How to pick your Composting Worms for your worm composting bins

You can't go wrong with deciding to raise composting worms and have a worm composting bin inside your house in the kitchen for your table scraps or outside for your lawn's organic garden wastes. There will be no major downside on keeping composting worms but only benefits as worms will cut down on your throwing of garbage, they're great in keeping your garden soil conditioned and will do wonders in enhancing your garden soil's fertility.

Red Wiggler worms for Composting worms

Red Wiggler worms (Eisenia Foetida) also known common names are branding worms, red worms, tiger worms and manure worms are very popular as composting worms because of their adaptation on organic decaying materials they thrive on. They are dark-brownish-red in color, it is very active, wiggles a lot when disturbed and produces a pungent slime when placed on dry surfaces or threatened. Red Wiggler worms are popular because of their efficiency in worm composting. As long as there's an abundance of organic waste as food, they can eat up to 1 and a half times their own body weight in 24 hours and can produce worm castings as much as 75% of their own body weight. Red Wiggler worms as composting worms will burrow no deeper than 12" from the soil's surface and are classified as Epigeic worms making them very ideal for worm composting. More prolific in a controlled environment

African Night Crawlers as Composting worms

African Nightcrawlers (Eudrillus eugeniae) also a favorite in worm composting can grow to 6-8" long, usually has a flat belly and a reddish-pink in color. These worms are very heat tolerant; they are well adapted in regions with tropical or subtropical climates that they can actually withstand as much as 100+F but won't tolerate low temperatures. African Nightcrawlers seem to thrive on temperatures from 80 to 100 F. Outdoors, worm composting bins with African Nightcrawlers must have a lid, flooding their burrows with too much water or rain will really make them crawl. More prolific in a controlled environment like worm farms

Canadian Night Crawlers as Composting worms

Measuring up to 14 inches (35.6 cm) Canadian Night Crawlers are large and distinctively chubby amongst worms, they are more preferred as fishing worms because of their size and thickness that can be easily threaded on hooks and can last up to 5 minutes submerged. One problem with Canadian Nightcrawlers is that they can't survive temperatures higher than 65 °F (18.3 °C) Therefore, while fishing, it is best to keep them refrigerated and avoid having them or its container soak up the sun. Canadian nightcrawlers will not survive on conventional worm bin environments because of the temperature that will eventually rise inside the worm bin, so when keeping them, make sure you have the right materials to use on your worm composting bin.

Gray Night Crawlers as Composting worms

These composting worms are usually commercially grown in sand and peat moss. They are easy to raise and will quickly grow about 4 inches (10cm) in length average. They are gray-pinkish and will violently wiggle when disturbed or feel threatened.

Depending how "hardcore" you want your composting worms for your worm composting bin, you should be familiar on how to recognize a specie from another. Some of these worms are commercially available in your local stores and all composting worm species can be ordered online; just make sure to order from a reputable online worm farm store.

• www.unclejimswormfarm.com

  Visit Uncle Jim's worm farm for everything about Red Wiggler worms and Worm Composting.We sell worms for composting: Red Wigglers, African Night Crawlers, Canadian Night Crawlers and Gray Night Crawlers. We also provide products for organic gardening

• www.gardenworms.com

  Your number one online resource for composting or for organic gardening supplies. We offer a variety of quality vermicomposting equipment including red worms, compost bins, organic fertilizer, organic weed control and organic pest control. Go Green!

Uncle Jim is an expert on Red Wiggler worms. Raising them for more than 20 years now, he has been promoting the importance of the roles that the worms play in our environment. That's why he chose raising Red Wiggler worms in a farm to share and promote the benefits of these nature's little wonders!

Uncle Jim's seasoned knowledge about worms and gardening has developed many tools for worm composting and gardening that are based on 20 years of experience.