Worm-tastrophe: What To Do When You Kill Them All

I was looking through my messy desktop today and found a list of articles that I should write on this blog. I chose this one because it made me laugh when I saw the title I had come up with. 

First of all, if you follow the guidance on this blog you will be unlikely to kill all of your worms in your worm composting bin. I am an impatient person, and many many times I neglect to read instructions; this has, of course, resulted in various worm massacres at my irresponsible hands. So just in case you're an idiot like me and you can't handle reading for 5 minutes to save thousands of little lives in the future, here's what you do when they all kick the bucket. 

How to know you've got a problem:

• Use your sniffer. If you smell fish or anything remotely fishy, you've got quite a problem on your hands.
• Check on them every once in a while. If you don't see any worms or you see slime, you've got a problem.

When you determine that there have, in fact, been casualties from your worm composting efforts, time to put on some gloves, get out the hose, shoo the kids away and get to work cleaning up the mess. It is NOT going to smell good, so make sure to wrap a shirt over your face or something to help with the smell. 

First you want to remove all the compost related debris from your bin. I suggest making a large pile on top of a trash bag. Then, if you're lucky enough to have a hose (I do not, at least not at home in my apartment), spray the whole bin down well and let it dry in the sun. In the past I have had success in reusing the contents of the dead bin as food for the new worms, but I advise this cautiously. I suggest you buy a simple ph test kit from your local nursery to make sure that the ph is in an acceptable range and that the worms didn't die from too much acidity or too much alkalinity (acceptable range is roughly 6.5-7.5). 

If your worms have died due to heat/sun exposure or not enough air and NOT ph issues, you can reuse the contents from the dead bin. Layer it like a lasagna with lots of dry bedding in between and add your new worms. The benefit of this is that, even though the worms are dead in the old materials, there may still be several cocoons that are viable. You also get to use the resulting compost that the worms were working on before their untimely demise. The new worms will eat the old ones as they decompose. Gross, I know. 

You will not want to reuse your dead bin materials if you are composting inside due to the bad smells that will take a week or two to subside. And obviously, if the ph is off, do not reuse the contents. If the ph was the reason for the death of your worms, make sure you test your bin every month or so just to make sure the problem isn't happening again. 

How NOT to kill your worms:

• Use ample bedding
• Make sure there is enough moisture, but they're not drowning
• Keep them OUT OF THE SUN
• Make sure they have enough air to breathe (ie: lots of air holes and, again, lots of bedding for air to leak through to them)
• Check the ph levels every once in a while, especially if you start to see fewer worms or worms on the surface of the bedding when you look in on them. 

Here's hoping everyone stays alive as a result of your worm composting efforts!

Good worming!

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Comments

[Chris McLaughlin]

Hi Mama,

Your blog is right up my alley and I'm here in the Bay Area, as well. In fact, I'm about to put you as a resource in my book if that's okay with you. Email me at duchessofdirt@yahoo.com

Chris