Vermicompost making with red wriggler worms

I'll be cleaning out my worm bins soon. If you are in the Muskogee area and have some interest in  starting a worm compost bin, let me know and I'll give you some starter worms.

Here's my 2008 article about one of my compost worm projects.
http://allthedirtongardening.blogspot.com/2008/02/do-you-know-about-vermicomposting-or.html

Here's the Texas extension service info on compost worms
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/syllabi/302/new/holistic/vermicomposting.html

Here are some interesting sites about composting with red worms:

Red Worm Composting

Earth Worm Digest

Uncle Jim's Worm Farm

Urban Agriculture

Allied Waste Company has good basic how to info on their site and they aren't selling anything either. < ; - )

Here are their basic instructions on Start a Worm Bin
- Find or build a shallow container (about l6-l8 inches deep), wooden boxes, plastic storage containers work well. Drill drainage holes.
- Fill your worm bin with moist bedding - brown leaves, shredded paper or cardboard, straw or peat moss -work well. Add a handful of dirt.
- Add about one pound of-red wriggler composting worms (will consume about 1/2 pound of food a day)- check in friend's compost pile or call a worm supplier
- Rotate the burial location of food scraps throughout the bin.
- Every 3 to 6 months push the old bedding and decomposing scraps to one side of the bin, re-bed the empty side and start burying food waste in the fresh bedding
- After allowing the older scraps to finish for another month or so, remove the compost and add more fresh bedding

Another idea from my brother who has done this before, was to put 4-bales of straw in a square, put in the moistened bedding and previously rotted food scraps or composted manure. As the worms multiply they will move into the straw bales.

As the bales collapse, put two of them onto the garden and use the other two to start the next round.

By the way, compost worms cannot survive in the garden where earthworms thrive.