Toily and paper towel rolls. I cut them in 1/2 lengthwise and spoon them together to store in the corner of my kitchen counter until I have enough to run through the shredder. I add them to the bins with a mix of shredded newsprint. The cardboard rolls keep some of their curl and keep the bedding fluffier than straight shredded newspaper. My shredder leaves the paper in long strips, it's not the cross cut style.

When there's a break in the weather, I run out to the backyard and grab some leaves stored by the compost bins - the worms really like those, and I get a pleasant "foresty" scent for a few days while they work the leaves over.

It is interesting how resourceful people can be when deciding what to use for media in their compost bins. I like cardboard and shredded paper to place in the bottoms of my sunken raised beds. Ultimately this material is decomposed and recycled, however it's intended purpose is to hold moisture.

Some people make friends with their local Star Bucks and come home with buckets full of coffee grounds to add to their vermicompost bins or piles.

Most any kind of manure is great in outdoor bins with some hay, ground leaves, or grass mixed in.

I will stick to peat moss for my indoor bins. Choir works just as well.

But kioni, I save the toily and paper towel rolls for toot-ta-doos...my favorite band instrument when I was a kid. We were poor! Seriously though kioni,this is a good point. Tossing cardboard, newspaper, coffee filters, etc., in the trash is a pure waste. I live in a neighborhood which has trash barrels overflowing every week, and one home has two trash barrels. I can get by a month without putting mine out if I so choose, unless the wind blows. Then I spend a day picking up the neighbor's trash to put in my container. I asked the wife this question just the other day..."Where do you suppose all that trash comes from?" Her answer, "Probably from grocery store packaging!"
What do you think?

I have lots of old IRS instructions that I am ripping up a few pages at a time to cover the latest feeding. More when I can tell that there was recent feeding due to odor outside of the stack.

Corrugated cardboard run through a paper shredder. When I go grocery shopping, I grab some empty cardboard trays off the shelves. The cardboard is usually thinner than cardboard from a box. If I run low, I'll raid a dumpster for a box or two.

Line-dried flannel sheets, down comforter, and two pillows on top of each other in plain cotton pillowcases...mmmm, so snuggly... Wait, what?

Oh, for the worms. Right:

So far, I gotta say that the hay and pine needle mix I got from the Christmas tree lot is working awesome. It can absorb a lot of water so it doesn't dry out, but still allows lots of airflow. I have not seen it glom together at all like the shredded cardboard used to. It also has not turned smelly like the coconut coir did. I also feel better because it did not cost me anything, it is diverting material from the landfill (not the recycling stream) and it is not slowly wearing out my mom's shredder behind her back. LOVE IT. Next year I'm gonna buy a silo or something and collect from all pumpkin patches and Christmas tree lots in town.

Other than the usual stuff, I'm liking bottle dividing cardboard in cases of bottles. Some box cardboard can be tough and some even pretty water resistant. The cardboard used inside to keep bottles from hitting each other seems to be a lower grade that just soaks up water. Some of the best non egg carton material I've found for those times I wish I had egg cartons/coffee holder material for water absorption.

It's almost sad in a way :). Due to having a good and high participation recycling program here it's that much harder to scavange. I didn't get one pumpkin because everyone bashed theirs up and put it in the green bin (green organic recycle, blue regular recycle) and I'm not raiding those lol. Can't complain though, my apartment building went from 8 large trash bins (those 6'' high square forklift monsters) of garbage a week to 1 a week and the rest being recycled.

Hi everyone!
The best bedding I have found is aged horse manure mixed with hay. My worm beds are outdoors and on the ground with open bottoms. Old manure piles around here is full of cocoons which "bloom" when conditions are right! When you mix in hay, which holds moisture, air, heat and nutrients, the conditions become right. There is nothing better than "volunteer" worms.

Anyone use rice hulls before? I've heard of real hardcore environmental people using these as a peat replacement in soil mixes. It seems to defeat the purpose of the worm bin as this requires special ordering and extensive shipping.

Anyway I've only ever used crosscut shredded newsprint and some torn up egg cartons or corrugated . This is for all three months of my bins.

Worms4Tracy: That sounds like bedding for my zone 4 more than bedding for southern California.

My favorite bedding is anything that is free
;)

But I think my wormies like corrugated cardboard and shredded leaves best.

my worms luuuv old leaves mixed with a bit of straw - not too much straw, maybe 10% or so just enough to keep the leaves from packing too much.

i set up the summer bin lined with those cardboard egg cartons with the shiny paper labels torn off. then i pile on the leaves-straw and they are good for a couple of months.

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Anyone use rice hulls before? I've heard of real hardcore environmental people using these as a peat replacement in soil mixes. It seems to defeat the purpose of the worm bin as this requires special ordering and extensive shipping.
Anyway I've only ever used crosscut shredded newsprint and some torn up egg cartons or corrugated . This is for all three months of my bins.
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I have tried like the dickens to get rice hulls--they are also supposed to be a great amendment for clay soil, but I believe the availability is regional. Since I live in corn country and not rice country, I'd need to buy a tractor-trailer load to make the shipping costs work out less than the product.

I'm sure that they would be great for worms though.

Sometimes if I work with a local garden store, I can get them to bring in bulk bags of mixes or fertilizers that I want for free freight (it comes on their regular truck). The last time I checked, the owner didn't know what rice hulls were. But maybe they're getting more popular now.

I love Tracy's idea of a silo for collecting all that nice bedding material and worm food!

I'm just going to start vemicomposting in the next few weeks. I'm learinga lot from this forum
thank you

I use a variety of stuff including but not limited to:
Shredded office paper
shredded newspaper
Shredded cardboard
Leaves
Coir
Well rotted horse manure
Peat Moss

I guess my favorite would be a cardboard/coir mixture.

I generally use a mixture of coir cut with shredded, black inked only, newspaper. (I actually put it through our paper shredder.) I have used egg cartons and brown paper when I want to take the time to cut them into small pieces. A great resource for worm farming is the book, "Worms Eat My Garbage" by Mary Appelhof.