena worm. They grow to be thick and fat, sometimes as thick a man’s thumb.

Anglers like them a lot. But I wouldn’t know about that, not living close to any fishing spots I don’t sell my worms to any anglers that I’m aware of. I do use breed European nightcrawlers but not as much as the red wiggler. But I suggest that if you’re interested in both that you keep them separated. I reckon they serve slightly different purposes.

Okay, to get to the nuts of how to breed earth worms I’m going to take you through building a small worm farm for home or an apartment. This is how I started breeding worms. You’ll need a big rubber container, the kind you’ll see at the big stores that are used as totes and such. These work well because they’re durable and a good size. Some folks will say you’ll get around 1200 worms per pound, but I reckon this is generous, you should only count on about half that for the number of worms in a pound.

If you’re using my measurement you’ll likely want to give these 600 or so red wigglers about a square foot of space. This will get you started nicely in the how of how to breed earth worms because you’ll have a good start to building a worm farm.

I’ve seen folks use a whole number of rubber bins as they start growing their worm farm and you’ll find even if you’re not interested in selling red worms that there’ll be a number of bins you can use to limit the amount of waste that you throw out. when it was just the 2 of us. Me and my late wife Joan living in the apartment, we used 2 bins and we hardly ever tossed out any organic waste.

Both of our bins were about 2 feet long by about 1 foot wide and about 2 feet deep. You don’t want to build your worm composter deeper than 2 feet as not many worms will bury deeper than that. So keep that in mind.

Hope you’ve liked this first installment on how to breed earth worms. I’ll finish it up in the next post and you’ll be very soon on you way to breeding red worms and becoming a successful worm farmer!

The Use of Burlap for Plants Protection

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When you decide to do something, you need to be committed to it one hundred percent. Yes, commitment is really the key to succeeding in anything that you decide to do. Without it, you are bound to be prone to failure since you don’t really have your mind and your heart into it. But once you are fully committed, then you’ll see that the path towards success becomes an easier one.

The kind of activity that you are doing also does not matter as much. It might be something really serious or it might be something that’s not, but what’s important is that you are serious about what you are doing. And in the long run, it is definitely going to show. In the end, the results would speak for themselves and show that the commitment that was out in really paid off.

It is definitely applicable in almost everything that you could think of, and gardening and taking care of plants certainly falls under it to. Anyone who chooses to do gardening certainly needs to have one hundred percent commitment to that activity. First of all, you are dealing with living things, so it makes things a little more sensitive than usual.

The part about sensitivity certainly needs to be addressed during winter time, or during any harsh weather. Temperatures that go below freezing point, icy conditions could lead to damage of the plants in your garden. You definitely need to do something about it, and one way to do it is by protecting the plants with burlap. The use of burlap is preferable over using plastic, since it does not trap moisture the way plastic does.

Protecting Plants with Burlap

So using burlap for plants protection is much better than making use of other materials such as plastic. It would allow the plants to survive the harshness of the winter season.

• First, water the plants that are of high risk at the roots right up until the first hard freeze in the area where you live. It would do plants such as trees and shrubs good to have about an inch of water for each week.

• Mulch should be added around the roots of the plants. It should be around three of four inches thick. The mulch will help keep the roots from freezing and also contributes in keeping the plants from losing moisture.

• The stakes should be driven to the ground and should result in four corners that are around each of the plants. Wrap the burlap around the structures, testing each. The burlap has to be around six inches away from the plants itself and also try to make sure that the stakes are strong are strong and driven deeply in order to support the burlap.

• The burlap should be wrapped around the structures with the use of twine. Wrap it around the burlap several times. To finish of the process, fill the top with leaves.