Good Stuff. DE is also good for spider mites. If you have them you will seem moving fast over your worm bin bedding. I keep DE in an empty parmesan cheese shaker , great for sprinkling on bedding. Doesn't hurt the worms [food grade].
If you feed kitchen scraps you will have mites and other things. Ive been worming for at least 10 yrs, no longer feed kitchen scraps , use a dry worm chow. For beginning wormers kitchen scraps is the way to go until you realize you will continue or not. Patience is the key , castings are developed over time using correct methods , if you cant do that , just buy your casting. The other thing that usually causes wormers to fail is too wet of a bin , feeding too much especially for the amount of worms you have.
I'm almost 100% sure that I had ticks in my worm bin. I found an older post online with someone explaining exactly the same phenomenon; opening the lid and having these teeny tiny tick looking creatures wanting to come out. They clearly did not like to stay in the bin, they were congregating on the underside of the lid, and flooding out as the lid was opened. That's when they walked all over and around the lid, some falling on the floor. They make a popping sound when crushed, just like ticks. They are hard to remove from skin because they have legs that hold on tight to surfaces such as skin. I freaked out and washed the lid with hot water and killed every whatever bug they were that I could spot. Now I'm scared to continue vermicomposting with this same bin, in case there's more of these. What I think happened was that I brought in a tick nest from outside with the flowers that I gave the worms for food. I used to freeze the plant matter I brought from outside, but laxed with this and thought it would be fine to not freeze it. I'm new to vermicomposting and started out very excited, but now I'm hesitant to continue. I'm morbidly afraid of ticks! Please, encourage me! 😭 I also have a lot of mites in the bin, they congregate on dead worms just as in the images on this video. I don't mind them, at least they don't want to attach to my skin to suck my blood! I do think my bin has been a bit too moist. Like I said, I'm new to this. But ticks, no way!!! 😱
Hi Steve. Great video. Right on point and correct in every way. A couple years ago I had a sudden outbreak of several mite species. I traced it back to some leaves and other material I scooped up off the ground and put in the bin without freezing first. One of the mites was a lightning fast red variety. I sent a sample of my castings to arbico organics (awesome company) and they identified 7 different mite species 😲. Six were helpers - detritivores as you mentioned and one was a worm predator. The good thing was that one of the six species of good guys I had, Is the natural predator and enemy of the bad guy I had. So I had hand to hand (leg-coax to leg-coax 🤔) combat going on in a micro-format In my worm bins / bag and the good guys kicked the bad guys 🐴's (lol that's the emoji that came up when I typed in donkey 😂). One thing I practice is freezing produce before giving it to the worms. Overripe produce houses fruit fly eggs and it can also house mite eggs. Freezing kills off both. Once thawed, I put the food in my hand crank salad spinner to get out the excess moisture. The combination of both has really kept my mite outbreaks to a minimum. Every now and then I have enough that they are visible (I know they are always there in some number) but they're there for a reason. They are the micro roadkill cleanup crew and serve a valuable purpose. As you said, worms die daily and rotting worms smell awful. We don't have to deal with that smell thanks to the micro life including mites. Please keep your eye out for a bottom panel of any defective or returned UWB. I'm still in need. 👍 Lisa in Connecticut
Thank you for the salad spinner idea! I freeze produce during summer months, because of the excess, which I feed during the winter when fresh supplies run low.
Hi Steve! Subscriber to your newsletter and just wanted to share I really appreciate your articles. Thanks for making all this helpful media for new worm farmers! Cheers!
Thank you for your sharing Steve. I have come across one type of mite that look pretty similar to Hypoaspis mites, albeit looking more shiny and brownish. There was once I put some worms back in the bin, which appeared to be weak and slow. They were all swarmed and consumed by the mites in under half and hour. I believed they are quite aggressive
Ooh....roach eggs are tough. I'm not sure how to prevent that but if you can make the bin a harder target for roaches themselves (perhaps with elevation?) that would help.
BSFL aren’t a pest imo, but if you have the standard fly larvae(ie maggots) then you’ve likely put some type of meat, dairy, etc. in your bin, and need to remove it. As for neem meal, it’s an excellent addition to the worm bin - the worms love it, and it helps keep unwanted pests out of your bin.
Hi there. I noticed mites in my potted plants. Should I worry and how do I get around this? If I sprinkle DE on top of the soil should I bottom water my plants?
Thank you so much for this video, what i have noticed is that if you make the bottom of your farm where there is no worms very moist, mites will migrate there. Then i just spray water to drawn them. That was a good plus to make the litter dry.
What about getting rid of centipedes? We have small white and/or graying ones in our bed. They are small and curl up. We have been hand picking them out but would love to know another way to make them go away.
It’s okay if we don’t want to kill them, correct? Cause I just setup my bin 2 weeks ago and have a small population. It’s not like a sheet of them like I see some people getting. But I’m also adding food very slowly and burying it deep in the bedding. I’m just wondering, is it okay for them to be there? Like are they beneficial for plants when included in vermicompost?
They’re not causing any harm in your bin most likely. They have a very short lifespan so unless you keep your bin wet for a long period of time, you probably won’t be getting them in your harvest. You can always dry out your castings a bit before using them in the garden to prevent mites as well
Hi from Wales, UK. I use normal earth worms to the final stage of making a living soil for my cannabis. This takes a long time and I frequently inoculate with home made imo and lab bacteria. I wondered if you know anything about earthworms.
Hey Steve, we met in North Carolina a few years back. I've got a question for you. How about pill bugs (potato bugs/rolly pollys/etc.)? I've got a bunch in my bins. They don't bother me much and I sometimes stick one or two on my tongue to amuse my grand kids. Do they ever become a problem? How do other people deal with/get rid of them? Anybody have any experience with this? Thanks.
I’ve heard that if you want your worms to breed faster you need to keep it a little bit wetter. Is that true or false? I think mine should be perfect I can only squeeze a couple drops out of the bedding but I have seen mites on a couple of dead worms.
I have a Worm Factory bin indoors with a worm blanket on the top, under the lid. I dusted the top of the worm blanket with a layer of diatomaceous earth, and it worked really well to get rid of the over abundance of mites that I had. How often do I need to reapply it? And should I put some on the top layer of the dirt as well or is the dusting on the blanket enough? Thanks!!
No, I don't think they'd have any interest in leaving a worm bin habitat for the relative dryness in your house. That said, our homes are full of (tinier) mites that inhabit our clothes, linens, furniture, etc. But soil mites would not be interested in that.
Short story...I moved. No home, just land, living in an RV while building. I sat my worm bins outside....HUGE mistake. Shortly thereafter, I opened the lid of my bin and they ALL had been Invaded...Swarming with several varieties of Ants...I couldn't think of a way to kill the ants without destroying the bins.....so I dumped them....Has anyone experienced anything like that? I'm sure you will tell me there was a simple solution, ugh. I had named all my worms (haha, not) but it really bummed me out....
In my experience, during the summer months of Southern California, it would be very dry outside and they would seek water inside my house. I would recommend either using diatomaceous earth (DE) or spray permethrin around the base of your vermicompost container. With either product the area needs to be dry or it will be ineffective. After the spring showers, I’ll spray permethrin around the base of one particular door to keep fleas away from my dogs. It does need to be reapplied every 4 weeks or so. You don’t need to kill the ants, just make it inaccessible to them. This looks concise and helpful: www.burlesontx.com/DocumentCenter/View/6903/Permethrin-fact-sheet-July-2013?bidId=
Are you able to put this in my Red wiggler bin Wilson Ant-Out Killer Dust, 200-g Silicon Dioxide (present as diatomaceous earth) Canadian Tire.. Or will this kill all my worms. Done to other chemicals. ??
I myself have noticed my ANC are turning a grey colour. Not all of them. It happen after I put DE down to the top layer of the bin. DE didn’t worked. I use sugar cane mulch as one of my bedding. I took a handful out and put in a jar and added DE. 4 weeks on they are still alive. The cane is dried out but I can’t find anything to kill them. Maybe I need a heap of ladybugs.
Over winter I put about 2 inches / 5 cm of sawdust on top of my UWB. Dusted this with 150 g of DE. All mites were gone in 5 weeks.
Very nice. Dry out the bin PLUS adding DE. Great work.
Good Stuff. DE is also good for spider mites. If you have them you will seem moving fast over your worm bin bedding. I keep DE in an empty parmesan cheese shaker , great for sprinkling on bedding. Doesn't hurt the worms [food grade].
If you feed kitchen scraps you will have mites and other things. Ive been worming for at least 10 yrs, no longer feed kitchen scraps , use a dry worm chow. For beginning wormers kitchen scraps is the way to go until you realize you will continue or not. Patience is the key , castings are developed over time using correct methods , if you cant do that , just buy your casting. The other thing that usually causes wormers to fail is too wet of a bin , feeding too much especially for the amount of worms you have.
I'm almost 100% sure that I had ticks in my worm bin. I found an older post online with someone explaining exactly the same phenomenon; opening the lid and having these teeny tiny tick looking creatures wanting to come out. They clearly did not like to stay in the bin, they were congregating on the underside of the lid, and flooding out as the lid was opened. That's when they walked all over and around the lid, some falling on the floor. They make a popping sound when crushed, just like ticks. They are hard to remove from skin because they have legs that hold on tight to surfaces such as skin. I freaked out and washed the lid with hot water and killed every whatever bug they were that I could spot. Now I'm scared to continue vermicomposting with this same bin, in case there's more of these. What I think happened was that I brought in a tick nest from outside with the flowers that I gave the worms for food. I used to freeze the plant matter I brought from outside, but laxed with this and thought it would be fine to not freeze it. I'm new to vermicomposting and started out very excited, but now I'm hesitant to continue. I'm morbidly afraid of ticks! Please, encourage me! 😭
I also have a lot of mites in the bin, they congregate on dead worms just as in the images on this video. I don't mind them, at least they don't want to attach to my skin to suck my blood! I do think my bin has been a bit too moist. Like I said, I'm new to this. But ticks, no way!!! 😱
Did you continue ? Please tell us ! I’m considering giving up on mine ! The stress is probably way more than what it’s even worth !
Hi Steve. Great video. Right on point and correct in every way. A couple years ago I had a sudden outbreak of several mite species. I traced it back to some leaves and other material I scooped up off the ground and put in the bin without freezing first.
One of the mites was a lightning fast red variety.
I sent a sample of my castings to arbico organics (awesome company) and they identified 7 different mite species 😲.
Six were helpers - detritivores as you mentioned and one was a worm predator.
The good thing was that one of the six species of good guys I had, Is the natural predator and enemy of the bad guy I had.
So I had hand to hand (leg-coax to leg-coax 🤔) combat going on in a micro-format In my worm bins / bag and the good guys kicked the bad guys 🐴's (lol that's the emoji that came up when I typed in donkey 😂).
One thing I practice is freezing produce before giving it to the worms. Overripe produce houses fruit fly eggs and it can also house mite eggs. Freezing kills off both. Once thawed, I put the food in my hand crank salad spinner to get out the excess moisture. The combination of both has really kept my mite outbreaks to a minimum.
Every now and then I have enough that they are visible (I know they are always there in some number) but they're there for a reason. They are the micro roadkill cleanup crew and serve a valuable purpose.
As you said, worms die daily and rotting worms smell awful. We don't have to deal with that smell thanks to the micro life including mites.
Please keep your eye out for a bottom panel of any defective or returned UWB. I'm still in need. 👍
Lisa in Connecticut
Thanks Lisa!
Thank you for the salad spinner idea!
I freeze produce during summer months, because of the excess, which I feed during the winter when fresh supplies run low.
Hi Steve! Subscriber to your newsletter and just wanted to share I really appreciate your articles. Thanks for making all this helpful media for new worm farmers! Cheers!
Sorry for the late response Jake....thanks so much!
Thank you for your sharing Steve. I have come across one type of mite that look pretty similar to Hypoaspis mites, albeit looking more shiny and brownish. There was once I put some worms back in the bin, which appeared to be weak and slow. They were all swarmed and consumed by the mites in under half and hour. I believed they are quite aggressive
Thank you Steve and you've been teaching us a lot. Big thumb up!!!
Thanks L Lee! And sorry for the late response.
Great Info Steve! Thank you
You bet!
I've used DE for so many years...Great for countless insects and pests! Food grade only of course.
Yep!
Great video Steve. Good advice. Your voice made it to Australia 😂🤣
My voice can carry, eh? :)
Very helpful videos! Thank you! Any chance you can do a video on how to prevent roach eggs in worm bin?
Ooh....roach eggs are tough. I'm not sure how to prevent that but if you can make the bin a harder target for roaches themselves (perhaps with elevation?) that would help.
@@UrbanWormCompany Thank you for the reply. My bin is elevated. I realized that i wasn't keeping enough carbon in the bin.
Great info, live to see a video on id’ing pest in the bin like fly larvae and getting ride of them.
Also any thoughts on using neem meal in the bin?
BSFL aren’t a pest imo, but if you have the standard fly larvae(ie maggots) then you’ve likely put some type of meat, dairy, etc. in your bin, and need to remove it. As for neem meal, it’s an excellent addition to the worm bin - the worms love it, and it helps keep unwanted pests out of your bin.
I have some diatomaceous earth, but how do I know it’s the right kind that won’t kill my worms? Does it likely say so on the package somewhere?
How do suggest dealing with fire ants invading a raised bed inground worm bucket? This seems to be a constant problem here in the south.
ugh....fire ants are tough. They generally like drier conditions but there's only so much you can do if the bucket is buried below grade.
I just found mites in my nightcrawlers. I had it open but I had to put a top on because the cats were deciding to participate.
Great video. What about using Neem powder in the worm bin to get rid of the mites?
That's another good option I should have mentioned!
Thanks steve
You got it Smash!
what happens if i added warms to plants pots
Hi there. I noticed mites in my potted plants. Should I worry and how do I get around this? If I sprinkle DE on top of the soil should I bottom water my plants?
Hi Megan,
DE should work, yes. If it kills the mites, then you ought to be able to go back to watering regularly.
De is detrimental to nematodes an important component of the soil food web and should be limited in its use.
tyvm
Thank you so much for this video, what i have noticed is that if you make the bottom of your farm where there is no worms very moist, mites will migrate there. Then i just spray water to drawn them. That was a good plus to make the litter dry.
You got it! And yes....worms follow water.
Once this is added on top. Should it be raked out after some time or just let it sit on top until gone? Ty
I must be very lucky as I have never had mites
Which is brilliant as I would hate to have crawlies on me (she shudders)
It would then be hubby's job
Ha! Great work Hazel!
What about getting rid of centipedes? We have small white and/or graying ones in our bed. They are small and curl up. We have been hand picking them out but would love to know another way to make them go away.
It’s okay if we don’t want to kill them, correct? Cause I just setup my bin 2 weeks ago and have a small population. It’s not like a sheet of them like I see some people getting. But I’m also adding food very slowly and burying it deep in the bedding. I’m just wondering, is it okay for them to be there? Like are they beneficial for plants when included in vermicompost?
They’re not causing any harm in your bin most likely. They have a very short lifespan so unless you keep your bin wet for a long period of time, you probably won’t be getting them in your harvest.
You can always dry out your castings a bit before using them in the garden to prevent mites as well
Perfect bro ... yes i yes i
Hi from Wales, UK. I use normal earth worms to the final stage of making a living soil for my cannabis. This takes a long time and I frequently inoculate with home made imo and lab bacteria. I wondered if you know anything about earthworms.
Hey Steve, we met in North Carolina a few years back. I've got a question for you. How about pill bugs (potato bugs/rolly pollys/etc.)? I've got a bunch in my bins. They don't bother me much and I sometimes stick one or two on my tongue to amuse my grand kids. Do they ever become a problem? How do other people deal with/get rid of them? Anybody have any experience with this? Thanks.
Wait a hot minute, did you just say you stick rollie pollies on your tongue???
Wait… sir…. Your tongue? Like, the one in your mouth?
@@dogman8324 lol
I didn't see a link
I’ve heard that if you want your worms to breed faster you need to keep it a little bit wetter. Is that true or false? I think mine should be perfect I can only squeeze a couple drops out of the bedding but I have seen mites on a couple of dead worms.
This is true but it’s also true that notes like moisture.
I have a Worm Factory bin indoors with a worm blanket on the top, under the lid. I dusted the top of the worm blanket with a layer of diatomaceous earth, and it worked really well to get rid of the over abundance of mites that I had. How often do I need to reapply it? And should I put some on the top layer of the dirt as well or is the dusting on the blanket enough? Thanks!!
I would reapply only when you think the issue is getting worse again. No need to do it preventatively
@@UrbanWormCompany thank you!
Cold pressed neem oil.
If your worm bin is inside and you dry out your bin, would the mites leave the bin and end up in your house?
No, I don't think they'd have any interest in leaving a worm bin habitat for the relative dryness in your house. That said, our homes are full of (tinier) mites that inhabit our clothes, linens, furniture, etc. But soil mites would not be interested in that.
Short story...I moved. No home, just land, living in an RV while building. I sat my worm bins outside....HUGE mistake. Shortly thereafter, I opened the lid of my bin and they ALL had been Invaded...Swarming with several varieties of Ants...I couldn't think of a way to kill the ants without destroying the bins.....so I dumped them....Has anyone experienced anything like that? I'm sure you will tell me there was a simple solution, ugh. I had named all my worms (haha, not) but it really bummed me out....
Your bin maybe too dry. Ants don't like water or moisture.
In my experience, during the summer months of Southern California, it would be very dry outside and they would seek water inside my house.
I would recommend either using diatomaceous earth (DE) or spray permethrin around the base of your vermicompost container.
With either product the area needs to be dry or it will be ineffective. After the spring showers, I’ll spray permethrin around the base of one particular door to keep fleas away from my dogs. It does need to be reapplied every 4 weeks or so.
You don’t need to kill the ants, just make it inaccessible to them.
This looks concise and helpful:
www.burlesontx.com/DocumentCenter/View/6903/Permethrin-fact-sheet-July-2013?bidId=
Are you able to put this in my Red wiggler bin Wilson Ant-Out Killer Dust, 200-g Silicon Dioxide (present as diatomaceous earth) Canadian Tire.. Or will this kill all my worms. Done to other chemicals. ??
I don't think this stuff is food grade
i noticed my worms in coco coir look paler. have you noticed that in your bins that have coco coir?
Not in mine, but I only use coco coir to start my bins, not as an ongoing bedding source.
I myself have noticed my ANC are turning a grey colour. Not all of them. It happen after I put DE down to the top layer of the bin. DE didn’t worked. I use sugar cane mulch as one of my bedding. I took a handful out and put in a jar and added DE. 4 weeks on they are still alive. The cane is dried out but I can’t find anything to kill them. Maybe I need a heap of ladybugs.
So I dried mine somewhat and now for some reason some ants decided to set up a massive colony! >_
Yeah, so while mites like wet conditions, ants like it on the drier side.
How about fruit flies? Are they harmful?
NVM. Just saw the other video discussing this
Hi Vin Diesel
Ha! I wish! :)
@@UrbanWormCompany 😃
Worms die everyday b
Absolute bollocks. Micro and macro arthropods are critical to decompostion, and a large diversity should be fostered
Steve...there are better methods...you need to offer better tools. I pinged you on Linkedin
You may be a worm expert but you're no diatomaceous earth expert sir
Happy to be educated!
@@UrbanWormCompany well next time maybe Google it.