No....they will live happily in your garden soil feeding on leaf debris and other organic matter that worms like to feed on...double benefit......your compost and the addition of worms in your soil.....

Does that include red wrigglers? Do they compete successfully with the resident, brown earth worms?

I've heard the red wigglers used specifically for worm bins do need scraps to feed on. I have no idea what they ate in the wild before people invented worm bins, but I'm no vermicompost expert.

Worms that come out of the ground into the pile will be just fine back in the ground.

The wrigglers will crawl off and die at the first freeze. They are from parts of the world where there is a constant supply of decaying matter, such as a tropical swamp.

For the most part I agree the wigglers can't survive much less reproduce under average conditions. Does anyone here at GW practice windrow vermicomposting? I have talked to people who raise worms that overwinter them in a pile of soil with food incorprated. I expect worms would do ok in mild climate if combined with trench composting if a few things were done to accomindate the worms like making sure the trench never flooded and the trench was gradualy extended. No advantage of doing so comes to mind but dirt people are a crazy bunch so I bet it's been tested.

Hey all. Stumbled across this post. I'm in Oklahoma and raise red wigglers. We have all climatic hazards except monsoons but even the rains will flood and an F5 tornado is more devastating than a monsoon or hurricane winds but usually a smaller area.

I raise my worms indoors. It really isn't efficient to put worms outside in temps that will freeze in the winter and, then, burn up in the summer. What happens:

1) The weaker ones die in either cold or hot temps.

2) The healthier ones will over-winter slightly frozen and return when thawed (as related by those who have experimented). In summer, even the strong die.

3) The eggs overwinter just fine. Eggs will not make it through extreme temps. Most of the time, eggs are placed in ripe conditions exposing them to extreme heat in Oklahoma. If the babies can find an environment that suits them when they hatch, they will thrive until the next heat wave or freeze.

4) In the summer, the heat is the worst culprit. However, if they have a place to escape those temps, they'll survive, but not at any decent number.

In any of the above scenarios the conditions are not really ripe for exponential reproduction and the affecting manufacture of vermicompost.

I tired of having my bins indoors, but it would not be worth keeping them outdoors so they can product in about 1/4 of the year. That's just not worth it.

The result: worm tea. I don't use vermicompost directly in the garden. I make tea from vermicompost, molasses and a nitrogen like powdered alfalfa. I often include powdered egg shells and powdered oatmeal and feed every living organism in the soil. The molasses deters the bad microbes and attracts good ones.

The best thing you can do is cover your dirt with cardboard, mulches of any sort to retain moisture and soften the soil. Saturate that same area with worm tea or compost tea of your choice. There ARE worms in your soil. They are probably standard earth worms. If you soak it and cover it, they will come (along with everything else). Once established, be patient as the new micro climate levels itself between beneficial and non-beneficial microorganisms, bugs and critters.

It works, even for desert sands in the middle east.

While I don't put vermicompost or red wigglers in the garden, they are the catalyst to the best micro climate possible.

The Red Wiggler worms used in vermicomposting are very high maintenance and require a fairly high amount of organic matter for sustenance and they do not live in the soil very deeply much preferring the surface, providing there is enough OM there. They also need a moister and cooler environment to live in then a compost bin should provide which is why there is a difference in composting and vermicomposting.
The garden, with a lower level of organic matter that is somewhat dryer, is not the best environment for Red Wigglers to live. or if you create that environment it will not be the best environment for your plants to live.

High desert, low humidity, dry winter zone 5 here. I obtained a shovel full of red wrigglers late last summer from a neighbor who keeps them for at least 15 years now outdoors in their compost heap, which is fed regularly with kitchen scraps and the usual ingredients.

I put them in my own compost container, where relatively and proportionally speaking, there aren't that many kitchen scraps and a whole lot more garden waste. I thought they'd cook from the heat generated by composting.

This spring, I emptied out the compost container and found the red wrigglers, wriggling away - they hadn't migrated very far, they were all within pretty much the same area I'd put them. I then buried them in the veggie garden.

My garden is managed for maximum worm activity, what with a constant, damp grass clipping mulch, and if I scrape that back, there's a worm head poking out just about every square inch. Dig a small shovel in, and there are dozens of them.

Anyway, I was wondering how they'll fare 'out in the wild'. I'll dig around where I put them and see what I find....

Don't want to highjack but since the OP has not said what type of worms she has in her compost I'm curious to know whether there is a benefit to using red wrigglers in the garden rather than the common earthworm? I've never vermicomposted but do what I can to provide a healthy environment for earthworms in my garden. I've never had earthworms in my compost pile/bin. Wherever I dig in the garden tho there are lots of earthworms. Whenever I move perennial plants there are always many earthworms with the roots so it seems that is a good environment for them. Not sure what they are feeding on there but perhaps there is some die-off of roots even on healthy plants. I trench compost during the summer months which is a good way to increase the worm population.

Even in my cold climate the worms survive winter and I have seen worm tunnels a couple of feet below surface in the hard natural clay. Every spring there are worm 'hatcheries' under the stepping stones with many tiny baby worms.

I envy all you's with those worms in the ground. LOL

Dont' get me wrong. We have our native earth worms, but a lot of work is required to get them into the garden. Sure. Lay down some cardboard, keep it moist as with the ideal for plant growth.

Then comes the wind. LOL

Glad to know some are successful with reds outdoors. Gosh, I wish I could.