About a month after part 2, due to some subtle pressure, I moved the worm bin outside.  After that, the only maintenance I did was to move the worm bin from flagstone to a garden bed when the weather got cold (so the worms had the option to find greener pastures, so to speak).

After a year of almost total neglect, the worms weren’t doing so well.  I looked through the bin, and only saw a couple of them.  I was also moving, so I added the contents of the hair worm bin to my large outside bin:

Human hair added to worm bin

You can see that the hair is partially decomposed, but definitely, 1.5 years after I started the experiment, not totally converted to castings, even though the environment looked pretty worm friendly (not too wet, not too dry, dark).

This leads me to the conclusion that pure human hair is not a good feedstock for worms.  I think it clumps up too much, has difficulty absorbing water, and break down quickly (“[m]icroorganisms [need to] soften the food before worms will eat it”).  However, I have added hair into my larger worm bin and had it get processed fairly quickly, so I think some hair is fine to add (for example, the hair seems to have disappeared from my outside bin, based on a brief inspection).  Just don’t overdo it.

Google books has a preview online, and there are two pages devoted to creating a worm bin in a 2L plastic bottle.  They tell you just enough to whet your appetite, though:

Worms play a major role in breaking down plant matter and creating fertile soil.  Earthworms eat fallen leaves and other plant parts.  Their droppings, or “castings,” fertilize the soil. … Observe wonderful worm activity yourself by building a worm column.

Could you tell me what the likelihood of mature vermicast containing plant diseases originating in leaves used as feedstock? I know that properly produced worm tea suppresses/fights plant diseases when applied to plants. However, I read on line that Australian standards for vermicast require some degree of pasteurization of feedstocks for mature vermicast. I appreciate any help you can give me with this.

Also, can worm coccoons drown in worm tea?

Thanks.

Melissa, thanks for writing in!  I am afraid I don’t have any firm answers to either of your questions.

First off, as you know, worm composting does not reach the high temperatures that normal composting does.  That heat is what kills plant diseases.  While redworms have shown effectiveness in dealign with human pathogens, and vermicompost helped supress several plant diseases [PDF], I was unable to find anything directly attacking the problem you have: feedstock infected with a plant disease.  If I were looking to sell the vermicompost, or use it on food plants that would come in contact with it, I would make some first and getit tested for the particular disease that was in the feedstock.  Then, depending on that result, you could always start by hot composting the feedstock first.  (As an aside, here’s an interesting abstract showing the finished product of worm composting and hot composting end up with dramatically different types of bacteria populations.)

Second, I’m not sure whether or not worm cocoons can drown.  I found several references on the web to viable worm cocoons floating, but when I put a worm cocoon in water, it sank.  I found other conflicting references.  Again, in searching, I found some interesting facts (some worm cocoons can survive -8 degree celsius (-22 F) for 3 months, cocoons dehydrate at lower temperatures) but no authoritative studies on the survival characteristics of redworm cocoons.  Here’s a forum post from the author of “Worms Eat My Garbage” which indicates that cocoons are not hurt by water:

I have put dozens of cocoons in Chinese takeout condiment containers with non-chlorinated water covering them (to keep them from drying out). I watch daily to see if any baby worms have hatched overnight.

The safest course would be to sift cocoons out before you make worm tea, or perhaps skim off the bottom layer periodically, since hatched worms are known to die in 100% water environments.

These are both fascinating questions experiments; please let me know if you end up experiementing around either one.

Results are mixed. The hair appears to be breaking down slowly. The worms I added are not dead, but they aren’t doing great either:

My human hair worm bin

Inside my human hair worm bin

Worms are still alive, but not plentiful

Moving the worm bin inside

On the plus side, I’ve noticed no smell.  Whenever I open the box up, I see a great deal of condensation, so I have been adding more scrap paper..  I have not been ripping it up, which may have a negative effect.  But I still see live worms around in there.  So far it has been over six months and there is still a significant amount of hair, but the initial melons are all gone.

There are a number of pages with the mineral content of worm castings, including this one, this one and this one, but I wanted to know what my own castings contained. I don’t doubt that the contents of your bin are going to depend on what you put in it. For example, I’d expect eggshells in the feedstock to increase the calcium content, and crushing those eggshells would probably increase that further.

I decided to contact my local soil testing lab and see what their analysis found. I dug a worm castings from the bottom of my bin and sifted them to remove any large chunks of wood and undecomposed material. I let them dry for a night, placed them in a labeled plastic bag, and filled out a form specifying tests I wanted. I mailed the whole package off to the lab.

Six weeks later, after a phone call to remind the lab I was waiting for results, I received the analysis. Here are the comments from the soil lab:

pH, which was 7.9, was “sufficient for a soil amendment.” Most plants have a pH range they prefer.

Electrical conductivity or salts: “The salts are elevated, however this material can be safely used as a soil amendment if it is used at the recommended application rates.” They didn’t give me recommended application rates, however.

Lime estimate: low, which “indicates less than 1% CaCO3.”

Sodium adsorption ratio (SAR): “Low; sodium is not a problem.”

Everything else tested had “high” levels, including O.M. (Organic Matter), NO3-N (Nitrate-Nitrogen), P (Available Phosphorus), K (Available Potassium), Zn (Available Zinc), Fe (Available Iron), Mn (Available Manganese), and Cu (Available Copper).

Numbers (ppm) and such available in the Full Worm Casting Analysis Report.

Finally, I separated out enough worms to fill half a quart container. Here was my separating setup:

Setup for separating worms from their bedding.

It took about 45 minutes to separate the worms in the picture above. For reference, the trowel in the picture is 11 inches long.

Since I was using excess worms from my bin, my plan is to let the worms eat the hair and turn the entire bedding to castings, and perish. My investment in time and money was minimal, and both bedding and feedstock were free. If the worms turn the materials into castings, this setup could scale quite quickly. This is a summer only option for me, since these bins are water tight, but won’t keep the worms insulated in the winter.

I check on the worms periodically. As of early September, the worms are still going strong. The environment is a bit soggy, which I dealt with by leaving the bin lid ajar, and there’s still plenty of hair and paper towels. The melon rinds have almost fully decomposed, and the worms are spread throughout the bin.

As of late September, the worms are still doing their work, slowly.  The hair is there clearly, but the worms are present in it.  I’ve added some more wet newspaper and towels to the mix.  The bottom is kinda wet, but the whole bin smells fine.

I will update as the decomposition progresses.  When the weather turns cold, I may have to dump everything into the compost bin or bring it inside.