Epsom Salts, Magnesium Sulfate, are touted as a magic elixar by many but the reality is they do not do what is promised. Maybe, possibly, if the soil is deficient in Magnesium or Sulfur, or both, Epsom Salts might be of some help but not in the usually dose of 1 tablespoon per gallon of water. At that strength there is not enough of either Mg or S to begin to make much difference. With 10 percent Magnesium and 13 percent Sulfur one tablespoon of the product will do little for a deficiency, one would need pounds to make a difference. If the gardens soil does have a deficiency of Magnesium then an application of Dolomitic Lime would be of more use. If the soil is deficient of Sulfur then an application of elemental Sulfur would be of more value, using a good reliable soil test as a guide for application. Adding organic material to the soil will also help. Perhaps this article will be of some help, http://puyallup.wsu.edu/~Linda%20Chalker-Scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/Myths/Epsom%20salts.pdf I can find nothing on what, if any, adverse affects Epsom Salts might have on earthworms, but since it is also recommended for use as an insecticide there most likely will be harm to them. kimmq is kimmsr

In a flow through bin, you add new food and bedding to the top surface of the bin every day, and remove finished vermicompost from the bottom every day. Eggs laid near the top surface of the bin will eventually work their way down toward the bottom. A flow through bin needs to be deep enough to allow the eggs to hatch and the worms to move up in the bedding before the layer they are in is removed from the bottom of the bin. Typically, a flow though bin is built deep enough to allow for 20 to 30 days for new food added to the top surface work down to the bottom of the bin. FWIW, I never find cocoons on the top surface of my bin. find them wherever the worms are most active. What depth that is depends on how much fresh bedding there is on the top surface of the bin. The cloth that you cover your bin with provides a dark, moist, oxygen-rich environment underneath it, so you have a lot of worm activity there. AT least, that is my guess.

Bio-accumulation means that the organism *absorbs* more of a substance into its tissues than it loses -- that it is a net sink for that substance. If your worms really were bio-accumulators for toxins, in the short run they would be helping you by taking stuff out of the compost, though of course in the long run they die and their little corpses are reabsorbed in the compost. The worms are probably not a factor in this story one way or the other. You could still hypothesize that toxins leach directly out of plastic bins into the compost, and are not broken down by bacteria either in the compost or in the worms' guts. Anyway, I'm all for building stuff out of wood, partly because you can customize size and shape. Best of luck with the joinery, and don't worry about dryness, which you can control pretty easily. I am a little worried though that the design sounds like a simple wooden box with no provision for water to flow through. Unless you're raking it up quite a bit and using lots of coir and whatnot, you're setting yourself up for a pretty funky bin -- especially since you want this indoors. One advantage of flow-through designs is that water (in the form of lovely worm tea) trickles down, and you're less likely to get the excessive wetness that can get you bad smells (and rot a wooden bin quickly). Oh, and I really wouldn't worry about mineral oil in this application. It's widely prescribed as a laxative -- people drink the stuff! So the trace amounts that will go from bin to compost, and then from compost into your vegetables, are pretty low on the list of hazards to you.

wfike, are you adding wood shavings to improve the texture of the casts or to help aerate the bedding? I've read, and surmise, that wood shavings take a long time to break down, so I'm assuming you aren't adding them as feedstock, am I figuring this correctly? I've also read, from several older vermi books (and the Vermiculture_FarmersManual), that horse manure by itself is not the best feed, but that cattle manure is good. Do you mix the 2 as feedstock and bedding? I guess what I'm trying to understand is whether you use horse manure as feedstock and feel it is an adequate feed by itself. I added soaked, torn corrugated cardboard to the horse manure because I'd read that it has excellent nutrition due to the high-protein glue that is used to hold the layers together. Another advantage that corrugated cb has is it's water absorbancy, so the 2 (horse manure and corrugated cb) mixed together make a good bedding and a good feedstock. But, you know, you can find all sorts of contradictions when comparing books, websites, and opinions...so I'm interested in what you find to be true, based on your experience. Cheryl, I have been freezing the food waste lately. It does seem to speed things up a bit, but there is still the issue of varying amounts of water being released, mold/fungus, and odors if you use too much or have strong smelling foods to vermicompost. I've found that as much as I want to keep food waste from the landfills, it's a lot of aggravation (too much water, mold, fruit flies, fungus gnats, march flies, houseflies, odors..etc), inconvenience (both of my freezers are half full of food waste for the worms, leaving only half for my own food), and guess-work involved in feeding food waste to the worms. Now, if I didn't have access to horse manure and corrugated cardboard, I would still use primarily food waste. But since I do have access to those materials, I much prefer using them. I have encountered very few issues/problems using horse manure and corrugated cb. So, I ease my conscious by reminding myself that these 2 items would have been dumped in a landfill somewhere, had I not taken them. I still plan on freezing some food waste to use as trench feedings in my raised beds. This practice has eliminated all issues/problems with using food waste because it is buried 4-6" under the soil, and I have many worms in my raised beds who process this food quickly (and thank me for the cold stuff when it's hot outside). The junk mail I use are advertisements for credit cards, various insurance, and a hodgepodge of solicitations. I just remove them from the envelope and tear into strips that could be used as bedding (I put them in the compost crate, so they will be partially composted by the time the worms get to it). I don't use glossy papers, not because they are bad for the worms, but because they take forever to break down and I don't like the look of them in the compost. The Vermiculture FarmersManual recommends shredding cardboard that has a waxed coating, so I assume wax is safe to use if shredded or had the wax seal broken in some other fashion . I've read that oils are not good for worms (I assume oil would smother them since they breath thru their skin), but I wouldn't think a small amount would be harmful. The boxes that you have should be fine. Most of the corrugated cardboard that I use has colored printing on it and I haven't noticed any problems with it (the majority of people say that most inks are soy based now). I also use shredded office paper in the indoor bin I just created, and to absorb water from the barrel bins outside when rain has been heavy, and that paper has been thru laser printers. I haven't seen any ill effects from any of the paper products I have used. Welcome to the thread, Cheryl. I look forward to reading about your experiences in the vermi-world.