So I was intrigued by this claim the first time I heard it and thought about the 21 days and huge profit and "Feed the World" possibilities. So I tried it a few times with several varieties and solutions. 3 weeks is extremely short for lettuce and I even felt that 5 weeks would be absolutely amazing. I have since settled down and realized that with lettuce production, it is profitable regardless of the length of the cycle. Fact is the 21 days could easily be applied to the transplanted seedlings as others on here have suggested. I can and have gotten transplanted Romaine seedlings to market quality and size in 14 days. The problem I have is the seed to transplant size, which I have only been able to cut to 5 weeks. (If I am lucky.) Good news is that the plants are small when they are in this stage so the real estate they occupy is much smaller. So being a lover of round numbers I have constructed my current garden and all designs for the future green houses around a total 10 week cycle. 7 weeks in the seedling stage and 3 in the transplanted stage. I get that we all want to utilize every possible inch for maximum production on the shortest most predictable schedule. I hope to gain at least the 3 weeks I cushioned back as I become more automated and the formulation is honed. Reducing the total time to 7 weeks would be ideal and I believe that 5 weeks may be possible if I add C02 emitters but believe that this would add significantly to the cost per head and do not think that I will develop a business case for this addition for several years because my production is still aimed at the hundreds of heads per week rather than the 10's of thousands of heads per week. I am just too small currently.

Chuckiebtoo - I appreciate both your love of worms and the processes associated with using them for 'composting'. However, based on a growing body of reading-based 'knowledge' and a small but growing bit if first-hand experience, I don't share your "almost magic" perspective of what worm guts do. While there is little - but some - doubt on my part about the "fact" that worm-gut-processing does indeed "add" some beneficial component to the output, I am beginning to strongly suspect this is yet another in a long and growing list of "scientific facts" that is technically/scientifically "true", but practically/real-life exaggerated. In order to illustrate my point and attempt to demonstrate that I am not just being "contrary", let me provide an example in a completely different field. Some years back - over 2-decades - a graduate student working in completing their Master's degree in fisheries performed a perfunctory examination of the effects of "over-crowding" spawners in a couple of TINY streams in the state of Washington. As part of the requirements for a Master's degree in fisheries, one must produce and "publish" the work at least through the university's press.The field work was "good" and the results were unambiguous: It was scientifically "true" that above a certain density, increased fish numbers resulted in reduced production. The scientific explanation was not complex: increased numbers of spawners meant that fish were constructing their redds (salmon 'nests') on top of previous spawner's nests, and thereby destroying the first one. Sounds perfectly "reasonable", and there was not doubt about the "scientific" fact. However... "More fish "allowed" in the river means LESS fish production" was a clarion-call to commercial fishermen. They could now claim the SCIENTIFIC "high ground" and DEMAND that fisheries managers prevent "over-escapement" by allowing the commercial fishermen to catch more fish out in the ocean before they reached the spawning streams and "harmed" the stock. Commercial fishermen are among the most politically powerful groups in the natural resource exploitation/management community. They were very capable of hiring "scientists" (in this case AKA "biostitutes") to "verify" the "scientific proof of the "danger" of "over-escapement", Soon - VERY SOON - "over-escapement was the watchword for every government "scientist/fisheries manager" in the Pacific Northwest. In fact, it became - BY LAW - a requirement that the state fisheries managers incorporate "over-escapement" prevention in the state's salmon management plan. Where's the 'flaw' in the above, "you" ask? The "science" was performed in an excruciatingly small "piece of the world". TWO, SMALL (you could STEP across them), streams in the Puget Sound drainage. Secondly, ALL subsequent "science" performed around the subject was directed at "proving" the concept of "over-escapement", NOT TESTING/CHALLENGING IT, which is exactly what Science, REAL Science, is supposed to do! In fact, when a few scientists tried to point out the error of applying the result of a VERY small scale scientific project to a GLOBAL scale, they were shouted down. To put it mildly. The result has been a STEADY decline in salmon production in the State of Alaska. The almost complete collapse of salmon fisheries in California, Oregon, and Washington. I am reminded of "What are you going to believe, me (the "scientist") or your lying eyes." By the way, when confronting the voodoo witch-doctors - aka fisheries scientist proponents of "over-escapement - I would ask; "What did all these salmon do before we humans came along to "help" them with their "over-escapement" problems? True to their form, those witch-doctors raised up in violent anger, but had to initially tuck tail and run. However, as is so desperately sad with today's "science", they simply went off and schemed an explanation. It goes like this. "What we are doing is "leveling" the peaks and valleys in the long-term population trends, thereby assuring a STABLE SOURCE OF SALMON FOR THE COMMERCIAL SALMON FISHERIES. (Emphasis mine.) This rationalization - by way of "science" - is the bread and butter of the priests of the religion of science that pervade the scientific community today. They can "explain" ANYTHING they want to, and when challenged, simply retort to laymen that it is "too complicated" for "you" to understand, and simply screech "Heretic" at those that have the technical ability and credentials to point out the obvious flaws in their ecclesiastical assertions. Was all the subsequent "science"of "over-escapement" "peer-reviewed"? Yes, at least most of it. Was all the subsequent "science" published in a "peer-reviewed" journal of "SCIENCE"? Most of it, yes. Was all of that peer-review highly corrupt? MOST OF IT, YES! And so goes most of what I have seen in the past 40+ years as a professional "scientist". I "see" the same sort of thing with worm "tea", worm "compost", and other "scientific" "facts" about the "magic" of worms. Is there "scientific proof" that the "output" of a worm's gut is "better" than the "input". Yes in proper context. Is there a MOUNTAIN of evidence that such "betterness" is something less than the "magic" so widely claimed? Yes, also I would assert. Having said all of the above, I am perfectly "fine" with using terms like "magic" to report on surprising results we all observe in our hobbies and personal passions. I do it myself. As Arthur C. Clarke is quoted as saying: Any technology sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic. So, I appreciate your enthusiasm for the beneficial effects of "worming"; I acknowledge that the "scientific "truth" " of those "facts" are "scientifically" undeniable, but I am increasingly convinced that the magnitude of those effects are greatly exaggerated when applied to the "real world". In the case of the topic of this thread, I remain comfortable with suggesting to fulofwin that all of the extra effort of "worming" MAY not produce the "magic" results he/she has read/heard about. I believe he/she is probably capable of evaluating the relative merits of the comments he/she receives in his thread regardless of who posts them. I don't think you and I disagree as much as it might appear. I think the primary difference in our points of views is a matter of degree: You "love" worms, and I just "like" them. Paul This post was edited by pskvorc on Wed, Aug 27, 14 at 14:40

I went in last night for a midnight foray to view worms, and now have some observations to make and assumptions I have to change. I had assumed I had received several juveniles when I received my quart of compost and worms, but now have to revise my figures of breeding adults upwards. First, on the size of the worms...I had thought that three inches was a good sized juvenile. Now, after observing the worms last night, my adults seem to be starting at around three inches in length, and can increase in size up to about four inches and a quarter, at best. Perhaps they continue to grow in length as they get older? Most of my adults were short and fat! not at all what I had thought to see. What I had previously considered juveniles were adults. The juveniles I observed last night seem to be downwards of the three inches, and the smallest I saw last night was just over an inch long. I am judging the age of the worm on the lack of part which creates the cocoon, the clitellum. http://biology.unm.edu/ccouncil/Biology_203/Images/Protostomes/earthworm.gif If it's clitellum was visible in any way, the worm was three inches long or greater, and was in the actual process or had just completed the process of reproduction. Now~ I did not go into more than about a third of the bin last night, wanting to leave most of the worms unmolested, mainly just wanting to make an estimate for feeding purposes. I discovered that all but two of the fifteen worms over 3" in length had egg cocoons, the two which didn't were good sized and had apparently either not begun breeding or had just shed their cocoon. Every other adult worm had a cocoon of some sort, though, and one was so obviously 'pregnant' I was surprised it hadn't shed it's cocoon. Some were actually in the process of shedding theirs, even though the cocoon was smaller than the one's I saw which was simply huge. On every adult I saw but one there was an outline of a cocoon sac, even if it was flat against the worm, and that was only on one of them. Perhaps it had just shed it's sac, or was beginning a new one, I was uncertain of this. Observations? That even though I had just added another quart of newspaper shreddings, and another double handful of red oak leaf litter to the top of the previous bedding, worms were now in the top layer and munching away. In the lower part of the compost, while there were about two thirds of the worms I had observed, most were in the middle layer. All but a very small amount of leaf litter from the initial bedding was consumed, about half the newspaper from the initial bedding was not identifiable, and the dark compost matter in the bin had increased considerably from the two trowelfuls of potting soil and sand I had thrown in with the initial bedding. The only food left I saw was a shred of banana peel and the onion skin, and this was from Saturday when I had made up new bedding for the bin! I am not up to spotting cocoons in the dark by flashlight yet, (hope I can be soon!) but out of the twenty five worms I saw in the third of the compost, I had fifteen adults, of which 13 were actually in the process of reproducing. This is far greater in numbers than I had initially anticipated! I need to continue adding soggy newspaper shreddings to the leaf litter I add to the bin. The worms need and enjoy the excess moisture, the leaf litter is way too dry to use only that. Even with soggy newspaper mixed in thoroughly the leaf litter was very dry. I am going to increase feedings to the bin as a result of what I saw. First, with the breeding population having such a good time reproducing, they obviously need more food. Secondly, I can't be feeding them enough if the leaf litter has been consumed that quickly by that few a number of worms. Remember, I only had about forty to begin with, and only about ten were larger than 3". I will have to take the increased feedings slowly, but imagine that having seen such a population explosion within the last month, (at least a third greater than what went into the bin, and a much increased adult population than what I had initially believed) they are going to need the food to support themselves. It does mean I was correct in tipping the bin and increasing the bedding amounts slowly enough to support the worms finding one another for reproduction. Very interesting~these little critters are more entertaining than I would have imagined! Gina

I agree with Joe; the extraordinarily good info and wonderful people here make every other website I've looked at seem boring; besides, the info in other places often tends to be redundant or (more troubling) wrong! (Even the much-loved Worms Eat My Garbage book has a fair amount of somewhat misleading info in it.) Reading this website regularly not only answers all your questions, but demonstrates quite decisively that there are lots and lots of perfectly successful ways to pursue this fun hobby; that so long as the basics are met, the details are quite flexible; and that you can tweak your set up to enhance your own personal goals from the system (whether it's worm breeding, compost-producing, waste recycling, or a combination of all three). And the absolute absence of flamers is so refreshing! We couldn't even get a good fight going over the dog poop issue! That said, I have found the photographs in other websites useful; especially since Cass stopped posting her pictures (where did you go, Cass?) we've had kind of a dearth of good close-ups, and they can be very helpful. Maybe we should try to start a Photo Gallery?