I got worms.

I now have a worm bin (WormFactory) and approximately 1000 red wiggler worms.  When I got the worms 4 days ago, I made the starter mix they recommended, with damp coir, shredded paper, pumice and mineral dust, and lined the top and bottom with paper.  They asked for newsprint, but I used the brown paper bag material.  I hope it's not too dense.

I just fed them for the first time- I put the contents of my little kitchen crock into the food processor (2 batches) to try to break it down to a manageable size and chunkiness.  That was gross.  But yeah, I tried to spread that around for the worms...  it was quite damp, which is probably good because the paper on top and even the coir mix seemed very dry.  Hm... I definitely used tap water to dampen everything, and it's definitely chlorinated.  So going forward, I should probably make an effort to de-chlorinate that stuff.  You can leave it to sit out for 2 days, and the chlorine evolves into the air, or you can boil it for an hour, I think.  The best approach would probably be to keep a spray bottle near the bin so when things look dry, I can just mist it.  I'll need to do that with some of the house plants as well.  (Oh god, there are going to be so many house plants)

But I think this is going to be a good thing.  I can put the majority of kitchen scraps in there.  Some sources say they do not like onions or citrus or hot peppers, which worries me because I use those things a lot.  Why wouldn't they like onions?  What about onion skins?  They like eggshells and coffee grounds, and that's great because I have a lot of that, and I don't mind hoarding it.  I had a large stash of coffee grounds that I put in the outside compost, but I think the rest of them will go in the worm bin, because it sounds like everyone agrees they are the perfect for worms.  That, and nutrient-poor stuff like lettuce.  I am reluctant to put any fruit or tomato in there because of the potential for fruit flies, but everyone says that's not an issue as long as I keep putting in shredded paper.  We'll see.  I'm now getting very impatient, and I want to mess with it, but I should probably just leave it alone and check on it after a week.