From the height of my worm-wrangling days:

* Two 10-gallon Rubbermaid totes outside, both sitting on a 40-gallon tub of composting material and covered in leaves, with a sheet draped over the whole. This, so far, keeps them warm enough to stay active. They have also spread extensively through the older compost bin, and begun to spread through the newer one. Six months from now, I may have two forty-gallon worm bins. Mixed redworms and European nightcrawlers.

* One 10-gallon Rubbermaid tote in my apartment, for the worms and eggs gleaned from harvested wormcastings. Also, one slightly larger tote half-full of wormcastings that still have a lot of eggs and some little tiny worms in them. Mixed redworms and European nightcrawlers. (Have also found some grub eggs.)

* One 14-gallon bin in the Real Change (street newspaper) office. Mixed redworms and European nightcrawlers.

* One windrow in the garden, built of half-processed compost, leaves, coffee grounds, ground-up kitchen scraps, and dirt; inoculated with a 5-pound “Garden Culture” mix of redworms (eisenia fetida), European nightcrawlers (eisenia hortensis), and “Georgia Jumpers” (pheritima hayakawa).

* I also have two 14-gallon bins filled with decomposing leaves, some paper, and lots of food (including compost) sitting on top of the windrow, with lots of holes in the bottom, in case any of the redworms would rather retreat to a bin environment. I have two additional bins currently empty that are half-way in size between the 10-gallon totes and the 14-gallon totes. In spring, I’ll transfer some worms from the two forty-gallon bins to these four bins.

* I have a 40-gallon plastic trashcan filled with leaves, that I mix food scraps and coffee grounds into when I have too much for the wormbins. When I need new bedding for the wormbins, I take decomposed leaves from this “holding bin.”

I’m trying to move away from shredded paper in bedding or compost. I am unhappy with how much undigested paper is left when everything else has been broken down. I’d be happier with undigested bits of leaf in the finished product that undigested bits of paper. Right now I have lots and lots of leaves. I’m also experimenting with coconut coir.