Catching compost worms

I’m currently experimenting with ways to catch tiger worms (or compost worms) myself. Of course you can just buy them, but catching them yourself seemed like a nice idea. Here is the first report of my progress. I would love to hear your experiences and tips! The goal is to collect the best tips.

On the internet I found several tips:

• Look for horse manure, or a compost heap. It is sometimes teeming with thin red worms, see also the video at the top
• Catch the compost worms with a lure

Compost worms in horse manure or compost heap

This is a proven tactic that needs little further explanation. But in the urban areas, both are not really easy to find everywhere. I think it would be nice if you could actually lure worms out of the ground.

Catching tiger worms with a lure

Catching a compost worm is basically simple:

• Find a spot with lots of soil life. So no bare sand plain but a place where there are a lot of leaves, and where no farmers with agricultural poison do their thing.
• Put some food in that place. Basically anything you put in a worm bin or Balkonton. Or try it with a banana peel (unsprayed), avocado peel or piece of watermelon. They love that. A layer of moist grass clippings or rotting leaves can also work well.
• Over the waste you put a wet jute bag or put an inverted earthenware flower pot. So that it remains dark and humid
• Every few days you go and see what is coming at your lure.

In practice

So much for the theory. A week ago I set up some traps with banana peels in various places in my garden. I garden on clay soil and suffer a lot from slugs. And yes, my tiger worm bites also attract nudibranchs so far. Within a week, the entire banana peel was gone and replaced by wisps of worms or snail droppings. Unfortunately, I was not able to catch a worm while eating. I have heard from other people that they have succeeded. I think you need to make a somewhat larger waste pile, mixed with some cardboard or straw for the humidity. So basically just setting up a mini compost pile.