Worm Farming Aka Vermicomposting!

[G gnome]

Also I have some tea related content on my grow diary thread archives codeblue and rudeboi

 

[LittleDabbie]

The worm farm has 4 trays i harvest the oldest one from the bottom and empty it then refill it w new stuff and put it on top. Imo if your buying shit to put in your worm farm its sort of defeats some of the purpose.
This has been rather effective for me I estimate the worm pop has at least doubled from the original 2k i bought last spring. Literally the best bang for my buck investment I've made since the purchase.

20$ for a 50lb bag ( Actually its 18.95$ ) It really does rock the bin's population and if you think about it worms need as much of a balanced diet as any other living creature and just fruit waste around my house anyway won't really cut it. Dry meal's provide excellent sources of nutrients not found in most rotting fruits :D

a 50lb bag i bought last year nov. i still got a good 10lbs left of it or more but i bought a 2nd bag the other day to get me thru till next year, Started just as a way to boost the population but as i kept the bin around i larned more and more about there diets and the need to diversify there food sources a bit.

You don't HAVE to feed them anything more then you already are and they will live and thrive, I just wanted a bin with a jump start per say :D Boy did i get that lol Before dry feed they were active but not nearly this active or this large of a population bump in such short time.

Few more days and the dirty fun of harvesting them all begins.. Not really looking forward to this.. Kinda want a worm farm but can't justify the 75-125$ for a large enough set of trays..

 

[G gnome]

20$ for a 50lb bag ( Actually its 18.95$ ) It really does rock the bin's population and if you think about it worms need as much of a balanced diet as any other living creature and just fruit waste around my house anyway won't really cut it. Dry meal's provide excellent sources of nutrients not found in most rotting fruits :D

a 50lb bag i bought last year nov. i still got a good 10lbs left of it or more but i bought a 2nd bag the other day to get me thru till next year, Started just as a way to boost the population but as i kept the bin around i larned more and more about there diets and the need to diversify there food sources a bit.

You don't HAVE to feed them anything more then you already are and they will live and thrive, I just wanted a bin with a jump start per say :D Boy did i get that lol Before dry feed they were active but not nearly this active or this large of a population bump in such short time.

Few more days and the dirty fun of harvesting them all begins.. Not really looking forward to this.. Kinda want a worm farm but can't justify the 75-125$ for a large enough set of trays..

From my understanding its just a matter of maintaining a proper balance of carbon to nitrogen. The more diverse the compost the better. I use the egg shells for grit, news paper for carbon. I def use alot more kitchen scraps than just fruit waste i.e. stale bread coffee grounds. Pretty much everything other than meat dairy and citrus (worm dont like the acid. )
If I may make a suggestion, an easy way to seperate the worms and undigested compost is to build what i call a" shaker box". I cut 4 1x4's nailed them together to make a square. Then I cut a piece of 1/4" live stock fencing aka chicken wire w 1/4" holes the same size as the square and nailed it to the bottom of the square...DONE.
Then i take a couple handfuls out of the bin and drop in my "shaker box". I give it a little shake. All the perfectly digested verma falls through tbe bottom. Left in the box are my wigglers and any thing that hasn't been digested. Then i just recycle the stuff left in the box back into the farm.

 

[G gnome]

"Shaker box "

 

[G gnome]

And here my highly sophisticated "hopper" for loading up the tea bag aka ladies stocking

 

[LittleDabbie]

Yeah i got 2 Gold pans ( screened ) 1/4 and 1/8th inch i use over a 5 gallon bucket, Its just when you have 35-40 gallons of compost at once to go thru its beyond tedious lol

 

[G gnome]

I totally feel ya. But the payoff. Hey dabbie if you haven't already ,you should check out my grow diary thread archives codeblue and rudeboi. I'm really trying to get that goin. There's quit a bit of tea content.

 

[G gnome]

Are you using red wigglers.
I heard there's some kind of African worm thats even more voracious. Peace and love. Awesome thread btw

 

[LittleDabbie]

Are you using red wigglers.
I heard there's some kind of African worm thats even more voracious. Peace and love. Awesome thread btw

Red Wigglers and a mix of whatever breed can be found in the sand of michigan ( picked a good 500-800 ) outta the back yard / scooped them off the pavement after the rain, And the one your talking about is the African Nightcrawler Hard to find or if you can find them there expensive as fuck. Theres also Alabama jumpers but tbh those to me look almost identical to wigglers just a little smaller and prolly eat less.

For composting the absolute best worm is the wiggler, Since there surface feeders thats pretty much all they do is feed, Nightcrawlers tend to be tunnel builders and poke there heads to the tops of the soil to feed but spend most of there time building tunnels and networking.

As far as newspaper and all that i passed on using it went for the simple coco and peat moss bedding both cheap enough a 3 cubic foot bale of peat and a 5kg brick of coco last a good 2 bins or more so shit 20$ a year in bedding and no having to seperate out chunks of paper and such that hasn't composted yet.

Food sources my family don't eat alot of veggies a little but not alot so carbon is a little low but thats where the dry food source comes in, they do get some coffee grounds but ive read two opinions now on if those are considered carbon or nitrogen rich, Both claim sides so i have no idea at this point lol

Used to feed them horse shit but that stuffs more work then its worth dealing with so now its just stock piles of frozen fruits egg shells and coffee grounds in the freezer ( Full!! ) Hope to grow some veggies this year tho and feed my dogs some healthy shit at the very least then the worms can get some of those leftovers, Plus i have a stray rabbit or 2 that has nested in my backyard so i wanna plant some leafy shit for him to munch on too, which is where all this compost and casting tea are going to!! :D Woot!

Ok i think im done writing my book now :P

 

[LittleDabbie]

I totally feel ya. But the payoff. Hey dabbie if you haven't already ,you should check out my grow diary thread archives codeblue and rudeboi. I'm really trying to get that goin. There's quit a bit of tea content.

I read almost everything :D I don't always reply cause i don't really have shit to add but.. :D

 

[LittleDabbie]

*sighs* I wanted to get this bin taken care of the end of this month but i gotta push it back another week or 2 Temps outside arn't right for moving alot of old castings made into tea outside and im outta new bins to put new castings in for storage atm, That and the bin's still drying out a little makes it easier to seperate the castings so imma go ahead and feed them for another week or 2 when i got shit figured out whats going where yada yda..

 

[LittleDabbie]

Ok well decided since the bin was as wet on top i figured the bottom was pretty bad.. I was right.. jesus christ it stinks so bad.. anyway.. Taking care of it. Split the farm into 4 bins and moved them all outside to dry a bit more before i can screen anymore shits just too damn wet..

So heres a few shots of what i got done so far, The first set of pics is just what i pulled off from the top feed piles.

Next set is a shot of the Gold Pan 1/4 " Screen And me adding the worms/castings and me sifting the shit.. Wooo This is fun :P

Add worms to pan , Sift over 5 Gallon bucket, Dump pan w/ worms and large debris into new farm. Proceed to next set of pictures for next step ;)

Next Grab a 1/8" Screen and sift the previous shit you ran thru the 1/4" Screen to pick out any larger worms that made it thru and also the little babies and other casting thats larger then 1/8" Whats left is very fine cocoon and worm free ( well 98% )..

From there you can use the extra fine castings for anything you wish, What does not fall thru the 1/8" screen gets tossed into another seprate bin which i'll put a little food in and check daily for worms and move them over to the main farm, As that small bin dries out i'll sift it thru the 1/8th again and pick more worms out and keep doing that till that bin is all done.

Its alot of work but its the only way to really ensure you harvest ALL the eggs and ALL the worms. One thing a worm farm ( 360 or other wise ) Can't really guarantee as not 100% of worms will migrate nor can eggs. So if you want 100% You work for it :P

This is about as far as i got today Sifted a cpl buckets thru both screens about the top 2-3 inches of the original bin.. Will do more as the bins dry and i can sift the shit easier.. More Worm pics too!

Heres 2 more worm shots of the last screen full i did before i decided to quit for the day.

 

[LittleDabbie]

And before anyone asks thats promethazine in the orange strips ;) Kratom makes my tummy upset..

 

[LittleDabbie]

Woops.. Forgot the bins outside last night and temps dipped to around 30.. id say i lost a few 100.. Not a huge loss considering most of what i dumped was the bottom of the bin deal REALLY wet smelly crap.. oh well i'll go thru the rest of the bins and pluck whats healthy and made it thru the night and call it good.. getting kinda tired of doing this tbh.. Think from now on im just gonna feed then harvest whatevers around the food and move on.. I don't have the energy for all this.

So anyway Redwigglers will not survive temps below freezing.. lesson learned :\

 

[LittleDabbie]

Also........ Don't forget to put a light over the new tub for a cpl days.. Or your going to end up picking worms off the floor when you get up from your nap...

Todays just not there day..

 

[LittleDabbie]

Ok decided since im on the deathstar and no nap in the foreseeable future, I'll get to those outside bins today and start sorting dead vs alive worms.. *ugh*

Pics of the pile of live ones when there all collected... Not expecting alot of live ones.. I know 1 other bin got a little frozen and i think at least 1/2 of those are dead..

Im such a horrible pet owner.

Totally going lazy style and just going to make piles and use the sun to force them to migrate deeper and i'll just harvest the dirt every 10 mins or so till its done fuck all this sifting work.. I need good dirt for spring planting coming up anyway.. Wanna grow some berry bushes this year.

 

[G gnome]

In the past Ive used a bowl shaped garbage can lid.
The bowl shape concentrates the wiggler towards the bottom /middle as the verma dries

 

[Joe Fresh]

nice thread dabbie, i plan to start worm farming this spring as soon as its warm enough out in my area, they wont ship me worms until its warm enough ive tried 4 different places, 3 from the usa one one from canada...but this spring ill be hitting it hard :D

 

[G gnome]

nice thread dabbie, i plan to start worm farming this spring as soon as its warm enough out in my area, they wont ship me worms until its warm enough ive tried 4 different places, 3 from the usa one one from canada...but this spring ill be hitting it hard :D

Have you tried big jims worm farm? They are out of ohio I think. I bought/ordered mine from them this time last year.

This is a great thread.

 

[Joe Fresh]

Have you tried big jims worm farm? They are out of ohio I think. I bought/ordered mine from them this time last year.

This is a great thread.

no but i only got anothe rmonth to wait or so before the temps are stable above freezing, so ill wait