Living Soil, Mulching, Cover Crop, Vermicompost Qs

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LittleDabbie

LittleDabbie

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Heres what i was talking about ;)
S l500
 
Underthesun

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I have taken *all* my organic gardening learning over to and from the market gardening sector. Eliot Coleman and the like. So for CC's along with cannabis I have some specific requirements--fast germinating, low-growing, low water demanding. I have found, for example, that clovers in a topsoil really need a good bit more water than something like fenugreek, which is still one of my alltime favorites for cover cropping. I will also use rye grass, and anything else that can also EASILY be chopped and dropped. That's how I do CC's, chop & drop. Mine have been going a few years now so they reseed themselves annually, sometimes biannually.

I don't mulch along with CCs, the CCs ARE the mulch, especially if you're doing a chop & drop method. This is also called green manuring.

Bioactive soil will continue to be alive as long as there's something living on it. I chop & drop usually, BUT there's nothing wrong with doing some judicious tilling. If I wish to till, or if I feel amendments are needed (and I do prefer to till those in) then that's what I do. If I have to till, then I reseed the cover crops. I haven't done any tilling since '11 when I did my knee though, and the soil is nicely friable and easily planted. I'm gonna miss my beds.

Anything woody is going to sequester N for a while. I personally would recommend allowing them to more fully decompose, to release that N and C storage. There won't be much in the way of sugars in any event via woody stocks.
Thanks, Sea! I'll have to take this all into consideration.

If you already feeding them a wide range of fruits and veggies theres really not much else to do, you could add some calcium carbonate and azomite two products i feed my worms once a week.. Past that make sure your harvesting the castings on a semi regular basis, you don't want the worms to process there own shit cause that will actually lower the nutrient vaule of the castings them selfs.

Fruits veggies and some powder azomite and calcium is all ive ran in my bins for the past cpl years now, I don't add paper i don't add cardboard i don't add leaves or shit from outside, just food scraps and powder..

I would just use the castings you get and worry about adding shit to your soil when your plants tell you they need more :)

Cool and interesting. I have never heard of anyone having composting worms without bedding. How do that work out?
 
str8smokn

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I just cut a old pool filter in half and filled it with yard compost,newspaper shreds,and kitchen scraps. The filter is sitting on top of a 5gal bucket to catch any juice or rain water.
They are still alive after a month,so I guess something is right..
STR8
 
Underthesun

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Heres what i was talking about ;)
View attachment 596458
Nice. I've made a few of my own using 1/4" mesh. I framed a sieve in with 1x1s about 3' square and it works pretty well. I also took two five gallon buckets, sawed the bottom off of one, wrapped the 1/4" mesh around both ends of the buckets making a mesh cylinder and attached with magical duct tape. You drop the compost in the one end without a bucket bottom and spin it around a few times than just dump it out. With a 1/4" mesh you get some worms and cacoons in your castings, but it goes slow enough already for me to want to go down to 1/8".
 
Underthesun

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You may be weary of any compost tea given to you. Was it AACT? Or is it his leachate, the liquid that flows out the bottom of his bin. Either way, if it was AACT than it needs to be used right away and shouldn't sit in a container. Or if it was leachate it may be nasty and anaerobic. I'm just repeating what I've read, I have only used AACT.
 
LittleDabbie

LittleDabbie

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Nice. I've made a few of my own using 1/4" mesh. I framed a sieve in with 1x1s about 3' square and it works pretty well. I also took two five gallon buckets, sawed the bottom off of one, wrapped the 1/4" mesh around both ends of the buckets making a mesh cylinder and attached with magical duct tape. You drop the compost in the one end without a bucket bottom and spin it around a few times than just dump it out. With a 1/4" mesh you get some worms and cacoons in your castings, but it goes slow enough already for me to want to go down to 1/8".

I usually start with 1/2 inch to remove most of the worms, then i'll move to 1/8th inch to remove the rest of the good shit i want.

And yeah it goes slow as fuck lol
 
keiksweat

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Some cool ideas,thanks..really making me wanna just make one.i only realy need 3-4 totes I suppose.to be simple.could even add a tap at the bottom,for the juicy shit..you say you cant use the water?is it anaerobic always,straight away?
 
LittleDabbie

LittleDabbie

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If your pulling out the water as its dripping down and out then yeah you can use it right away, but if it sits there for more then say 12-24 hours it will go anaerobic perhaps even faster then that im not really sure, My bin's are monitored since there indoor bin's i don't ever water them to the point theres standing water in the bottom of the bins, The bedding is like a wrung out sponge, never soaking / dripping.

The water they do get comes mostly from the food i dump in, but if the bins dry out too much i just take a watering can and soak the bedding again but again NEVER to the point theres standing water.

And thats mainly because it mucks up your worm shit into a puddle of muddy hard to separate from everything else.

And no one likes muddy castings.
 
keiksweat

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If your pulling out the water as its dripping down and out then yeah you can use it right away, but if it sits there for more then say 12-24 hours it will go anaerobic perhaps even faster then that im not really sure, My bin's are monitored since there indoor bin's i don't ever water them to the point theres standing water in the bottom of the bins, The bedding is like a wrung out sponge, never soaking / dripping.

The water they do get comes mostly from the food i dump in, but if the bins dry out too much i just take a watering can and soak the bedding again but again NEVER to the point theres standing water.

And thats mainly because it mucks up your worm shit into a puddle of muddy hard to separate from everything else.

And no one likes muddy castings.
what about smell ?you say yours is indoor dabbie?don't ya get worms everywhere bro...
 
LittleDabbie

LittleDabbie

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No real smell, Maybe a very mild oder from the fresh peat moss but that goes away or ya just get used to it one or the two lol But naa no real odors to speak of least no one around here bitches and believe me they would lol

Nope don't get worms everywhere when i change the bedding and add new bedding I dump a thick layer of dry worm chow over the top of the bedding which stops them from going any farther, and they just relax chill and eat up all the food, Then a few days later i'll dump in the actual food waste on top then cover that up with fresh new bedding to prevent any smell or bugs :D

I have 5 bins atm all with no lids, no worms escaping and no bugs other then soil mites which are normal.

Keeping the ph in check *which i don't even check really* With calcium carbonate and dry layers on top when i switch bedding to keep them from going anywhere.

If all that fails and there still trying to escape something is off PH usually.. or too moist there drowning...

As long as there fed a steady diet and have a near neutral PH zone to live in they tend to stay put, its when things swing on the moister or ph scale that they wander and look for more favorable conditions.

Dial everything in and every month your population will sky rocket.. Its fucking crazy just how fast and prolific breeders these things are.

I started with maybe 2000 worms in a single 55 gallon bin, I now have 5 18 Gallon bins with at least 3000-4000 worms in each bin, with plans on at least 1 or 2 more in the near future lol

Im drowning in worm bins but its cool cause theres money in all that shit, figuratively and actually speaking ;)
 
keiksweat

keiksweat

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cool
No real smell, Maybe a very mild oder from the fresh peat moss but that goes away or ya just get used to it one or the two lol But naa no real odors to speak of least no one around here bitches and believe me they would lol

Nope don't get worms everywhere when i change the bedding and add new bedding I dump a thick layer of dry worm chow over the top of the bedding which stops them from going any farther, and they just relax chill and eat up all the food, Then a few days later i'll dump in the actual food waste on top then cover that up with fresh new bedding to prevent any smell or bugs :D

I have 5 bins atm all with no lids, no worms escaping and no bugs other then soil mites which are normal.

Keeping the ph in check *which i don't even check really* With calcium carbonate and dry layers on top when i switch bedding to keep them from going anywhere.

If all that fails and there still trying to escape something is off PH usually.. or too moist there drowning...

As long as there fed a steady diet and have a near neutral PH zone to live in they tend to stay put, its when things swing on the moister or ph scale that they wander and look for more favorable conditions.

Dial everything in and every month your population will sky rocket.. Its fucking crazy just how fast and prolific breeders these things are.

I started with maybe 2000 worms in a single 55 gallon bin, I now have 5 18 Gallon bins with at least 3000-4000 worms in each bin, with plans on at least 1 or 2 more in the near future lol

Im drowning in worm bins but its cool cause theres money in all that shit, figuratively and actually speaking ;)
bro,sorry to be a pain but,any chance of a picture or two.would really help me get my head around the setting up part..also,won't a handful of lime keep it buffered?
 
LittleDabbie

LittleDabbie

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What step/s are you having trouble with that i can take a picture of?
 
LittleDabbie

LittleDabbie

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Underthesun

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I'm not sure I would use any leachate for my plants, assuming that is what you are reffering to as juice. Do you get this leachate by running water through your unfinished vermicompost and then collect it as it seeps through the bottom? This has potential to have nasty stuff in it. If I keep my bins at a moisture level that I don't have ANY runoff they seem to do great....if I'm getting leachate its too wet in the bin. I also wouldn't want to mess up my moisture by pouring water into my bin unless it needed it. Why not just make AACT with finished compost and toss the leachate? It would be a sure win without any questions of putting nasty stuff in your soil. Would extra would you get from using leachate that AACT wouldn't have?
 
keiksweat

keiksweat

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keiksweat

keiksweat

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I'm not sure I would use any leachate for my plants, assuming that is what you are reffering to as juice. Do you get this leachate by running water through your unfinished vermicompost and then collect it as it seeps through the bottom? This has potential to have nasty stuff in it. If I keep my bins at a moisture level that I don't have ANY runoff they seem to do great....if I'm getting leachate its too wet in the bin. I also wouldn't want to mess up my moisture by pouring water into my bin unless it needed it. Why not just make AACT with finished compost and toss the leachate? It would be a sure win without any questions of putting nasty stuff in your soil. Would extra would you get from using leachate that AACT wouldn't have?
that's what I always assumed,but you see these store bought worm farms that have a big tap sticking out the side.i would have thought its more waste.
 
LittleDabbie

LittleDabbie

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that's what I always assumed,but you see these store bought worm farms that have a big tap sticking out the side.i would have thought its more waste.

Theres a huge debate online about leachate and weather its harmful or beneficial .. It smells like shit it gets dumped like shit. Smells good i use it..

the people who make bins and sell them like that are imho falsely advertising a product as able to make worm tea, which it does not and will not..
 
Underthesun

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Theres a huge debate online about leachate and weather its harmful or beneficial .. It smells like shit it gets dumped like shit. Smells good i use it..

the people who make bins and sell them like that are imho falsely advertising a product as able to make worm tea, which it does not and will not..
I think you are right Dabbie, I always took that as a way to sell their product to the uninformed. I have seen the dabates too, and you are probably correct about the smell. My thought is, the AACT made with castings is pretty much worry free if I follow all the steps (enough air per water ratio, don't let it go more than 48 hours, and give the correct amount of molasses and castings). Putting something in my soil that has the slightest chance of doing harm makes me uneasy, so I just toss the leachate for peace of mind since I have convinced myself there is no added benefit from the leachate that I'm not getting from my AACT. Either way, worms are fun!!! The hardest part for me is leaving the little bastards alone to do their thing, I just want to play with them!
 
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