Vermicomposting

[StevenFarms]

Anyone try it? I have and I LOVE it sorry I have a sprained middle finger thats why I'm not typing more

[rainbowgardener]

We won't ask how you managed to sprain your middle finger!

Yup, a number of us do vermicomposting. If our Search the Forum feature still worked I'd suggest typing that or worm bin into it to see how many. Unfortunately these days mostly all you will get is threads from 2009 or before.

Anyway, I'm sure some others will chime in as I already did in your other post about this.

Welcome to the Forum!

[wormsrus]

Yes I do vermicomposting and its very rewarding when you get everything working well. There is a bit of skill in learning the do's and don'ts of worm farming, however once you get the knowledge, it's a great way to help process your green kitchen waste. You are also helping reduce methane emissions ( the more dangerous type of emissions ), by processing your green waste via vermicomposting.

Under ideal conditions, compost worms can consume half their body weight in green waste. Thus 1 kg of compost worms can process half a kilo of green kitchen waste, under ideal conditions. I.e. a well maintained worm farm environment.

[rainbowgardener]

half their body weight per ?

Day, I'm thinking.

It is impressive how much food disappears in the worm bin.

But they are very undemanding pets. If I give them lot of food it disappears pretty quickly. If I forget about them for awhile, they just eat the fall leaves they are living in. So every once in awhile I add more leaves, too.

[wormsrus]

Ahh yes sorry. As I understand worms can consume half their body weight per day, under ideal conditions. Thanks for clarifying that. I use a combination of organic potting mix and un-treated compressed paper kitty litter ( un-used ! ) 50 / 50 to top up the worm farm occasionally. Mix it in a bucket then I soak in water for a few hours first, then drain off. Probably good to throw in some leaves though, something a bit more natural. Leaves would provide good cover also.

[The Natural]

Good thing about a worm bin, can be made out of about anything. plastic garbage cans,storage bins, stackable plastic containers, all kind of things.

Ive read be kind of sparing on alot of food, I hear they can recover quicker from too less food then too much, possibly killing your whole colony.

I myself would also like too know, do you keep a certain green/brown ratio like a compost pile? More brown material too green?

[cynthia_h]

Worms don't eat the brown material; they just need something for bedding. I generally use shredded newspaper (really shredded; through a paper shredder and then stored in a lawn/leaf bag). I feed mine--this colony is going on five years old now--all kinds of fruits and veggies.

They don't seem to consume onion peel; it just becomes bedding. They absolutely adore melon rind and mango peels. Although some worm compost people will say stuff like, "Oh, don't feed them citrus," mine don't seem to find it all that onerous. I just don't overload them with it. If I go on an O.J. rampage ("Oh, no! juice oranges are 20 cents a pound! Gotta have 'em!"), I'll give some of the rinds to the worms and put the rest in my primary compost pile in a black plastic composter which has worked for me for a l-o-n-g time.

I make sure and drain off the leachate regularly so that the worms' environment doesn't become too wet or too acidic. If it does, fungus gnats begin to appear and the worms aren't as agile and "happy" as they normally are.

This reminds me: it's been a good long while since I drifted powdered eggshell on their bedding. I need to arrange for bright light to drive them down into the bedding first, though; the eggshell, even when powdered, can irritate their bodies when they contact it. They're supposed to eat it, not wear it, so I take the "bright light" precaution.

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9

[DoubleDogFarm]

This reminds me: it's been a good long while since I drifted powdered eggshell on their bedding. I need to arrange for bright light to drive them down into the bedding first, though; the eggshell, even when powdered, can irritate their bodies when they contact it. They're supposed to eat it, not wear it, so I take the "bright light" precaution.

Interesting. Thank you for the tip.

Eric

[rainbowgardener]

Yeah, I never heard the powdered eggshell thing. They benefit from the calcium?

My worm bin has a lot of holes in the bottom and sits up over a tray, so the leachate drains automatically. I suck it up with a turkey baster and dilute it for watering plants.

This incarnation, I never put any paper in for bedding, just a ton of fall leaves. They do eat the fall leaves. I have to keep renewing them. It's kind of interesting, because they eat the body of the leaves and leave the hard leaf stems behind, so I keep pulling leaf stems out.

I had also noticed that they won't eat the onion peels, so I don't give them that any more. Pretty much anything else that goes in the kitchen scraps bucket, they will eat, including used coffee grounds.

My take on it is that I am giving the worm bin browns and greens, just as I do my compost pile.

I'm thinking about trying the thing where I put a second bin stacked into the first with lots of holes in the bottom and see if I can get them to migrate up into it, to harvest all the worm castings in the bottom of the first one. That's something I haven't done yet. But at this point I will wait until I have seedlings going, mix it in to the potting soil.

[imafan26]

Hi
Worms are pretty tough. I've done a lot of things wrong. I have mostly India blue worms. I do use newspaper bedding, but I thought it was too wet so I only added dry torn up paper. The result was a gooey slush that was kinda grey. I thought the worms were dead, but when I harvested it, they were still alive. I was told the worms like it wet rather than dry, but the gray was probably because I was using mostly newspaper. Someone recommended I put in some compost or manure to improve the texture. I also feed my worms mostly greens and an occasional banana peel but no fruits because I do not want to attract fruit flies. The worms do not really like the stems or hard parts of the cabbages very much so I just fish them out when I add more food to the bin. In the bins there are a bunch of other critters I wish were not there though. Roaches are number one but I have also had spiders and recently I caught a gecko in there eating the worms. My question is. Someone said it was good to keep adding water to flush the salts from the bin. I do not get a lot of lechate, so do I need to water more even though the bottom of the bin is slushy?

[rainbowgardener]

How would a gecko get in? Doesn't your bin have a lid on it?

My bin does get a few more critters than I really like, especially given that it is in my basement. It gets tiny spiders, black soldier fly larvae, and at one point a few slugs. I think they come in with the fall leaves I keep adding.
No roaches though ... I would have to toss the thing out in the snow if I saw one of those.

Worms like it damp and I do add water when I add more dry leaves. If your bin is "slushy" and not producing leachate, it sounds like it is not draining well enough. Does it have holes at the bottom? Can you check to see if the holes have gotten clogged?

[imafan26]

Well, my wormbin does have a cover, but it does not fit tightly. I have mesh netting under the cover as well so gecko's can still get in. On the bright side, gnats and fruit flies generally stay out.

[Shaul]

I have two 16 gal Rubbermaid-type plastic bins outside on my patio, under shade. I originally started with approx. 200 EF's that I dug out of a compost pile. I think the most I ever had was about 10,000 but since I manage to give some away every time I harvest, the average is probably closer to 4,000 per bin. Those aren't exact numbers. Now rather than repeat everything I've ever done over the last three years (I've written several hundred posts in other Vermiculture forums), I'm simply going to address some of the things that stood out to me while reading this thread. I use shredded corrugated cardboard as bedding. One of the best investments I made was in buying a heavy-duty (12-sheet) paper shredder (spaghetti strips, not cross-cut). Actually I'm on my second one after burning out the motor on the first. I only look for cardboard that's clean without printing, grease or dirt because I like to keep out as many contaminants as possible. In my experience the worms most definitely do eat the cardboard (actually they like the glue). I am constantly adding more cardboard bedding to my bins and it's constantly disappearing and being turned into castings. This brings us back to the long-standing argument over what/who exactly is eating the bedding and waste. is it the worms or is it the bacteria. It's generally accepted that the bacteria are eating the food and the worms are eating the bacteria. Of course, when the food gets to a soupy texture, the worms can ingest it; which brings us to the next point. Worms don't have teeth, they have no way to chew up the food particles that enter their mouths. What they do have are gizzards (like chickens), they need some form of grit to help them grind the food they intake. Some people add a handful of soil or fine sand. I prefer to add powdered eggshell because it serves as grit as well as adding some extra calcium to the castings and perhaps helping to even out the pH in the bin. I will sprinkle eggshell over the whole top layer of the bin. It doesn't harm them in any way and within a day it's disappeared (they've eaten it). There is a wide-spread and generally accepted statement that the bedding needs to be as wet as a wrung-out sponge. This is a myth. When you consider that EF's can live in up to 90% moisture (that's pretty darned wet), then my bins would be considered very wet. I also have no drainage holes in my bins. Strangely enough, the worms (needing moisture to absorb the oxygen through their skins) are often found in the deepest and wettest parts of the bin. I have never had more than half an inch of standing water in my bins and when that happens I simply add more dry shredded cardboard to absorb the extra liquid.


Shaul

[rainbowgardener]

Thanks, Shaul, nice post, very helpful and informative.

[applestar]

Yes, what she said I'm reminded that maybe I should give my worms some powdered eggshells too.

It sounds like you've mastered the best timing to manage the moisture, even without drainage holes, and that's great. I just tend to feel less pressured for having the bottom draining tray. Besides, I can do this with the leacheate:

(diluted in 5 gal bucket waiting to be used to water indoor plants )

Of course just as good compost tea can be made with a cup of worm casting as well.

[Shaul]

So what's in the picture? Is it Aerated Compost Tea, Aerated Vermicompost Tea, or just aerated leachate? Because if it's aerated leachate, then you're making a Big Mistake in thinking it's the equivalent of properly prepared Aerated Vermicompost Tea. Leachate is just that, and that's all. Leachate is the liquid runoff from water and decaying organic matter in the bin. It has not been processed through the worm and does not have the magical properties that fresh castings do. Yes, some say that you can dilute the leachate and water your plants, but it is definitely not AVCT Aerated VermiCompost Tea. Why cheat yourself?


Shaul

[applestar]

Ok. LOL. I'm a much more cavalier style gardener, so I don't follow the usual detailed steps. I stick whole dry toilet paper tubes in the bottom for their bedding and lay layers of collapsed cake boxes on top as insulating cover instead of towels or coir mats, stuff carrot peelings wrapped in paper towels and sprinkled with coffee grounds or bokashi in a big lump under the cover, then dump cooled veg steaming and blanching (no salt) water over them all to wet them down.

Of course I hear a good portion of the water dripping through down into the catch tray, so I have to drain the tray, and -- no surprise! -- I end up with 2 quarts of rich colored "leacheate".

So what am I to do? It's too rich to use directly, so I dump it in the 5 gallon bucket and add two 2 gal buckets of de-chlorinated water to dilute, but I don't have time to water my plants right away, so to keep the water from stagnating, I used the AACT aerating set up.

This is just a monthly regular watering with a little extra. I won't be thinking of seriously enriching/fertilizing until at least end of Jan... More like mid Feb when the plants start to really feel the lengthening daylight and start their first flush of spring growth. I'll probably give this primarily to the tropicals, citruses, and indoor tomatoes and peppers -- these are the ones that are continuing to grow.

This is why I usually don't post "how-to" about vermicomposting. I'm sure there are more ideal methodology

[PenPalAnna]

I have a bunny and we use the pine pellets for his bedding. Could I put that into my worm bin or is this better left to the compost pile? Also I don't think we have a bait shop around here where is the best place to order worms?

[Shaul]

AS;

Sorry for coming on too strong, sometimes I get a bit carried away in my own fervor. What you describe sounds good and I would probably be doing something similar if I was in your situation. What I would suggest is using the leachate only on flowers and ornamentals and saving the AVCT for Fruits and Vegetables. You speak about adding Bokashi to your Worms. I would like to hear more about it. I just started my first bucket and while I know the process, I'm sure I can gain much from others personal experience.

Shaul

[rainbowgardener]

I also use my worm bin leachate for watering plants with. I just suck it out of the drip tray with a turkey baster and put it in the watering can and add water. I may not be diluting it quite as much as applestar, something like roughly 1 part leachate to 4 parts water. I just use it right away, so don't bother aerating.

I know it is not worm casting tea, but it is enriched organic stuff. I have to get it out of the tray anyway, so the tray doesn't overflow. So why not put it on my plants? Right now it is just house plants. Later it will be my indoor seedlings.

PenPalAnna - You are more likely to get answers to your questions if you start your own thread with them.

[InCaseOfZombies]

I've got a Worm Factory 360 with about 2500 Red Wigglers and 1000 Super Reds. I feed them everything except Citrus and Meats. They seem to enjoy carrots and fruit a great deal. I help them out by microwaving everything prior to giving it to them. This breaks down the cell walls and starts immediate decomposition so it doesn't sit there in the top tray for weeks on end looking the same.

I agree with whoever mentioned the card board. They absolutely LOVE IT. Cardboard is much better for them than shredded paper as it has more nutrients. Paper will be eaten too, but doesn't do much good for them. I get a lot of shipments from Amazon. Every single box is cut up into pieces and then shredded. The capacity is 20 sheets so it doesn't jam. This, along with coconut coir is their favorite bedding/snack. I layer the microwaved fruits and veggies with the shredded cardboard and coconut coir.

I also take used egg shells, wash them, dry them, then pulverize into powder in a food processor. The calcium is great for them and gives them some grit to use in their gizzards. If you are worried about fruit flies, just bury your fruit scraps. The flies aren't adventurous enough to dig into dirt to get at it. Plus, burying things will help oxygenate your existing pile.

Here's a pic of my set up and close up of my warriors:

[dogdayz21]

Got any recommendations of where to buy worms? I'm wanting to start a worm bin and want to do it right the first time

[dogdayz21]

Got any recommendations of where to buy worms? I'm wanting to start a worm bin and want to do it right the first time

[InCaseOfZombies]

Got any recommendations of where to buy worms? I'm wanting to start a worm bin and want to do it right the first time

Well there's uncle jim's but it's kind of pricey. They've got a variety of different kinds. Red Wigglers and larger Super Worms. For composting, red wigglers are the way to go. I've ordered from them in the past, but like I said they are a bit pricey and they only ship on mondays. So depending on when you order, you might be waiting more than a week to receive your order.

https://unclejimswormfarm.com

Here's where I got mine recently: https://gardeningzone.com/products/earth ... -soil-care

They only have red wigglers but price is much easier on the wallet. Speedy service and would recommend them over Uncle Jims.