Roz's wasted wormery!

[Caddis]

just matters if the ants are really a enemy to u or your garden

They're fire ants.

 

[Caddis]

I have no interest in remedies involving toxic chemicals, although the diesel fuel remedy sounds like fire!

 

[greyfader]

it really burns me up!

 

[Rozgreenburn]

I keep plugging along with my worm endeavor. I won't have to buy EWC for the foreseeable future! I wish composting worms were larger. I could sell all I could raise if they were 40% larger. Not really a big enough revenue steam to concern myself. But everybody gets plenty of EWC, and I have nearly no fungus gnats. That's a win in my book!

 

[Ed Rooney]

I keep plugging along with my worm endeavor. I won't have to buy EWC for the foreseeable future! I wish composting worms were larger. I could sell all I could raise if they were 40% larger. Not really a big enough revenue steam to concern myself. But everybody gets plenty of EWC, and I have nearly no fungus gnats. That's a win in my book!

That's awesome. I love being able to pass on castings to growers. I use a mix of species. Do you have African night crawlers?

 

[Rozgreenburn]

That's awesome. I love being able to pass on castings to growers. I use a mix of species. Do you have African night crawlers?

I am using red wigglers and super reds. I tried Africans but the others worked better. EWC for the win!

 

[BH]

It’s crazy for every 1k of worms = 0.5- 1lb they‘ll eat a day!

shoot a veggie garden is soo nice to be able to every composting (excluding a few or limiting ) .. man they love squashes and watermleon. I gave em my scrapes of a watermelon 5x this whole week. As long as u balance ur moisture you’ll be fine . What I do also I keep all my sugar trim ater it’s been kief filtered ( I use a kief tumbler ) and leave a nice layer ontop and than Mist it a lil to get the microbes/fungi going in that. man the worms can eat hehe 😜

Vermiculture Feeding - How To Feed Composting Worms Correctly

It's important to know what to feed worms, the vermicomposting dos and don'ts, and how to feed composting worms. For help with this and other tips on feeding worms, read the following article.

www.gardeningknowhow.com

 

[webeblzr]

Excellent thread!! Thank you for all your in put!! I've been printing the recipes also!!
Well I'm starting into this worm wrangling thingy myself.
I fell in love with EWC many years ago, when it was cheap, well at $30.00 a bag, it's game on now!
Since I run my indoor garden is a perpetual fashion, adding a wormery, should be just part of the flow.
Kind of a kick in the nether regions, but Jim's is like 20 minutes from my house, and I still can only have them shipped. Ok done whining.
Over the past few months, been reading up, scavenging for stuff to use, then I pissed off the paper shredder, and it gave me the finger!
So, I got a nice gift card for helping some folks out with a paint job, a while back, and Amazon delivered to me a very nice and much bigger PS, a 16 or 18 pager!
Worms are ordered, medium is soaking, and just a quick run up to pahydro, to get a few Down To Earth items, and I'll either slaughter a bag, or will have some EWC by springtime, I hope anyway.
I've also started a bokashi totes, and got my LAB's halfway started, and will inoculate 10 lb's of bran this week sometime.
So, this old dog is learning some new tricks.
My full blown fantasy, is to combine, the bokashi composted material, the EWC, after all my stalks/stems yellow out, run them through an electric chipper, to become medium, and soak the matter in some LAB's, like you would with bran. Like I said, a dream.
Right now, I'm growing in coco husks, large chunk perlite, and bale of Sunshine Mix #4, with a couple of bags of Jims EWC.
I do save, and reuse my medium as long as it is not breaking down, as many times as I can now.

 

[Rozgreenburn]

Excellent thread!! Thank you for all your in put!! I've been printing the recipes also!!
Well I'm starting into this worm wrangling thingy myself.
I fell in love with EWC many years ago, when it was cheap, well at $30.00 a bag, it's game on now!
Since I run my indoor garden is a perpetual fashion, adding a wormery, should be just part of the flow.
Kind of a kick in the nether regions, but Jim's is like 20 minutes from my house, and I still can only have them shipped. Ok done whining.
Over the past few months, been reading up, scavenging for stuff to use, then I pissed off the paper shredder, and it gave me the finger!
So, I got a nice gift card for helping some folks out with a paint job, a while back, and Amazon delivered to me a very nice and much bigger PS, a 16 or 18 pager!
Worms are ordered, medium is soaking, and just a quick run up to pahydro, to get a few Down To Earth items, and I'll either slaughter a bag, or will have some EWC by springtime, I hope anyway.
I've also started a bokashi totes, and got my LAB's halfway started, and will inoculate 10 lb's of bran this week sometime.
So, this old dog is learning some new tricks.
My full blown fantasy, is to combine, the bokashi composted material, the EWC, after all my stalks/stems yellow out, run them through an electric chipper, to become medium, and soak the matter in some LAB's, like you would with bran. Like I said, a dream.
Right now, I'm growing in coco husks, large chunk perlite, and bale of Sunshine Mix #4, with a couple of bags of Jims EWC.
I do save, and reuse my medium as long as it is not breaking down, as many times as I can now.

Hey @webeblzr, It's been nearly 3 weeks since this post. How are you doing in the world of vermiculture? The shredded paper is a great way to control bin moisture.

 

[Rozgreenburn]

Worm project update,
I sprung my back a month ago, and although I'm back to 100%, I have no intention of letting that happen again if I can help it!
I have swapped out the 20 gallon totes for 12 gallon ones. I have 3 spare totes which I place about an inch of shredded paper in the bottom of a clean tote. When feeding very wet items, {melons, cukes etc.} the bins will end up wetter than the ideal state, so I'll dump the moist bin contents on top of the shredded paper, then I'll put fresh shredded paper in the bottom of the tote I just emptied and go to the next bin. Finally a good use for junk mail! I just changed methods a few weeks ago, so I'll be posting results as I go along.

 

[Amarok]

In for knowledge.

I'm trying to do a worm bin, but for nightcrawlers for fish bait. Had bug and odour issues with the first go but this one is doing well after a couple months. I don't produce a lot of food waste but I like the idea of turning it into something useful.

 

[Ed Rooney]

In for knowledge.

I'm trying to do a worm bin, but for nightcrawlers for fish bait. Had bug and odour issues with the first go but this one is doing well after a couple months. I don't produce a lot of food waste but I like the idea of turning it into something useful.

Do you have dogs? Guess what gets those nightcrawlers fat for fish.....

 

[greyfader]

i have an online buddy who feeds his worms straight bunny poo. i think it's a high-class, expensive way to do it but he only uses the EWC he gets from this for his cannabis crop.

he raises rabbits in cages and feeds them a bunch of stuff to get the right nutrient ratio's. he doesn't kill and eat the rabbits but if you wanted to you could. taste like chicken, as they say.

i got traumatized about rabbits as a kid about 5 years old. there was an old man in the neighborhood who raised rabbits in cages. big white fluffy ones. he would let kids come look at them and feed them sometimes. a group of us were gathered around the cages one day and he just reached into the cage and grabbed one and clubbed it with a piece of pipe. and then butchered it right in front of us.

we were all shocked and there was stunned silence for a few minutes. he had just killed Peter Rabbit.

 

[Amarok]

Do you have dogs? Guess what gets those nightcrawlers fat for fish.....

I only raise bait. I have minnows and nightcrawlers.

I don't want anything in my house that can whine at me.
(Do you guys say "whine" or "whinge"? I know you use a lot more Pommy slang while we have the Yank influence.)

 

[Jewels]

Guess what gets those nightcrawlers fat for fish....

Leaf mould.
The nightcrawlers make such a racket crawling through my leaf piles, they sound like mice.

 

[Rozgreenburn]

In for knowledge.

I'm trying to do a worm bin, but for nightcrawlers for fish bait. Had bug and odour issues with the first go but this one is doing well after a couple months. I don't produce a lot of food waste but I like the idea of turning it into something useful.

I'm interested! From what I've read, nightcrawlers are not ideal for composting, but since it sound as though it's working for you, I will follow along. I've got 3 - 12 gallon totes each of red wigglers, and Super reds. They are great for composting, but I like a bigger worm for fishing. It's all good, my primary goal was a steady supply of fresh EWC. I just replaced a dead refrigerator and, if I get ambitious, I'll bury it up to the hinges under a large walnut tree. That would be the place for me to try nightcrawlers this spring!

 

[Amarok]

I'm interested! From what I've read, nightcrawlers are not ideal for composting, but since it sound as though it's working for you, I will follow along. I've got 3 - 12 gallon totes each of red wigglers, and Super reds. They are great for composting, but I like a bigger worm for fishing. It's all good, my primary goal was a steady supply of fresh EWC. I just replaced a dead refrigerator and, if I get ambitious, I'll bury it up to the hinges under a large walnut tree. That would be the place for me to try nightcrawlers this spring!

I'm not expecting them to be efficient as proper compost worms. I just want to keep them alive and reproducing because it's cheaper than buying bait.
When I emptied out the failed try, I went through it and picked out the eggs, so they were reproducing. When I open the lid now there are always visible, active, healthy looking adults. I haven't dug for small ones. Just going to let it get well established.

 

[webeblzr]

Hey Roz, well, they seem to be doing well. If still wildly running from the light, as I uncover the cardboard top, on the bin.
I'm pretty sure it has far to many worms in it. So I've been gathering up cardboard, better quality paper than I started with, shredding it.
They seem to prefer the more rotted stuff, over fresh skins and peelings.
I did get a pound of Jim's worm food, but use it sparingly, as I want them eating certain kitchen scraps.
Also, with my Illness, (tragically cheap) I did not buy a real worm bin, like a normal human would do.
I'm going to try some smaller bins, as they would fit my area better.
Thanks for asking!!

 

[Ed Rooney]

I only raise bait. I have minnows and nightcrawlers.

I don't want anything in my house that can whine at me.
(Do you guys say "whine" or "whinge"? I know you use a lot more Pommy slang while we have the Yank influence.)

Great Philosophy! I actually use both. 'You whinie old bastard' or 'have a whinge why don't ya'

 

[Rozgreenburn]

I fed all 8 of my 12 gallon bins today. In 2 more feedings I'll have to harvest 1/2 the bins and start over. I may cut back to 6 bins as the wife and I don't often have enough waste to feed them. Over the Summer I used all our garden waste too, so I've lost that food source for 6 months. As it is, there's 5 times more EWC than I can use. I've started to up the EWC in my super soil x 2.
It seems if I don't reduce, it may not not be as fresh as smaller continuous bins might be? When I harvest in 6 weeks, I may reduce my bins. I think I'll just drop them in the garden after the first tilling.