My worms have settled nicely into their bins. They've got soaked straw (wrung out), old leaves and a few scatterings of compost thrown in for bedding. They seem fine. I checked on them and noticed that a few other insects are also in the bins - spiders, slugs, a couple of ants. I'm not talking thousands, but if I sit and watch long enough, I see them. I assume they came from our leaves, which compost out back of the barn. Are these intruders harmful to the worms? My assumption is no, but I thought I'd check. Thanks, Sean

-- Sean (rougan@rcn.com), April 18, 2002

Answers

They can be problematic should their size increase to starve the worms in the confines of the bin.

I would advise if the bin is indoors that you place it on a table or sawhorses and place the legs in tin cans, then the canned legs in larger cans with vegetable oil to act as a migration barrier for ants.

I minimize the insect contaminations, sealing my leaves in a black bag in the sun or putting it in my solar oven before adding to the bins.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), April 18, 2002.

We keep our worm bin outdoors, so we often get insects. Honestly, we haven't noticed any real problem with these extra visitors--the worms seem as numerous (and as busy) as usual. However, if my worm bin were indoors, I'd no doubt be more fussy about this.

-- Julie Woessner (jwoessner@rtmx.net), April 18, 2002.