I have a worm farm (one of the tiered ones up on legs) and it has been going OK. It's only 5 weeks old now, and to start with it couldn't cope with the amount of waste our household produces, so I stopped feeding it until the worms caught up and started a compost pile as well. Checked it yesterday and it looks as though the worms are ready for some more to eat, the pile of stuff had broken down quite a lot and I could see castings on the top so I put yesterday's compost in there. Went out today to put some more in there and noticed a colony of small red six-legged bugs running around on the top of the hessian sack that I drape over the food scraps. What are they? Are they bad for the compost or will they help it? I have been overfeeding a bit on purpose because it is quite cold here especially at night and the directions with the worm farm stated that overfeeding and allowing the food scraps to decompose actually keeps the environment warm enough for the worms to keep breeding. But coudl this composting have attracted some unwanted nasties? Thanks Ali
Ali, Might be red-legged earth mite. https://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/nren...0274E74-133F90E37CA4091DCA256C1C000C9780?open floot
Ali, I meant to add. When as a kid I had worms if I saw too many of these things I used to put a 2-4'' layer of cow manure over the farms and let them just sit there. My worms were bred for fishing and May June July are not good fishing months on the Murray so I let the beds alone. These things didnt seem to be a problem in summer as the worms seemed to handle them. For some [5-14yo kid] I had reasoned these things were parasitic and ate the baby worms. Looking back there was probably a lack of baby worms at this time due to cold weather. We live and learn.