Harvested 11 totes 2 gallons each yesterday. All hand work in a kiddie pool. I decided to use the bottom 2 totes as they were pure cast and really wet. The rest went into the outdoor garden spot.
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Worming 101
- Thread starter Suby
- Start date
SpicySativa
Member
Lovin' my worm bins... They're just simple 10-gal (shallow) Rubbermaid bins with lots of holes drilled in them. Bedding is a mix of newspaper, cardboard, brown paper bags, and cannabis leaves/stems (along with some dry corn husks and other "browns") . With each harvest of the bins (about every 3 months) I'm able to split my worm population and start up an extra bin. Producing some crumbly, pure black goodness that gets spread on all my houseplants, veggies, and cannabis.
Can't beat it...
Can't beat it...
So... I lived on a red worm farm in Rayne, Louisiana for a while... and I can tell you this:
Redworms do really great in a rubbermaid bin/garbage can with lid/or an old bathtub
The trick is keeping a lid on the container... and not having holes at the bottom
They won't feed on the top layer of food you give them if light hits the area
and it dries out
Just get an old garbage can and throw in leaves and all kinds of crap... add the worms
then keep it in the shade... never let it get hot in the sun
You'll have castings in no time (well really a few months)
I just knock over the garbage can and roll it on the ground
To break it all loose... then I scoop out my castings
Of course you could pile it up on a cement slab and use your front end loader
on your tractor to drop scoops of racehorse shit to the worms
That's my preferred bulk method.
Redworms do really great in a rubbermaid bin/garbage can with lid/or an old bathtub
The trick is keeping a lid on the container... and not having holes at the bottom
They won't feed on the top layer of food you give them if light hits the area
and it dries out
Just get an old garbage can and throw in leaves and all kinds of crap... add the worms
then keep it in the shade... never let it get hot in the sun
You'll have castings in no time (well really a few months)
I just knock over the garbage can and roll it on the ground
To break it all loose... then I scoop out my castings
Of course you could pile it up on a cement slab and use your front end loader
on your tractor to drop scoops of racehorse shit to the worms
That's my preferred bulk method.
Noticed some seepage between the lowest trays in my Worm Factory, so drained the leachate. Ran it thru a coffee filter and will now add h2o to fill gallon jug and aerate for 24-48 hrs. before using.
Anybody do anything special w/ their leachate?
Anybody do anything special w/ their leachate?
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pseudostelariae
Active member
hello
it's been a while since i've been around here or able to grow at all but after a cross country move, as far as the state is concerned, i'm legal to grow!
the last time i was here, guano was all the rage and supposedly guano teas were the way to go. no worry about pH or anything, just mix it up, bubble for a while and feed.
after having trouble with that method, burned plants and nutrient lockout, i've decided to go as gentle and organic as possible. i've always had success with worm castings but prices are getting outrageous so i decided to step it up and start a bin.
since then the worms have been so happy that 1 bin turned into 2, and now i currently have 3 worm bins happily munching away on kitchen scraps and yard waste.
i understand that patience is crucial in nearly all of my hobbies, composting especially. thing is, i have a lot of woody clippings from rose bushes and other thorny shrubs that look as if they're going to take forever to break down. also yard waste i'm unsure about are loads of mushrooms and horse chestnuts, both potentially slightly poisonous to some forms of life.
that said, i've been considering ways to speed up the process on the woody stuff. since i have so much and don't feel like waiting years for it to break down in a compost heap, i'm thinking about a sort of aerated bucket i would fill with water, some leaf mold and worm castings, and the woody stems cut up into small chunks. kind of like a chopped stem with cream of worm castings and leaf mold stew left to get nice an tender.
my thought is that the aerated water in combination with the microorganisms introduced through the castings and leaf mold might help hydrate and break the woody fiber down more quickly to eventually feed the worms while also making a nutrient rich tea for the outdoor beds when i drain the bucket.
any feedback? am i a nut
just looking to relatively quickly turn my yard waste into worm food while i source more leaves/compost. plus, i could use the exercise
it's been a while since i've been around here or able to grow at all but after a cross country move, as far as the state is concerned, i'm legal to grow!
the last time i was here, guano was all the rage and supposedly guano teas were the way to go. no worry about pH or anything, just mix it up, bubble for a while and feed.
after having trouble with that method, burned plants and nutrient lockout, i've decided to go as gentle and organic as possible. i've always had success with worm castings but prices are getting outrageous so i decided to step it up and start a bin.
since then the worms have been so happy that 1 bin turned into 2, and now i currently have 3 worm bins happily munching away on kitchen scraps and yard waste.
i understand that patience is crucial in nearly all of my hobbies, composting especially. thing is, i have a lot of woody clippings from rose bushes and other thorny shrubs that look as if they're going to take forever to break down. also yard waste i'm unsure about are loads of mushrooms and horse chestnuts, both potentially slightly poisonous to some forms of life.
that said, i've been considering ways to speed up the process on the woody stuff. since i have so much and don't feel like waiting years for it to break down in a compost heap, i'm thinking about a sort of aerated bucket i would fill with water, some leaf mold and worm castings, and the woody stems cut up into small chunks. kind of like a chopped stem with cream of worm castings and leaf mold stew left to get nice an tender.
my thought is that the aerated water in combination with the microorganisms introduced through the castings and leaf mold might help hydrate and break the woody fiber down more quickly to eventually feed the worms while also making a nutrient rich tea for the outdoor beds when i drain the bucket.
any feedback? am i a nut
just looking to relatively quickly turn my yard waste into worm food while i source more leaves/compost. plus, i could use the exercise
Oof okay here goes: All green house waste, meat products aside, mostly finished compost, greensand for grit and mineral content, oyster powder and gypsum sometimes and I also used large chunk perlite for my aeration (the perlite is left after sifting and readded to the next batch. I'd like to trade this up to pumice but atm the perlite is lasting). Neem meal is used as a semi-regular top dressing to keep summer bugs down, vut this year I had some awful battles with black soldier flies taking over my bin. Say what you will about the efficacy of their compost, black soldier fly larvae and pupae are disgisting and make a disgusting mess of the worm bins.
The partially finished compost is really where things shine. My compost is made from green waste from about seven acres of lawn and garden, all the straw and animal waste from the animal houses(horse, cow, goat, sheep, duck, goose, guinea pig, rabbit, and chicken), local seaweed crab and fish remains from the ocean, and a bit of local dirt and sand.
The partially finished compost is really where things shine. My compost is made from green waste from about seven acres of lawn and garden, all the straw and animal waste from the animal houses(horse, cow, goat, sheep, duck, goose, guinea pig, rabbit, and chicken), local seaweed crab and fish remains from the ocean, and a bit of local dirt and sand.
Cool, its always interesting to hear what others are feeding their worms.
Mine are in smart pots sitting on a pallet in my basement, it stays about 65f year round so its a little cool but consistent at least. Only issues are when the furnace kicks on alot in the winter it gets real dry down there. Have to water them sometimes.
They get a compost - rice hulls - leaf mold mixture as their main imput. Feed them alot of coffee grounds, weed ash and bowl-shit, FPE bottoms, neem, kelp, crab, bone char, biochar, local sandy loam (for grit), local clay (dried and powdered, sprinkled on top with feed), and small amounts of other random things.
I was using aged horse manure for a while and they really liked that, it would be worth finding again and adding to the mix.
Noticed a much larger species of rove beetle move in to the bins over the last couple of months. Ive caught a dozen or so and dropped them in my moms.
Mine are in smart pots sitting on a pallet in my basement, it stays about 65f year round so its a little cool but consistent at least. Only issues are when the furnace kicks on alot in the winter it gets real dry down there. Have to water them sometimes.
They get a compost - rice hulls - leaf mold mixture as their main imput. Feed them alot of coffee grounds, weed ash and bowl-shit, FPE bottoms, neem, kelp, crab, bone char, biochar, local sandy loam (for grit), local clay (dried and powdered, sprinkled on top with feed), and small amounts of other random things.
I was using aged horse manure for a while and they really liked that, it would be worth finding again and adding to the mix.
Noticed a much larger species of rove beetle move in to the bins over the last couple of months. Ive caught a dozen or so and dropped them in my moms.
pseudostelariae
Active member
sounds interesting. just any worms you find or do you hunt for a certain kind? i recently collected some smaller, unidentified 'earthworms' from near my compost pile and decided to bring them inside to see if they would populate a micro-bin.
Good method is to lay piece of damp cardboard on ground and come back next morn to collect gathered worms from underneath
something iv been wondering the last few days
say i couldnt buy castings, could i buy bales of compost/manure, cut the top of for easy watering, poke holes in the side for air and the just add worms and water regularly, then stack bales up some where warm inside?
say i couldnt buy castings, could i buy bales of compost/manure, cut the top of for easy watering, poke holes in the side for air and the just add worms and water regularly, then stack bales up some where warm inside?
You could, but w/o more variety in refuse, I don't think it would be as successful as running a bin. Adding castings to compost/manure in a proportionate manner seems much more desirable to me.
Just seems like a bad short cut to me. Worms do much better working thru layers than a bag that's compacting down.
Just seems like a bad short cut to me. Worms do much better working thru layers than a bag that's compacting down.
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