Limitations of the Worm Box

So I noticed early on that a number of the worms had found their way into the collecting tray.  This part of the worm box is sloped to (a) collect the liquid portion of the worm waste and allow it to be decanted off, and (b) to allow the worms to find their way back into the main working tray.  I put them back and have since found that every couple days I need to check the tray to collect the stray worms.

A couple days ago my attention was drawn to a new book by vermicompost enthusiast, Sandra Wiese.  It's called, The Best Place for Garbage and is available from most booksellers in both electronic and paper editions.  Amazon offers the first 2 sections as a "sample", so I downloaded it to my IPod Touch and spent an enjoyable time reading it!  In just this first part of the book, she already addressed my worms-in-the-collecting-tray problem. 

It was in the section about housing -- specifically the limitations of my chosen vermicomposting vessel.  She says that worms don't actually know where the food is.  They wander blindly through the substrate, eating and pooing as they go.  If they happen to drop down into the tray, it isn't unpleasant, it's actually rather nice, so they have no motivation to escape nor any inkling of which way to go.  Wiese indicates that eventually they either drown in the compost tea or starve to death unless they are rescued every couple days and returned to the upper levels of the box.

It was quite gratifying to know I wasn't doing something wrong to drive them to their death in the collecting tray and that I was right to return them to their food source!  My only concern is what happens in the future when I've got all 3 levels going.  Right now it's easy to remove the single level and fish the worms out.  It will be quite a bit heavier when there are 3 full levels ... I guess I'll have to take each level off separately and stack them in reverse order or something.  We'll cross that bridge in a couple months, shall we?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to purchasing the rest of Wiese's book and can definitely recommend it from the little I've read so far!  I particularly liked the comment she made about the instructions that come with the commercial worm boxes -- "Not to discredit those always-too-brief instructions, mind you.  The instructions definitely have enough to get you started and troubleshoot a lot of the more common problems.  But if they made the instructions too detailed, it would be a whole book, and not just "instructions" (and frankly, my book is better)." :)  I certainly found the instructions that came with my box  WAY to brief and too poorly organized to be a lot of help without reading them 10 times.

Hint: I also laughed so hard at her disclaimer on the dedication page.  My kids came running to see what the joke was!

Worms languishing in the collecting tray. The white thing on the right is the inside part of the spigot that allows one to draw off the compost tea.