I would like to have worms around here so when I go fishing, I don't have to drive a far distance and buy them. I googled, and they say to lay a refrigerator on its side and use that for a home. Fill it with good dirt they describe. Keep it in a cool shady place and keep moist. How hard is it to just get some going in the garden and dig some up when one needs them? Or is it better to have a fridge thing and have a good habitat for them? Just how hard are they to get going and keep going?
Steve
Not difficult at all, though it will take a few weeks to get your first "crop" of worms.
Google "worm farm" -- you'll find lots of worm farms who will sell you worms by the 100's or 1,000's, or, you can by worm egg cases.
I built a new house last summer, moved in in July. Built six raised beds, 12 ft X 12 ft. Purchased 500 worm egg cases. Filled the boxes with half-and-half topsoil and compost (several tons, delivered in dumb truck, moved one wheelbarrow load at a time !!). Raked in the worm cases, which hatched, and now I have worms all over the place.
You will quickly discover that it's a lot less bother and much less costly to simply spend the couple of bucks now and again to buy worms when you go fishing... it only pays to become a worm farmer if you intend to make it a full time business and market worms, mostly wholesale to those like where you buy your worms. Anyway, you're a gardening failure, you can't even grow a head of lettuce, how are you going to grow woims. Somehow you remind me of that weird movie Squirm... Steven B. Squirm! LOL
I have an elderly friend who keeps garden worms in polystyrene containers in his garage. I don't know if he harvests them from his garden or breeds tham so that is no help to you. I do know that he keeps them in moist soil with a moist hessian (burlap) sack on the top and just before we go out to fish, he furkles aroudn in there and shove a few into an old margarine container along with some soil and off we all go.
You could try harvesting some from the garden and doing as he does because you might have problems finding then in the garden just when you want them.
I have several areas with rotting leaves directly on the ground that have nightcrawlers, perfect for fishing. Also, compost is loaded with large worms, big and fat. Make a pile (at least a cubic yard) of organic material (50/50 green/brown) directly on the ground, introduce a few nightcrawlers and in a month or so you will have enough worms for fishing and more. Taking care of worms indoors is also possible, though more bother than it's worth.
It is fairly easy to buy some fishing worms and put them in a garden plot. If the soil is good, they will multiply quickly. You can get nightcrawlers at a lot of convenience stores. There is also an elderly resident on Tryon Road just West of Lake Wheeler that sells fishing worms. He usually has a 'fishing worms' sign in his front yard. It doesn't take a lot. Then you just go out with a spade and dig them up. Works for me. Never have a problem finding plenty of fishing worms.
Years ago a friend buried a car tire (on its side) nearly to the top. He softened the dirt, added compost and a few worms and kept it watered occasionally. In a short time he had more fishing worms within the tire than he could possibly use in a lifetime. IIRC, he had no problem keeping then over the winter.
gloria p
You could have just as easily began with "Once upon a time... and long ago".
(on its side) nearly to the top.
I find it interesting how each and every responder talks about someone they know but none have actually farmed worms themselves... a lot of misinforming "can you top this" barroom talk. I wonder how many related that Magic Tire story before you heard it... there is no way a tire in of itself can attract/contain more worms in a piece of ground than had there been no tire.
A lot of people here have had worm farms but the OP asked about garden worms and growing garden worms. Worm farm worms are not garden worms.
The OP asked about earth worms as fishing bait, those are most assuredly the garden variety earthworms. Earthworms are not easily farmed in all soil types nor in all climates... if one lives in arid Utah they had best forget DIY and buy from a bait store. Where I live in upstate NY fishing is as popular a pastime as anywhere on the planet. Worms are easy to grow in NY's rich deep topsoil (a lot depends on weather conditions), after a rainy night before the sun is up I can go out with a flashlight and pick all the huge night crawlers I want off my blacktop driveway, but still most buy worms, at like $1.50 a container there's more than enough for two people to fish all day... worms are readily available in just about every town, typically sold at gas stations. If one wants to farm worms as a business or even as a hobby fine, but it makes no economic sense for just ones own fishing, and any left over worms can live in ones beer fridge for at least four days.
LOL, but true. It does depend on what you put within the tyre. ;-)
I have two 240l worm farms with compost worms. I feed them with kitchen scraps, ground up egg shells, vegetable peelings, coffee grounds and grass clippings etc.
Seeing I had a few smaller worm farms now redundant which were empty because I was no longer using them, I thought I would experiment by introducing ordinary garden worms into one of them.
I first had to attract garden worms and a tyre would have been excellent choice but I didn't have one so I used a large foam container which I cut the bottom out of then dug a hole in a relatively cool position in my garden and placed the foam container deep in the hole. I half filled the foam container with grass clippings then put a couple of sheets of newspaper across and added a bucket of water.
I now empty the teapot and coffee grounds into the foam container regularly keeping it moist and after two weeks there is worm activity. Because I have two dogs I'm limited to what I can put into the foam container, for example if I put vegetable peelings in, the dogs would probably start digging it up investigating.
The two different types of worms need to be treated differently ie: compost worms can withstand high temperatures whereas normal garden worms can't exist in high temperatures. So the experiment is still on-going.
Hmm, pretty simple to obtain used tires, anywhere that sells tires would be thrilled for somone to take all the discards they want.
But a container with a completely open bottom is not very condusive for worm farming, what's needed is a container with a lot of small holes in its bottom, so that once the worms enter or are introduced more tend to remain than leave. A tire is not a very good choice either, for the same reason. Those large plastic storage tubs one finds for cheap at discount emporiums work very well... and they should be placed one upon the other.
then dug a hole in a relatively cool position in
Hmm, were a vermiculturist really desirous how difficult would it be to protect a tiny foam container from dog's digging with a piece of wire cloth. Many years ago as a young teen I raised tropical fish, so to cut feeding costs I started a worm farm... you really can't grow worms very successfully in a foam container. For a steady all year supply it's best to have ones worm farm indoors, I kept mine in the basement, but there was no plastic back then, I used discarded icebox liners (galvanized), back then an icebox was miniscule compared to today's behemoths (the big worm farms used old wooden barrels). Today plastic tubs are cheap, plastic contractor's buckets would work well because they are stackable, they're strong, they even have carrying handles. Were I to farm worms now I would definitely choose contractor's buckets, or better yet I have like two dozen cat litter buckets saved, I use them to store my compost. But for my own fishing needs I wouldn't consider growing my own worms, it's far less bothersome and infinitely less costly to buy worms at any fish bait station. Next week my five year old grandson will be arriving to spend a few days in the country before he begins kindergarten, the first thing we do when he arrives, even before we get home is stop at the Sunoco station in town for worms. For a buck fifty he gets a big handful of wriggly woims in a plastic container, more than he will ever use fishing in my pond.
What kid doesn't like to go fishing:
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.