How deep do you all try to keep your bedding piles? I've read some species prefer being shallow vs deep. My plastic shoebox bin is probably a good 8" deep - is that too deep? Do Red Wigglers prefer surface area over volume? I know @Cherene Packard uses mortar mixing bins that seem to be pretty shallow. What works for you all?

I was looking in on my worms after ignoring them for 3-4 days (I'm getting better at that) and didn't even notice this while checking out my tower and the @Cherene Packard Nursery. Took me a minute to grasp all the color I was seeing in my breeder bin and what it was! Guess there was some active spores left in the substrate! Shot the video and then looked at the other nursery. That's the still photo! What an adventure!

I just reset this European nightcrawler bin, and they seem a lot happier. I’ve noticed that red wigglers are a lot more forgiving when it comes to their bedding being more moist or being fine in their castings, but these European nightcrawlers seem to like extra carbon and for the bedding to be more on the drier side. Not too dry of course! This is just what I’ve observed. It smells earthy, there’s plenty of carbon, the moisture is still like a wrung out sponge, and they are not trying to mass escape. These are a few things to look for when you are doing a check in on your bin!

Cherene: I don’t know if this classroom allows for documents to be posted by I would LOVE a written document that walks us through your precompost recipe. The videos are amazing, and I would also love to print a doc that I could easily reference. (The little prepper part of my brain would also like to be able to have a hard copy in case I don’t have access to electricity). I’m about to start my first precompost experiment and it occurred to me that this is basically a recipe.

I'm beginning to believe worm farming is more of a sickness than a hobby, 3-4 months in and already have to build some shelves or a system of sorts. Please someone tell me their basement/wormery has been or is going this way as well 🤣🤣🤣 2 nurseries, 2 breeders, 2 big 27 gallon bins and 3 new 22x14s that I'm trying different bedding blends in.1) mostly a mixture of oak and poplar leafs instead of cardboard, 2)standard new bedding with pre compost, 3) pre compost blend with maybe 10-20% leafs. I have lots of leafs in my yard but dont have any trees 🤔🤔🤔 Either way its great therapy and lots of fun. Thanks again Cherene for inviting me to this group and all the content you've posted, sure has helped me bunches 😃