Back in January I made a brief post about my compost tumbler being full of worms…and by worms I don’t mean red wigglers, but earthworms.
Who cares?
Well, I’ve decided it’s time to pay tribute to earthworms again, because they’re often confused with red wigglers and their purposes get mixed up.
Red wigglers are super resilient (e.g. temperature changes, crowding), live in organic material and have a serious appetite…they make the most sense in a full-on vermicomposting setup- anything from a super cheap/simple worm bin to the popular Worm Factory or Worm Inn options.
Red wigglers aren’t a guaranteed solution for your compost tumbler- it just depends on if they can adjust to the habitat.
It’s getting tumbled weekly and can get very hot- not necessarily hot enough to kill worms, but they can simply exit through the vent and hang around nearby if the conditions are more favorable.
There were a few times where I thought I had killed off the worms in the tumbler while it was active, but they just came back a little later instead, along with earthworms:
My tumbler has been sitting “idle” for a couple months now and each time I take a peek, I find earthworms in there. They came up through the bottom of my tumbler and have been burrowing their way through the material, speeding up the end process.
Earthworms are soil dwelling worms that will assist in further breaking down of compost into neutral, balanced soil. To have soil dwelling worms in my compost seems like a good indicator of the material at this stage.
So if you’re looking in your compost pile one day and see some worms in there, they’re perfectly suitable for improving your near-finished compost.