How Many Worms?

Worm Farm Manual:  How To Grow Worms

This is another worm farming question that comes up often: How many worms can I put in my worm bed?  The answer: Well, it depends.

1. How big is your worm bed.
2. Do you want to start growing worms to sell, or
3. Do you want to make vermicompost  -  fast.

How Big Is Your Worm Bed

First, measure your worm bed(s) and get the square footage  (for the mathematically challenged, length times width). Your growing beds should be at least 18" deep. (More on "propagation" boxes later.) Generally, you don't want more than one pound worms per square foot .  Go by poundage rather than count, because who can count worms?  Who wants to? Who has the time?  

Poundage is more accurate and meaningful, anyway.  Larger worms weight more, so there are fewer worms per pound. Smaller worms weight less, so there are more worms  per pound.  A pound of worms is a pound of worms so far as how much food is consumed and how much space is taken up with worm bodies.

Growing Worms To Sell

If you're raising worms to sell as fish bait,  you'll want to stock your bed with enough worms so that they can find each other and make babies. If you have too few worms, they could wander about aimlessly forever and never find true love.  Bottom line: keep them close enough to reproduce.

To be continued.....

Learn a whole lot more and then some on this subject and other worm growing tips:  Worm Farm Manual - A Step-By-Step Gude to Raising Earthworms for Fun and Profit.   Emphasis on profit.  That makes it fun.