Worming 101

[Bongstar420]

My grow has an ecosystem that I did not purchase..This includes resident worms and nematodes. It only took 6 months and careful movement of plants from out doors to indoors.

The fungus gnats were bad for a while, but the fungus gnat predators and generalist predators are now in a reasonable equilibrium with the gnats. I apply a biocontrol bacterium only occasionally.

nematodes work 15 bucks on ebay mix dry pour into each in bin takes about a week to see a change i wipe volck oil spray on the rim of my bin keeps all mites from leaving the bin when the nematodes start to eat them they suckem dry too

 

[Bueno Time]

Some quality castings they ate the bedding and a fed mostly off of a good amount of dried comfrey leaf as the main food source and only a couple banana peels and apple cores for treats, should be super rich.

 

[Siskiyou]

Some quality castings they ate the bedding and a fed mostly off of a good amount of dried comfrey leaf as the main food source and only a couple banana peels and apple cores for treats, should be super rich.

View Image

That's the stuff, right there.

 

[The Revolution]

My bins have been decimated

My bins have been decimated

Hey rev I have a red/orange mite in my bins too. They are fast, and do kill some worms, but I think they also kill all the bad bugs too. Natural killers they are haha

I use de too and it helped with controlling their numbers. They are a lot less now that I keep my bin a little dryer. Also my mites don't seem to like water, they climb the bin walls when I water. If you learn more about them please post it here or start a new thread and post a link to it as id like to follow

I attributed the number of mites to over feeding of wet materials (apple pieces, rotten bananas etc.) After realizing i had a bad case of mites and finding some spring-tails, I applied a generous amount of Diatomaceous Earth to them and let them sit for 5+ weeks . I just checked all three of my bins to see what was going on after a cpl months of not checking them. The moisture content was still good, bc they're kept in a cool basement. Actually the bottom layer was still surprisingly wet. Mostly composted, its a light fluffy humus of castings, there's still food on the top of the bins and a layer of bedding above as well. The mites are still present, but in very fewer numbers. I didn't find any spring-tails, but there worms are completely gone. I found a few younger worms in one of the bins, and eggs here n there. However, the other two bins are completely void of any worms. Not a single worm! Wtf.. These bins were all teaming with piles of worms 5-6 weeks ago. Large adult worms to small newly hatched worms, and everything inbetween. Not to mention the crazy number of worm eggs that once littered all the bins. There's no life there at all! Like I said there's still remnants of food and bedding so they didn't starve to death! Wtf happened here..

I have had several worm bins in the past, and have experimented with all kinds of bedding, and diets. I have never been able to keep a worm bin long term. Something always happens that destroys my colony of worms, and vermicomposting experiments. I have harvested several pounds of castings since starting my bin last fall, but the 1000+ worms I once had working are now decimated to just a dozen or so small worms.
I have only used earthworms for my vermicomposting, so perhaps id have better luck with a red wiggler, or African crawler. I may try to start new bins soon, but I will be ordering a few lbs of red wigglers for any future projects i have. Also one of the bins has a fluorescent type of green thing going on. Its very noticeable in the bits of perlite in the compost. Is this a mold? Or moldy worm carcasses that have just rotted into the compost?

 

[justsmoke]

If your worm bin is solely for your cannabis garden, what would you use to produce good quality vermicompost? Yarrow, nettles, comfrey would on my list.

 

[stoned-trout]

add in some cucumber,bannanas and melons, dandelions too!!!! their an under rated weed...yeehaw

 

[justsmoke]

add in some cucumber,bannanas and melons, dandelions too!!!! their an under rated weed...yeehaw

Is there a specific nutrient or reason why those items? This is my first worm bin, I like the flow through design with knobs at the bottom you can turn to loosen the vermicompost with. Is there something you would recommend?

 

[Macncheese]

I started worm composting early last fall with 1000 red wigglers in a plastic bin. I've played around found my reds like it wet, not dripping wet but close to it. When it starts to dry the move down for moister. I put about 3 inches of wet peat down and a cup of fresh castings from another bin add some scraps and worms then some wet straw to the top. Now I dont add scraps until I see some of them climing up the sides. There was times I would take the lid off to check how things are going and there would be like a 100s of worms crawling all over the sides. It use to make me think something was wrong but eventually I realized it was from a lack of food. I'd put food in and hours later everything thing was going good again. As for mites, there is always lots of mites and they seem to start on the food before the worm and the worms are loving it. Once the bin looks like it has doubled or is 10 inches high and everything lookings broken down I'll harvest. I put the bigger worms in a new bin and all the smaller ones in another bin. Now I have 2 bins about ready to harvest and will do the same thing.

 

[Skinny Leaf]

I applied a generous amount of Diatomaceous Earth to them and let them sit for 5+ weeks . I just checked all three of my bins to see what was going on after a cpl months of not checking them. I didn't find any spring-tails, but there worms are completely gone. I found a few younger worms in one of the bins, and eggs here n there. However, the other two bins are completely void of any worms. Not a single worm! Wtf.. These bins were all teaming with piles of worms 5-6 weeks ago. Large adult worms to small newly hatched worms, and everything inbetween. Not to mention the crazy number of worm eggs that once littered all the bins. There's no life there at all! Like I said there's still remnants of food and bedding so they didn't starve to death! Wtf happened here..

The diatomaceous earth did them in. The DE sliced and diced them. Its like crawling on glass shards to the worms.

 

[Mattskibop]

Is there evidence to say that worm castings will have different properties if worms are fed different diets?

 

[Granger2]

Of course. It just makes sense. People have done comparitive soil lab testing that shows differences to do with worms' diet. Good luck. -granger

 

[Organabis]

Will having a lot of earth worms and composting worms under mulch in my pots produce a significant amount of humus and fulvic acids?

 

[trichrider]

not significant amounts unless your pots are huge with literally lbs. of worms.

it's not just the humus or fulvic acids, they aerate the medium (soil/less) adjusting tilth, aggregating soil particles, and further breaking down compost.

imo, worms are the basis for a sustainable, natural (not organic), healthy soil.

what do you put into AACT? ......worm castings! why? .......because the right micro-organisms are in it.

just makes sense.

 

[Organabis]

Thanks.

 

[Terps]

I made a worm bin last year and basically overfed them, went in the shed one day to check how things were coming along and it was a worm graveyard..everything seemed to had solidified and dead worms were everywhere. feeling abit pissed at putting all that time and effort into it and it failed i decided to just leave the lid off and abandon them, so i left them in the shed over the summer, i didnt go in there for a few months! anyway i had to put some stuff in the shed the other day and when i looked in the worm bin i saw this lovely black gold!! the surviving worms must of munched their way through and composted everything..happy days!


This was their bedding area i think they composted this aswel but its darker, probably because its moister but its more airy or spongy than the top tier castings.



Any ideas as to how to seperate the worms from the castings as i've now just got a big bag of castings thats full of worms lol.

 

[trichrider]

hardware cloth. 1/4" seems to be best. sift sift. you'll still get plenty of worms tho'.

 

[hambre]

Thanks for all the data!!! Very useful!

 

[Stoney Johnson]

Took it up a notch.
Harvested about 2 yards in February, couple more in May

 

[Stoney Johnson]

The goods

 

[Stoney Johnson]

The farm