Worming 101

[greenmatter]

A good portion of my EWC is always fed back to the bin.

same thing with me. all tea sludge goes back into the feed trays. right now my little friends are finishing castings faster than i use them, but i know that will change in spring. which led me to the storage question. two of the five bins are very finished so the worms don't do much in there anymore. would it be better to empty these or just continue to take what i need out of them for my teas as i make them? i'm working with the worm factory 5 bin setup

 

[pinecone]

I'm now growing in 21 gallon rubbermaid type containers with a coco-perlite-EWC mix and no drainage holes. I'm very interested in recycling soil. What I would like to do after harvest is cut the main stems out of the containers, throw some composting worms in, and let them compost the left over root and plant material. I could keep the recently used containers idle for three or more months, letting the worms do their work, while I started new containers with a fresh mix. By the the time plants the new containers were ready to be harvested, much of the root matter in the prior set of containers would be composted (?) and they would be ready to plant again (?) with minimal disruption to the soil. Is this reasonable?

Pine

 

[mad librettist]

same thing with me. all tea sludge goes back into the feed trays. right now my little friends are finishing castings faster than i use them, but i know that will change in spring. which led me to the storage question. two of the five bins are very finished so the worms don't do much in there anymore. would it be better to empty these or just continue to take what i need out of them for my teas as i make them? i'm working with the worm factory 5 bin setup

I'd like to know where our experts come down on the issue of using younger or older compost/vermicompost to make teas. I don't sweat unfinished compost for tea like I would for potting soil.

Right now I have in my worm bin bag a mix of finished compost, rice hulls, a coffee filter/grounds per day, and a bunch of broccoli chopped up pretty small. Since it's a continuous flow-through, I can slowly mix it by taking some from the bottom and adding it up top, monitoring the progress of the scraps.

 

[Ise]

difference between vermicompost & pure earthworm castings

difference between vermicompost & pure earthworm castings

I don't think this has been covered, allow me to enlighten you.

Vermicompost, or Vcompost, is the heterogenous mixture of decomposing vegetable or food waste, bedding materials, and pure vermicast produced during the course of normal vermiculture operations.

Vermicast, similarly known as worm castings, worm humus or worm manure, is the end-product of the breakdown of organic matter by some species of earthworm.

Pure earthworm castings look like coffee grounds because they are incased by a shell of calcium naturally produced by the worm.

Peace
Ise

P.S. Thanks to all who shared there knowledge & experiences. You've taught me a few things.

 

[Ise]

Here is a site that sells OMRI listed pure earthworm castings for those interested. I highly recommend them.

https://www.vermitechnology.com/

Peace
Ise

 

[mad librettist]

vcompost? seriously?

Hey thanks bro, but you are are wrong or passing secondhand info, and maybe talking down to people who have come before you.

Those terms are not settled, and most of us with bins know about the difference between straight wormpoo and wormpoo mixed with food. We first notice it when we are newbies with our first rubbermaid, and worms leave pure castings in the indents for the handles. Keep it in the right place, and you might develop little predatory gnats in those indents as well, that look like the little eruptions from soda-pop.

to get a good batch, do like microbeman says, and force-feed the finished "vcompost" (lmfao vcompost get outa here) back to the worms. Should be about the texture of coffee grounds when it's not too wet. Wait, no, actually, it's not like coffee grounds at all. It's more like pure pillowy goodness.
:yay:
:yay: vcompost! :yay:
:yay:

 

[Ise]

Sorry dude I was not thinking when I typed this, "Every single person here is producing vermicompost, including myself." I was definetely wrong & you are correct. The way to get purest castings is to recycle the vermicompost a few times. It was my first time reading this thread & I just wanted to let folks know there is a difference if they did not already know.

Peace
Ise

 

[mad librettist]

it's cool, you gave me something to riff on.

remember to always keep the old stuff going, so if a bin is 5 years old it should have some 5 year old material in it. Be gentle when you harvest.

Microartrhopods, for instance, take forever to show up, and harvesting a little too rough can wipe them out.

 

[Ise]

I also should have specified that I was referring to the pure black castings made by this company. In which there is a major difference from what we all make. Just read the page from the link to see what that difference is.

https://www.vermitechnology.com/index.php?show_aux_page=17

Peace
Ise

 

[Ise]

pics for comparison...

https://www.vermitechnology.com/index.php?show_aux_page=16

Peace
Ise

 

[Ise]

I've been trying to procure a grant to build a vermicomposting facility to supply local farms with an alternative to chemical fertilizers.

Along the way I found this, the company that makes wiggle worm castings also has a program for people to start there own vermicomposting center in their basement as a part/full time job. Check it out...

http://www.vermiculture.com/starting_a_business.html

Peace
Ise

 

[Clackamas Coot]

Ise

Do some more looking - their are a TON of scams out there getting people to pony up some serious money in many cases for the hope (pipe-dream) of living off worm wrangling.

DOJ has looked long and hard at a couple operations and eventually shut them down in the past few years. Not the people running the actual bins but the shysters selling the 'package' - beware.

CC

 

[jammie]

I'm now growing in 21 gallon rubbermaid type containers with a coco-perlite-EWC mix and no drainage holes. I'm very interested in recycling soil. What I would like to do after harvest is cut the main stems out of the containers, throw some composting worms in, and let them compost the left over root and plant material. I could keep the recently used containers idle for three or more months, letting the worms do their work, while I started new containers with a fresh mix. By the the time plants the new containers were ready to be harvested, much of the root matter in the prior set of containers would be composted (?) and they would be ready to plant again (?) with minimal disruption to the soil. Is this reasonable?

Pine

some commercial/ag farmers use red clover to revitalize soil. the seed can be found online, its cheap, and it only takes a couple months to grow. then you turn the soil over and the worms, mycos and bacteria do the rest.

 

[Ise]

Thanks CC, that's all I needed to read to deter me from a potential monetary & sanity loss. I will continue to look for other options.

Peace
Ise

 

[mad librettist]

some commercial/ag farmers use red clover to revitalize soil. the seed can be found online, its cheap, and it only takes a couple months to grow. then you turn the soil over and the worms, mycos and bacteria do the rest.

even better - leave the clover in place as groundcover, and never, ever till.

 

[greenmatter]

even better - leave the clover in place as groundcover, and never, ever till.

i get the rototiller is bad but i have to ask does that include hand tilling or double digging. hope not, you gotta see the clay ( 0% organic good stuff) that i have to start with

 

[Ise]

In your situation I would suggest you do till once during setting up your soil & adding all your goodies to the plot.

Peace
Ise

 

[mad librettist]

man I've been through this with others, and some come back and say "hey, you know what? good use of weeds/plants and MULCH MULCH MULCH works better than tilling/double digging."

The problem is you are burying all kinds of food, but not oxygen. You will get nice results at first, but see if you don't get tempted to dig again.

dandelion, sweet potato (thanks Jay!), radishes (daikon especially), purslane, and many others will do better work for you than the tiller or shovel.

If you want to, pull some plugs out, that's a great way to loosen things.

 

[Ise]

Does anybody feed their worms comfrey? I'm gonna let some of the non bocking 14 variety grow wild somewhere close.

Peace
Ise

 

[greenmatter]

man I've been through this with others, and some come back and say "hey, you know what? good use of weeds/plants and MULCH MULCH MULCH works better than tilling/double digging."

The problem is you are burying all kinds of food, but not oxygen. You will get nice results at first, but see if you don't get tempted to dig again.

dandelion, sweet potato (thanks Jay!), radishes (daikon especially), purslane, and many others will do better work for you than the tiller or shovel.

If you want to, pull some plugs out, that's a great way to loosen things.

please don't take this as questioning your knowledge or ability mad cause thats not where i'm going with this. i live on a little less than 1/4 acre that is mostly clay. i know what you are saying about the mulch because i do a lot of that but i am not sure if your can understand what i am starting with. digging fence post or planting holes requires a frost bar and a pick. when i moved in, the back yard was a desert and over the last five years i have started to turn things around with raised beds, MANY truckloads of compost, deep mulches and every leaf that is raked up on my block (they stare at me like i have lost my mind when i take leaves out of the trash every fall). it is a semi arid climate so we don't really have biological diversity/activity that some areas do (i have to water compost and leaf mold piles to keep them active). i won't use a roto tiller but when i first "attack" a new area i double dig,add compost, meals, rock powders and some sand and cover with layers of cardboard and newsprint and put a thick mulch on top of that. i usually plant pumpkin or squash in that area the first season, they don't do great but they do well. season two the cardboard is consumed and you can decide what to plant.

i want to make it clear that i think double digging is back breaking miserable work but at the same time it think it cuts my wait time for good garden space in half. i imagine every area is different. just my two cents.