The Guirella Worms

The Worms Inside My Bins

I took a video about a mature worm that is found on the compost bins.

Guerilla Worms

I call them guerilla worms because I tend to move the composts around for the whole set up I have. The worms below, as you can see are out and about. This is because, I have jam packed a pail with a lot of greens and this tends to heat up the compost pail more than the worms can tolerate. I believe the worms like cold environment.

Please, if you can identify these worms, let me know. Before, I thought these worms are identified as perionyx excavatus. Not as famous as the African Night Crawler (ANC) but I don't mind. As long as they compost - that's that. Then again, it doesn't hurt to know what kind of worms they are.

I also found myself disappointed when these worms goes out of their worm beds. It means, the worm bed is not set up properly. And I will definitely have an anaerobic situation in my hand. That's a stinky smell I try to avoid. I've come to accept that from time to time I will encounter the smelly anaerobic compost bin.

How To Suppress Anaerobic Compost

The best way I found to solve this is to turn the compost. Since I'm actively involved in my composting method, turning is one activity I can do and it does help a lot in the composting process. I usually do the first turn after a week of letting the compost pail settle. Sometimes, if the balance of bedding is perfect, no smell can be had and composting is so much faster. Other times, like I said, too much fresh compost and not so much worm bedding makes for anaerobic situation. That's why the turning help but all the same, phew on the smell.

Moving The Worms About

All I care about if for the worms to work/eat/compost compost compost. So no harvesting of worms have been performed ever since. That said, I have moved both compost and worms around the pails and the clay pots. It doesn't seem to affect the worms one bit. They still thrive and do their functions. So, I guess it's okay to move the worms about.