Saturday, July 26, 2008

Worm Bin Friends (or Foe?)

I'm harvesting the vermicompost out of my worm bin today to give my garden and indoor plants an extra boost. Every time I dig deep into that bin I see things I never wished to see in my house. At least they stay in the bin. This time it was a million little red mites. Mites are common in worm bins, but are these particular ones benign or bad news? My worm flier from Happy D Ranch (my pets' birthplace) says the red ones could be parasitic to the worms, but the other sources I've found say they don't cause problems. I do know why their population exploded recently- the bedding is too wet. I added dry shredded paper today and took out the tasty treat for the mites (pineapple chunks), and removed a lot that were sitting on the pineapple. Too bad, because worms like those fleshy fruites too. Guess i'll have to stick to less fleshy, drier vegies in the bin for a while.

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