Wormy compost

Rancid

My compost bin is up and running more than 3 years. I add only raw vegetable matter, some garden clippings, hedge clippings and some newspaper. No additives, no accelerators at all.
It's yielding the most wonderful compost, soft and dark and very fresh smelling.

When I'm taking it out it's literally full of worms, hundreds visible in each bucketful of compost.
Now maybe this is a weird question: Should I return some of these worms to the compost bin?

I assume there are hundreds (millions!) more in the upper layers of the compost to carry on the process so I probably don't need to worry?

Thanos

Rancid wrote: »

My compost bin is up and running more than 3 years. I add only raw vegetable matter, some garden clippings, hedge clippings and some newspaper. No additives, no accelerators at all.
It's yielding the most wonderful compost, soft and dark and very fresh smelling.

When I'm taking it out it's literally full of worms, hundreds visible in each bucketful of compost.
Now maybe this is a weird question: Should I return some of these worms to the compost bin?

I assume there are hundreds (millions!) more in the upper layers of the compost to carry on the process so I probably don't need to worry?

I have the same thing in my compost. In spring when I am added the compost to the soil I always leave a small amount at the bottom with worms still in it.
It is not needed as they will come back but I always feel its better to have a bunch of them there to carry on the good work.

Rancid

Thanos wrote: »

I have the same thing in my compost. In spring when I am added the compost to the soil I always leave a small amount at the bottom with worms still in it.
It is not needed as they will come back but I always feel its better to have a bunch of them there to carry on the good work.

Yes, if there are that number of worms in the already-composted stuff... there have to be way more higher up in the bin.

I ended up taking the compost out with my hands so that I didn't injure the worms.

dardevle

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if you ensure that in the days before you are emptying the compost out,to first add some upper layers of fresh material then the bulk of the worms present will migrate up to this bedding material, so you won't be removing so many with the compost....the worms that carry out the composting (brandling worms) do not survive in the soil for very long after you move them as they have different requirments to earthworms.





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Rancid

dardevle wrote: »

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if you ensure that in the days before you are emptying the compost out,to first add some upper layers of fresh material then the bulk of the worms present will migrate up to this bedding material, so you won't be removing so many with the compost....the worms that carry out the composting (brandling worms) do not survive in the soil for very long after you move them as they have different requirments to earthworms..

I add a bucketful to the bin every second day, and it's full to the brim. I dig it down about once a week.
I've never bought worms so is it still possible that I have brandling worms?
I assumed that the worms in my garden just found their way into the compost bin and increased and multiplied.