Farmin's the Shit

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MoHo

Guest
Hey all. Decided to see what the THCF community is all about. I grow indoors and outdoors, but prefer the great halide in the sky. Love growing my own food, tending compost heaps and worm bins, and diggin on the mtn here at 6,000'. Gonna have a look around now.

:wait:

MoHo
 
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ShorelineTex

213
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How does MoHo have 0 posts listed when I'm reading this post of his?

Anyway - welcome MoHo!!
 
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revolutionseeds

Premium Member
Supporter
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Welcome MoHo! Worm bins and diggin'.....sounds like fun!
 
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MoHo

Guest
Thanks everyone. Still haven't had time to look around as much as I'd like. One thing I saw that I liked was Logic telling a certain 'Cool guy to go f himself because he wasn't going to tell him how to run his website. Right on.
 
I_Against_I

I_Against_I

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ya gotta love the way Logic runs shit. welcome to the farm too. enjoy your stay.
 
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Bill Bloome

108
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Welcome Moho, The Farm is definitely the shit.Lots of people with lots of info who are willing to share.Lots of mutual respect,varied opinions and interesting points of view.Fuck up and act like a troll and you will feel the swift Hammer of Logic.Best run site on the web.Happy to have you join us.
 
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Beeronymous

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i like to jump up and down really hard on their bridges and throw goatheads over the side to tease 'em
 
altitudefarmer

altitudefarmer

3,271
263
welcome to the farm! 6000' is a good start...lol John Denver knew what was up with "Rocky Mountain High"...
 
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rdbrizz

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whats a trolll!! thats killing me and a hick crountry man like myself i live so far of the main i didnt think i could get the interweb here ha ha if you dont mind me asking moho whats a good worm bed set up?
 
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MoHo

Guest
whats a trolll!! thats killing me and a hick crountry man like myself i live so far of the main i didnt think i could get the interweb here ha ha if you dont mind me asking moho whats a good worm bed set up?

Hey man- I have kept my worm bins really simple from the very first. Each bin is made up of two 18-gallon Rubbermaid bins nested one inside the other.

The bottom one isn't modified in any way... it simply catches the runoff from the top bin, that actual worm bin. The runoff is really nice to toss on your regular compost heap.

The top bin has drainage holes drilled in the bottom and then 1" aeration holes along the top rim. Not many... probably 6 holes total.

$5 can of red wigglers at the Farmer's Market, plus I bought a small bag of castings off of him to jump start/innoculate my first worm bin with all the wonderful microbes and creepy crawlies that come along with vermicompost.

I feed them lots of kitchen scraps, which in our house is primarily coffee grounds, greens, bananas, grapes, apples, egg shells (let em dry then crush them in your hands before tossing them in), rice, that kind of stuff.

For bedding I use shredded newspaper, but there are better options.

Toss in some sand/native soil because the worms' digestive systems need the grit to function properly.

I never have to water my bin... the kitchen scraps have adequate moisture.

Keep the bin relatively warm... I'd say like 55F minimum and then no hotter than 90F. Just as with plants and soil microbes, the sweet spot is mid-70s.

I think that's about it. It's easy and the wonderful thing is that the worm castings you produce at home are literally 100x more alive than any castings you'll ever buy in a plastic bag.

peace-

MoHo
 
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MoHo

Guest
I like this document, put together by Microbeman:

Keeping Composting Worms for Vermicompost to make Compost Tea

If you wish to keep composting worms for a supply of vermicompost, it is quite simple. I use red wrigglers but there are other varieties. You can keep them in bins, or other specialized containers now on the market or in a pile of material.

If you wish to start a small bin, say 18 inches high X 15 inches wide X 24 inches long, begin with about 2 pounds of worms (2000 worms). Just get a plastic storage bin and poke some holes in the bottom and bottom corners for air/drainage, line the bottom with a piece of landscape cloth, put in some moist bedding/food (paper strips, wood shavings, peat moss, horse poo {they love horse poo}, brown leaves, used coffee grounds, banana peels, kitchen scraps, etc. (No Citrus, no meat). Place your worms into about 2 to 3 inches of the bedding/food and cover them over with another 1 inch layer of moist bedding. Keep moist!
Put holes in the lid for air and put it on. When you see that they are eating their way through this, place in another layer on and on until the bin is full. Look at the material to be sure it is a rich dark color. If not leave the worms in to finish the job. You may stir it up once in a while to aerate.

If you see little springtails and mites in the bin, this is a good sign because they work in harmony with the worms. It should take about 2 to 4 months for the
bin to fill. Then you trap the worms out by using one of those mesh trays for carrying transplant pots filled with their favorite food. I use wet peat mixed with coffee
grounds/banana peels. Place it on top covered with wet newspaper (you probably can't get the lid on at this stage) The worms enter through the holes. It usually takes 3 to 5 days and you snatch the trap off and put them in a new bin or aside while you empty and start over.

There will be stragglers to grab and eggs that are smooth yellow/brown grape seed sized that you can choose to pick out or not. Each egg/capsule contains up to 3 worms or more. If conditions are good your worms have multiplied enough to split into two bins. And on it goes.

If you wish to use the pile method; We live in a cold winter area so we put our worm pile in a barn with a concrete floor (gravel & lime actually). The barn is 16 X 24 feet and we fill it up in early summer 4 feet deep with horse and or cow poop mixed with wood shavings and or peat and bits of straw/hay/leaves/paper/whatever. We wet it down put our worms (2000
pounds?) in and cover it over with wet cardboard and keep it moist. We have a few lights in the barn which keep the worms from traveling. They don't like light.

Around April/May we trap the worms (see previous method) and harvest our beautiful vermicompost packed
with beneficial microbes. If we make CT with it we spread out the used compost in our gardens and the eggs hatch out so we fill our soil with worms. They say that red wrigglers don't stay in soil but that has not been our experience. They eat up the dead organic matter and produce castings right there in the garden. You can even spread out wood shavings or
paper for them to eat.
 
M

mikegreenthumb

490
0
Hey man- I have kept my worm bins really simple from the very first. Each bin is made up of two 18-gallon Rubbermaid bins nested one inside the other.

The bottom one isn't modified in any way... it simply catches the runoff from the top bin, that actual worm bin. The runoff is really nice to toss on your regular compost heap.

The top bin has drainage holes drilled in the bottom and then 1" aeration holes along the top rim. Not many... probably 6 holes total.

$5 can of red wigglers at the Farmer's Market, plus I bought a small bag of castings off of him to jump start/innoculate my first worm bin with all the wonderful microbes and creepy crawlies that come along with vermicompost.

I feed them lots of kitchen scraps, which in our house is primarily coffee grounds, greens, bananas, grapes, apples, egg shells (let em dry then crush them in your hands before tossing them in), rice, that kind of stuff.

For bedding I use shredded newspaper, but there are better options.

Toss in some sand/native soil because the worms' digestive systems need the grit to function properly.

I never have to water my bin... the kitchen scraps have adequate moisture.

Keep the bin relatively warm... I'd say like 55F minimum and then no hotter than 90F. Just as with plants and soil microbes, the sweet spot is mid-70s.

I think that's about it. It's easy and the wonderful thing is that the worm castings you produce at home are literally 100x more alive than any castings you'll ever buy in a plastic bag.

peace-

MoHo
just chiming in
i also vermicompost the ideal temps are between 55 and 77 degrees with about a 10 degree buffer for survivability anything beyond those temps and they die you wanna feed 50/50 mix of kitchen scraps and fiber can be any paper egg shells etc for fiber no meats and none or very min acidic fruits i use the worm factory 360 for my bin ready made and easy to use inside smell proof stackable upward migration so feed in upper tray and they abandon lower trays that have been worked leaving no need to seperate worms from compost also has a spicket for easy draining/collection of runoff
 
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