Worm castings are pricey. They are the best soil additive, except for the liquid which comes from worm bins. I would suggest that you purchase worms, and put them in your garden, Caroline. That is what I did when I first moved to NM. It was late fall, so I kept the worm bin in the house until spring. By then I had had a chance to add soil amendments so the worms would have something to eat. Worms cannot thrive in poor soil. My worms have multiplied and spread themselves. During winter they burrow deep into the earth, about eighteen inches. Lorna

Yes plants will grow in a worm bin. This is how i get my wifes avocado seeds to sprout and other plants that i may find desirable. The only deterrent is that most fruit, vegetables, and flowers you buy in a supermarket are hybridized, so you never know what will come out. Having said this I routinely grow potatoes in my worm bins. I eat ALOT of potatoes and this offers a great year round growing medium. I have never found a good bin to be odorous ... however my fater in law mentions the smell of worm waste when i open my bins in his presence. Knowing a good carpenter can turn a worm bin into a potential coffee table or piece of good furniture. There is a reason vermicastings are called black gold. Personally i never have enough to want to sell it to other people. Good friends and familiy get it during the growing season to spur their plants into great production. Vermicastings alone should not burn your plants. However, if the worms were fed mainly manure then the salt content in the vermicastings can and will burn your plants. Coming from an area with already high salt concentrations in the soil (near the Great Salt Lake), I always mix pure castings at LEAST 50/50. Bryan

I like my Can-O-Worms very much. I keep it indoor. Use coconut coir for the bedding. Feed veggie kitchen scraps. No meat or cooked food. It is a low maintenance bin. The worms do migrate up to the next level for food. They don't all go up. They do have preferences where they're the most comfortable. The trays have different functions. Some come with two trays and some with three. You start with one tray, feed until the tray looks like it has more compost then bedding, then you start the next tray on top. You then only feed the top tray and the older tray finish up. The worms will then move up to the new tray for food and then you can harvest the old tray and start a new feeding tray on top. If you have three trays then you can compost more food with more worms and get more compost. I have the two tray system. It's easy to harvest. I bring the trays outside in bright light. Put the finished tray on top of the working tray. Fluff up the compost. The worms remaining in this tray will move down to join the rest of their family in the working tray. Scoop out layers of worm-free compost until done. The compost is light, fluffy like chocolate cake crumbs. There are cocoons in this compost. I pick out the cocoons I see and throw them back in the working tray. I start a new working tray with coir, sand, and pulverized egg shells. I feed only in this new tray and let the worms finish eating through the old tray and migrate up. I harvest when the old tray looks like chocolate cake crumbs, sometimes every six weeks if I've been feeding regularly. Sometimes I go six months between harvests. I like the drain spigot. I do leave it open all the time with a container underneath to catch drips. There is always extra liquid when i feed watermelon rinds. I don' t add extra water or bedding. I dig a hole in the coir, dump in scraps and cover. No fruit flies. No mites. Occasional potworms. The legs are spindly and can tip the bin over if you klutzy and bump it too hard. The aeration screens at the leg housing can let liquid through. I cover the five leg aeraration screens with plastic because I didn't like the puddles of dark worm leachate on my laundry room floor. The trays can get heavy to carry around for harvesting. Wheels on the COW would be a big improvement. I prefer the COW over the Rubbermaid bins. I started with those based on "Worms Eat My Garbage". They were relatively cheap and easy to make. Those were a pain to manage. Sticky gooey like compost. Smelly bottom leachate bin. A lot more work to harvest. If you want a lazy no maintenance vermicomposting system dig a pit outdoors and throw in your scraps. Vermicompost on, however you want to. There is no wrong way, just find the method that works for you. Vermicomposter for over 10 years, Wormsical.

Well, a cardboard box works. The place where I got my worms lines a small cardboard box with several layers of newspaper and then puts some worms/bedding into the box. Finally folding the newspaper over the top and sealing up the box. Carefull about shipping your live worms accross the north in winter. They could freeze if sitting in a freezing location too long. I don't think putting them in a plastic container is such a good idea, cardboard is insulating and breathable and should survive priority mail shipping with worms. The cardboard can also be placed directly into the buyers worm bin.