As I have dug into various soils over the years I noticed that during the sunniest months of the year there were very few earthworms to be found so I measured soil temperatures and found that when they get over about the mid 60s the earthworms apparently go down to cooler areas. Except in a vermicomposting system, earthworms are not significant participants in the composting process. Because earthworms also need a fairly moist environment a properly made compost pile will be too dry for them as well. If the material in a non vermicomposting system is moist enough for earthworms it will be too wet for the bacteria that would digest that material as well as not having enough air in the mix for them to function. There is no really good reason to put any kind of barrier under any compost bin.

Here's an update - 1) It was 96 today - interior of bins feel very warm to the touch - The temps have been much less extreme over the past few weeks. I brought the bins inside and put them under the sink and under a counter. I filled gallon-sized bags with water, froze them overnight, and put them inside the bins on top of the bedding. The bins did cool down, but I have no idea how many worms may have died from the heat. 2) When I moved the bin off of it's tray to add ice cubes, I found about 10 worms that had escaped in the tray. -Since that one time, there were no more escapees so I was praying that the environment had been cooled down enough to keep them happy, as opposed to a much more gruesome alternative :-( 3) When I opened the lid yesterday before I brought it in, a swarm of flies (mixed fruit flies and something resembling soldier flies) came out. - This became a growing problem. We ended up with an enormous fruitfly and soldier fly problem in our kitchen, where the bins were. We ended up moving all of the fruit out of our kitchen, and I realized that all the kitchen scraps I was saving on the counter was being contaminated by the flies before I was putting them in the bins, so those got set outside, as well. Then the bins went out, and I noticed when I moved them that there was a ton of "leachate" in the trays underneath the bins. I don't think it was true leachate, I think it was all the moisture from the ice cubes just leaking out of the bins. There were also a lot of maggots of different sizes in the leachate. 4) There's a lot of condensation on the lid - enough to pour a couple of teaspoons or more onto the floor when I lift it. -I tried leaving the lid off the bins during the evening to allow more air circulation, and I put lots of dry, shredded newspaper on top to absorb extra condensation. This dry paper turned thoroughly damp within a day or so, so I think it was a good suggestion, but the flies were definitely gross. 5) Despite my best efforts, the bedding appears to be compacting. I originally used dampened newspaper strips mixed with dampened brown leaves from teh garden (crunched up) -I realized, upon reflection, that at one point I had a lot of kitchen scraps and couldn't remember which pocket was available for pocket feeding. So I decided to cut corners, and spread it out in a layer a few inches under the surface of the bedding. I think this definitely contributed to the compaction because it was heavy, and it diminished air circulation because it sort of glommed together into an impenetrable carpet of goo. I also am now regretting my decision to use dried leaves from under our filbert tree. When I opened the bin, I kept finding slugs in it, and beetles and spiders and other little critters. Despite my best efforts to pick up clean leaves, I think a lot of these guys came in on the leaves and while spiders aren't too much of a problem, the slugs definitely were. 8) When I removed the lids today, on one of the bin lids, I saw a lot of larvae - what looked like light green inch worms, plus teeny-tiny hair-thin white worms, and a couple of slugs. -At this point, two weeks after my first post, I finally had a day to deal with the bins. I have not fed them since my post on the 17th, following the suggestion to let the worms catch up on the food in the bin, and in an effort not to increase the moisture. However, once every few days I would sort of open the bins to air them out, and check to see if there were any living worms still in them. Every time I did this, a massive swarm of flies would come out of both bins, and I could see even more sort of immature flies crawling around the surface of the bedding, and the sides of the bins. The bedding seemed to be teeming (think Indiana Jones, Temple of Doom)with larvae and white worms and non-flying flies in different stages of development. -Today I decided to rescue what I could of any worms that were left in the bins, so I laid thick black plastic out on my lawn in the shade, and set up several containers of water, plus a bucket with a plastic liner (garbage). I scooped the top layer of bedding right into the garbage, and noted that it was covered with tiny eggs...they looked like very fine salt, and they covered every surface. The rest I dumped onto the black plastic to be sorted. I scrubbed out the bin with Ivory dish detergent and lots of water, and filled it with 3:1 mixture of coconut coir and newspaper shreddings. I decided to go with coconut because I wanted to start with something sterile (or at least bug/slug/fly-egg free). I was trying to figure out what that would be when I saw the remainder of a coconut coir package that I had purchased to amend my soil and remembered that they said it was a good substitute for peat moss and was harvested in a sustainable manner. YAY! Then when I logged on today I saw Seamommy's suggestion and that felt good to know I was on the right track. My 5 year old daughter and I spent about two hours sorting through the pile to carefully pull out all the worms, and the worm cocoons. We had a small dish of water and a small strainer that we used to rinse off many of the worms and the cocoons that had larva eggs, white worms, or other contaminants on them. I noticed that as we got toward the bedding that had been on the bottom of the bin, the worms and cocoons were more plentiful and there were almost no larva or fly eggs in it, so we did a lot less rinsing unless we saw something suspicious. It was a great chance to talk with her about how worms reproduce, what cocoons are, what worms eat, etc. My two-year old was not allowed to sort, but she really enjoyed picking up the freshly-washed worms and talking to them for a minute before putting them back. This afternoon we will tackle the other bin, which I suspect will be in a similar state as teh first one. 7) I recently added some cooked rice and cooked oatmeal/hot cereal, but I did mix it up well with chopped vegetable and fruit trimmings. - Today is the first day (bright, sunny, breezy) that we've been able to open teh back door and windows and for several hours, so all the fruit flies seem to be gone. However, for a while I will freeze all my kitchen scraps before feeding the worms just to make sure any and all eggs or larvae are killed before adding them to the bins. I also noticed that there were lots of potato skins with well-developed roots growing in the bin, so that should curb that problem, as well. The coconut coir looks pretty thick, so I'm toying with the idea of adding some more dried leaves, but sterilizing them first by either freezing them or pouring boiling water over them (would this make me a vermicomposting wacko?!) I don't want to go crazy and try to make this clean like a doctor's office, but I would like to know that I'm not starting with a ton of nasty larvae already in the bins from the get-go. I think I'll use the shredded cardboard suggestion and think a little longer about the leaves. This also goes for the wood chips. We have a pile of woodchips that has been sitting in our driveway since last fall that we've been using to mulch our plants. I'd like to put some of them into the bins, but they have become host to a growing population of worms, beetles, spiders, slugs, etc. I'd like to sterilize them first. I'm also concerned that wood takes sooo much longer to break down than other organic material...so that one's on hold for the moment, as well. Thank you to shesoldier, Bill, and seamommy for your helful suggestions, and also to numerous others whose posts I read from other threads. This forum is awesome!

I'd use a plastic tote bin with a cover, can be purchased for $4.99 at K-Mart and you simply drill small holes all through the bottom and I put more small holes around the top of the rim and in the cover. You want it opaque because as sqh1 says worms don't like light and I keep mine in my dark basement so the holes aren't an issue for me. Should take like 10 minutes to convert, has handles, and no styrofoam pieces or chips falling off. Also, understand if you're putting in 10 lbs of food/week in there that when it comes time to collect and start fresh it can weigh over 300 lbs. That's not something I want to try to move in a styrofoam container. Not to say it can't be done, but for $4.99 for a plastic storage bin I think you may find it worth it. You wouldn't need tape, or anything else just the plastic bin, cover, and a drill with a small bit. Is this going outside? I haven't had luck with the outside thing, I've had to restart twice after losing all my worms when the weather changed unexpectedly or I forgot to bring them inside during a heat wave. I keep mine in my basement now which acts like a temperature buffer. I think outside bins need special provisions or designs though one poster has many blue/red containers in his back yard that are their worm bins. There's no way that will work where I live, but judging by how many the other poster had they were obviously very successful at it.

When the bottom filled up the bin became in essence a non-flow through. Like a Rubbermaid, so you got all the hassles associated with that type system. I myself have had a couple occasions when there was a huge thunderstorm that soaked the bin. I did git a large amount of worm filled compost fall through to the bottom. I keep a lid on the bin to help prevent this but during large storms the lid overflows. The bin always dries out again in a couple weeks. What i observed when i started my Flow Through. When I fed the FT it formed a layer that is almost pure castings just under where the food was placed. The castings are more paper than black compost and is a little stiff and hard for the worms to get through. There were worms stuck below this layer in the original bedding. I filled mine full of nearly finished compost from my bins. And discovered that the compost wasn't as done as i thought it was. I have used compost as broken down as it was and hadn't given it a thought. But I found a FT does a far better job at breaking down everything in the bin. The compost settled down to about a third the original volume after a couple months. That was with huge feedings and a lot of paper additions too. It was a big surprise. The layer of finished compost at the top got thicker and eventually reached the bars. It comes out looking and feeling more like composted leaf litter on a forest floor, fluffy too. The first compost I harvested for a while was from the original worm filled compost transferred from my old bins. It did keep improving the longer it stayed in the FT. But it just didn't get as good as the compost formed in the FT to start with. The original bin compost was also lumpier and looser than the layer formed in the FT. As the worms wiggled about in the layer of loose compost it fell into the bottom collection area. I eventually harvested out most of the fallen compost and separated out the worms. Adding the worms back into the top of the bin. When the FT layer reached the bars on the bottom I needed to scrape the compost out. There still are a few worms and a little compost falling but not nearly as much. I just leave the compost in the collection area. For stray worms to live in until there is enough to bother removing it. I then separate out the worms and store the finished vermicompost in a old Rubbermaid bin until i need it. I should add that the compost that comes out the bottom is damp enough for the worms but dry enough to send through my homemade 1/4 inch strainer without waiting for it to dry out more. And i never found worm cocoons in the finished compost after the original compost worked its way through the FT. And this one i find a bit curious. Almost all the worms that fall into the collection area are NOT adults. I wondered about this one a lot but decided that they are the babies hatched out from the cocoons laid at the top of the bin.