A few weeks back (I know, I'm way behind on things as usual) I harvested the castings out of the composter. The worms seemed to have been pretty busy and things were looking ready. I cleaned out most of two bins and put half a bin worth of castings back in the new tray with the worms that I separated out.
Well, I came down the next morning and found this, the great worm escape of 08. The white stuff in the picture is paper shreds but the rest are (unfortunately) dried up worms that headed out of the bin. They were everywhere. I found a few live ones and popped them back in but I'm afraid many many did not make it.
I had plenty of castings in there and plenty of paper so I know they weren't looking for food, so near as I can tell, it was water that they were after, which is weird cause things were fairly moist at the time. Worms need to be wet in order to breathe so I'm afraid the intrepid few/many set off in search of a little something to wet their whistles. I actually felt quite badly as they had been working so hard for me and here I was dropping the ball on them.
So, point taken, when harvesting form now on, add plenty of water and make sure they have enough to keep them comfortable.
Just goes to show you that it doesn't always go well with things, but if you keep learning, hopefully it'll head that direction in the long run.
Dave
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