Worm Farming Aka Vermicomposting!

[G gnome]

Oh it'll work. Coffee grounds get em all jazzed up too.

 

[LittleDabbie]

yeah i understand, molasses would do as well...from what i heard its just to add sweetner and carbs to the foods, and they go crazy...i guess i should have to make 2 bins then, i need to test it out

If your adding any fruits theres already enough sugar in them :D I would avoid honey as its antimicrobial and antibacterial properties..

Pureeing the food and freezing it before hand has always faired well for me, thaw the black out dump it in and a cpl days later repeat. Bin heats but never hot enough to kill the worms plus its big enough they can move away from the food source if they wish..

 

[G gnome]

Theres way too much deer meat in my freezer for that lol
Its natures viagra you know lol

 

[LittleDabbie]

Theres way too much deer meat in my freezer for that lol
Its natures viagra you know lol

My deep freezers 1/2 full of deer meet, Then my freezer in the mud room is full of worm food then my freezer in the house is full of human food lol

No one uses the freezer part of the 2nd fridge since we got the deep freezer so its made a nice storage spot for bulk foods.

 

[Joe Fresh]

i think sometime in the summer i might build me one of these but add a slow turning electric motor...seems simple enough to build out of a couple 55 gal rain barrels and some screen

 

[LittleDabbie]

Damn.. bin i just made up last month is already full not to the point the worms are unhappy just yet but were getting all black soil now i flipped the contents to aerate the bin and i couldn't find a single instance of fresh bedding, I should prolly make a bucket of bedding ...

Plan to harvest the bin again in another 30 days or so wanna try and get a little more activity so i can continue my business venture on ebay.. Turning out to be a really easy and great money making idea ;)

Was gona take a pic of the bin but im higher then gas prices atm so lol fuck that idea :P

Tho i will take a pic of the whole batch of worms when i harvest this up and coming i got an idea to isolate them so i can get a decent shot of the whole shabang..

So anyway.. I hope i get to see more people starting bins and sharing there experiences with us, Gotta admit i have a weird addiction to worms lol

 

[LittleDabbie]

Woot about 1/2 way thru the harvest of the bin, made up the new bin and bedding today and transfered at least 5k worms or more.. Theres just so fucking many! One of these days i'll try and clean/collect them and weigh them i am kinda curious to see..

maybe next harvest, Im still tweaking my method of harvesting but its going ALOT faster.. No real sorting just sifting thru a 1/2 inch screen anything that falls thru gets added to the sell list. Im not up for harvesting all the worms anymore i got more then enough almost too many.. Might have to sell off some one day lol

 

[Bulldog11]

I just bought 2 yards of high quality chicken compost, then inoculated with basalt, glacial rock dust, kelp meal, neem cake, and alfalfa, and added both red wigglers and European night crawlers. They are in 4 - 200 gallon smart pots with alfalfa straw mulch.

I have also been messing around with farming worms from the native soil. I have been dumping all my food scraps in a large (400gal+) container with an open bottom. Keep it moist and the worms come running! Well, wiggling at least. Much cheaper than ordering from Uncle Jim every season.

 

[LittleDabbie]

I just bought 2 yards of high quality chicken compost, then inoculated with basalt, glacial rock dust, kelp meal, neem cake, and alfalfa, and added both red wigglers and European night crawlers. They are in 4 - 200 gallon smart pots with alfalfa straw mulch.

I have also been messing around with farming worms from the native soil. I have been dumping all my food scraps in a large (400gal+) container with an open bottom. Keep it moist and the worms come running! Well, wiggling at least. Much cheaper than ordering from Uncle Jim every season.

I did that before my 1st order of worms got here, I estimate i collected between 5 and 700 just from my backyard around the roots of trees/Leaf piles, Then i went out by the fence to the green transformers and such and dug around the edges of those and found a fucking SHITLOAD :D

Also when it rains afterwards i'll go out and collect all the worms outta the street, Gotta save them!! lol

Next harvest i will def, Sort seperate weight and photo the whole lot of worms i got, this round was a quick sort so alot of bigger chunks of shit got put back into the bin next round all that craps coming out.. So i'll put all the worms / big shit in a bucket and just use a light to force them down and skim the top layers of shit off till i got nothing but worms, Then i'll transfer those to a glass dish and weigh them/photo them and force them to make me more money ;)

Averaging around 20-25 gallons of castings a month now and its all money! :D

Who knew fertilizer sold so well ;)

 

[Joe Fresh]

Woot about 1/2 way thru the harvest of the bin, made up the new bin and bedding today and transfered at least 5k worms or more.. Theres just so fucking many! One of these days i'll try and clean/collect them and weigh them i am kinda curious to see..

maybe next harvest, Im still tweaking my method of harvesting but its going ALOT faster.. No real sorting just sifting thru a 1/2 inch screen anything that falls thru gets added to the sell list. Im not up for harvesting all the worms anymore i got more then enough almost too many.. Might have to sell off some one day lol

yeah i started my bin with 3 lbs of worms...but they take forever to eat the food....i just dont know...if i move top layer there is tons for worms...but they just dont seem to like my weed leaves too much lol

 

[LittleDabbie]

yeah i started my bin with 3 lbs of worms...but they take forever to eat the food....i just dont know...if i move top layer there is tons for worms...but they just dont seem to like my weed leaves too much lol

LOL Never tried feeding them weed, They always seem for me to prefer the worm chow or just de-thawed fruit and veggie purree.

Pound of food is generally gone in a day or 2 gets kinda hard to keep up demand at times run outta wet food..

 

[Joe Fresh]

LOL Never tried feeding them weed, They always seem for me to prefer the worm chow or just de-thawed fruit and veggie purree.

Pound of food is generally gone in a day or 2 gets kinda hard to keep up demand at times run outta wet food..

well im not weighing my food i put in, i just put a few bags of leaf from my trim(fan leaves), the bedding, and a few organic banana's and pears and stuff, broccoli, ect...

 

[LittleDabbie]

Did you puree the food first or just throw it in all whole? If it was the latter thats the reason its going to take alot longer for them to start eating whole food vs smaller bites, They don't have teeth so they have to wait till the food rots and becomes really soft before they can eat it . :D

 

[G gnome]

I did that before my 1st order of worms got here, I estimate i collected between 5 and 700 just from my backyard around the roots of trees/Leaf piles, Then i went out by the fence to the green transformers and such and dug around the edges of those and found a fucking SHITLOAD :D

Also when it rains afterwards i'll go out and collect all the worms outta the street, Gotta save them!! lol

Next harvest i will def, Sort seperate weight and photo the whole lot of worms i got, this round was a quick sort so alot of bigger chunks of shit got put back into the bin next round all that craps coming out.. So i'll put all the worms / big shit in a bucket and just use a light to force them down and skim the top layers of shit off till i got nothing but worms, Then i'll transfer those to a glass dish and weigh them/photo them and force them to make me more money ;)

Averaging around 20-25 gallons of castings a month now and its all money! :D

Who knew fertilizer sold so well ;)

i just had a hilarious mental image of little dabbie stoned out of his mind walking up and down the street in the rain w rubber boots picking up worms

yeah i started my bin with 3 lbs of worms...but they take forever to eat the food....i just dont know...if i move top layer there is tons for worms...but they just dont seem to like my weed leaves too much lol

If you use compost the leaves a lil first they will tear right through it.

 

[G gnome]

Also its important to maintain an even carbon to nitrogen balance. So somewhere in the range of equal parts fan leaves to paper shreds so as to have the proper moisture.

 

[Joe Fresh]

yeah i started out with a good amount of paper and cardboard, but have since been addin tons of leavs because i just rimmed a small crop...the springtails seem to love the fruit in there though

 

[SoiledMyself]

Going to try and get a worm bin going this summer , start with a few big compost piles that are pretty much finished but not quite the quality I would want in my pots, gonna feed them that and food scraps see how it goes , just another geeky thing to add to the list
:p

 

[LittleDabbie]

So just had a thought this morning, Free horse shit !! Its pretty easy to come by for worm food, Red wigglers LOVE Horse shit and in fact can and do live in nothing but Horse Shit!

Now you can do the usual post an ad or search craigslist and then pay for a truck load or find a nice farmer who gives it away, But if your like me and wanna avoid people theres another good source for shit in the summer months!

CAMP GROUNDS! Specific the Trail Camps, Around michigan we have TONS of camp grounds and TONS of Trail camps, Lucky for me i know one spot in perticular right by the river where horses drink and shit by the masses! Score Free shit this summer!

Also make sure to AGE the horse shit Not because it may be fresh, But because it may contain a de-wormer you never know since the source is unknown, The most common de-wormer given to cattle / horses breaks down really quickly once its pooped out so just lay it in a thin pile/layer in the sun for a cpl days to age it and it will be of no harm to the worms at that point.

Shit will really boost your worms production too mine used to love the horse crap.

 

[Bulldog11]

Treat that horse poop first for de-worming meds. I have three horses on the property and I have been shoveling poop into a large open bottom 400 gallon container. As the poop ages, the worms come running. Since I started about 3 months ago, I have easily harvested 5 pounds of worms. Making a 55 gallon compost tea with those fresh castings as we speak.

 

[G gnome]

@LittleDabbie hows the worm biz? Still pumpin em on e bay? Is it planting time up there in the north pole yet lol?
Just got all my veggies in and tilled in about 50gal of castings.