Either that or I have a bunch of tomato seeds Ild be willing to part with.

I do have some various pepper seeds but my collection is limited until Im able to grow some out and get some seeds harvested.

I thought composting was suppossed to be for the fruggle guys lol... anyone have any suggestions as to how I could get into some red wigglers on the cheap Im open to any suggestions :)

bait stores...red wigglers are usually the type of worms they sell for bait.

Here in Florida i can drive out in the country and get a container for about $6.00. pint size I think.

Sam

The worms you buy will die. They are very fussy to grow. You would be best to first learn how to keep them alive and practice with just a few. You can find them at cow farms in the manure or buy some at a bait shop. I believe there is a Vermicomposting forum here on GW which would be all about growing worms. They also grow super slow.

The best food I found was a can of pumpkin or squash dumped on top of the soil. they loved it. Being mushy they could get it into their tiny mouth. it was also wet which they like. It was easy to eat.

If you buy a pound of worms for $20 you will be lucky to get a few ounces of worms in a pound of dirt. save your money.

they die easy. if the moisture and conditions are not perfect they will crawl away and be gone in the morning. They are extremely sensitive to waste and it will kill them very quickly.

I was successful with one batch for some months but another 10 trys all failed and the original died. all was gone quickly.

They do not really live in soil. they live in sterile bedding. They live up on the top of the soil. they do not really go down deep into the soil. When the bedding gets fouled they die. you really want very steady cool temperatures year around.

You can really waste a ton of money on this project.

You better learn all you can about them before spending any money. It is really difficult and 99 out of 100 lose all their money.

Here is a link that might be useful: worm forum

ozzz...best place to get worms is to find some cow manure piles and start diggin

There has to be somebody in your area that has a nice compost pile. I have kept (2) 7 tier farms and a 15 gallon container in the house of these little fella's for the last 5 yrs. Extremely easy to keep and grow.

ozzz; Check out the virmicomposting forum here on garden web A few people over there are helping to start up newbies on the cheap. Also you can learn to keep the worms on there. Now I had no trouble starting up my worms and am sorry to hear gardendawgie had problems. I find them easy to raise. I have no piles of worms in the horse poo up here. The U of MN cites our cold weather as a limiting factor for manure worms

Curt

one thing are the worm bins that are commercially sold, black plastic.
best to just make them out of non treated wood. the black absorbs heat and the plastic even with the grid at the bottom does not breath well. the worms have to have oxygen rich soil. not soggy, anerobic, or acidic.do not overfeed and give them time to get settled into their new home.
look at it this way, $1000 worth of worms 3 yrs ago would be worth many times that amount today. if you invested $1000 in real estate at that time you would be lucky to have $500 left. :-)

ok, i thought i would chime in a bit. i live on a little island and very rural. we had no rats until maybe 8 years ago and before rats we all had open compost piles, and plenty of worms would come by themselves. but of course now, that is nothing but a sign to the rats saying...please come here my rat friends....SO WHAT TO DO? i came up with a system for a composter/worm bin using an old bathtub (NOT the old, heavy cast iron ones, but rather the sheet metal type---cast iron give hernias), then i screw on and make a lid out of 2 x 4's and put hardware cloth over this making them unavailable for the rats to get in. i have two tubs setup and so when one is full, i add a bit of the old stuff from the first which will have worms for the new tub and also the proper biologic processes going on that worms require, then start adding food and cardboard to that tub. the worms need the food to break down before they start eating it, and thats why i add some of the previous batch so it gives them decayed food to eat while the new food becomes decayed and available to the worms. the first tub then finishes out while the other is my active tub or rather the one i add the new compost to. . in the spring i sift the finished product and have pure gold for my use in the garden.......i never stir or turn over the compost because worms don't like heat, and if your composter heats up,
THEY WILL LEAVE!!!!!

GOOD LUCK TO ALL YOU WORM FARMERS, I LOVE MAKING PURE GOLD

the people who use the plastic composters or those made of wood, the rats just chew holes in them and you have a rat problem, and who wants that

Thanks for the suggtions guys. I found a local bait shop that has them, but charges $3 for 12 ... lol.

Also, I did check out the worm forum here at GW and one nice person did offer to send me some. I havent heard anything though since so Im not sure thats a go as of now :)

Ill keep digging around (pun intended) so to speak to see what I can come up with. Ill probably just bite the bullet and buy a pound or a thousand for $20.

EDIT ... I just saw he responded on my forum and missed my email. Think Im back in business.. thanks again for all the input people!

When I was growing up we would just soak the ground and up came the worms. All you could want for free! Maybe not in NE but that was in Chicago. It doesn't seem to work the same here in AZ.