Has anyone ever heard of this worm company? My brother is seriously interested in getting one of their small sytems put in his garage. It is termed the smallest farm and will cost about 4500.00 with full support(?)from them. Let me know if you have any info on thier worms, worm castings or systems. JaK
jakrustle Please tell your brother to hold onto his money. If he would hang out at Red Worm Composting and Vermicomposters and read the archives, read the forums, etc. he will find that there are more 'worm scams' than you can count on a set of hands. I found that instead of using the term 'worm bin' at Google for example, if you use the term 'vermicompost' you will get better links and avoid the blogs - to an extent. For the kind of money he's thinking about spending, you could have several professionally-designed worm bins operating at full capacity. A flow-through worm bin measuring 3' x 4' with 30 lbs. of worms will process 12 lbs. of food per day. Avoid any and all 'worm business opportunities' - I've never found a single one that wasn't a scam. Especially the clown in Idaho with his tables - that's who I first thought you were talking about. The pay-in on the investment is about the same money, i.e. money down the drain. HTH LD
jakrustle Here's an unfinished flow-through worm bin like I mentioned before. This design from Oregon Soil Company (Dan Holcombe) has been around since the mid-90's. This is the design that you want for maximum production of vermicompost. If you want to raise and sell worms (much higher profit, IMHO) then this would not be the best way to get there. The bin you're looking at has 3 sections in the bottom and that's where the grate/screen goes which holds the bedding material in place. As the worms move through the food stock they leave behind worm castings which drop to the bottom. Feed from the top - harvest castings from the bottom. These cost <$300.00 to build and less if you were building several at a time. 8 bins would probably be down around $250.00 each so there's $2,000.00 and with this set-up you would expect to process around 100 lbs. of material each day. For another $2,000.00 dollars you would have about 120 lbs. of worms so you would be charging each bin with 15 lbs. of worms. A worm colony which can double every 90 days if you keep the conditions correct. HTH LD
LD, thanks for the info and the advice. I have passed it along to my brother. I hope he takes the advice seriously, because I told him that with his smarts and craftsmanship he could easily design and build a box that could produce castings as good as anyones with the right bedding, food and various other inexpensive ingredients. JaK
Like LD said, tell your brother to hold onto his $$$$. You mention that he is handy. Have him check out this design on youtube - [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RPtlROnCT4]Redworm flowthrough,large4ftx8ftwormbin - YouTube[/ame] This is a "monster" 4x8 flow throgh bin, based on what's called an OSCR design. I made this bin with a few modifications, and it has done exceptionally well for me (except when I got a little varmint in it that caused havoc). When it was running optimally, I could dump a wheel barrow of raw materials into it 2X per week, and get a full wheel barrow of VC per week out of it. Not the greatest for harvesting worms, but unmatched design IMHO for VC. There a few design changes that I would make to this overall design, but that's for another post. PM me if you are interested. Remember, besides having a great design for your bin, what you feed it cam make or break your success. Red wigglers are known as "manure worms " for a reason. Source a manure from animals that are given no/few worming medicines or anti-biotics. I use alpaca. Get a cubic yard and mix in some rock dust, organic alfalfa, and some fish meal. Then, give it a good dose of of compost + worm casting AACT and let it compost for a month plus. Let it breath, but not dry out. This introduces the microherd to the manure, and the microherd thrives. Your worms will absolutely chow on it. Good luck!
Dean Innovations in PDX sells honest-to-God organic compost (certified OTCO - Oregon Tilth Certified Organic which is NOT easily earned) for $29.00 per yard. About $1.05 (or something close) for 1 c.f. Run that through your worm bin with appropriate amounts of glacial rock dust, neem meal, crab meal and kelp meal and you'll end up with the world's finest castings. Literally. I've finished 2 months of research and I've studied work from Dr. Clive Edwards, Dr. Yasmine Cardoza, et al. and the science is there for all to read and review. Pure science. You can create levels of 'nutes' in EWC that results in the proverbial 'water only' goal. The ol' 'Garage in - Garbage out' truth............... LD
LD, Going to wake this thread back up. I am currently setting up a production worm farm system to seek that water only goal level of EWC quality. I have the right space, access to materials, backing, and market. Care to help me out with some advice? I am going to look at the referenced plans and start gathering the materials for a FT system. I have a ready bulk source of Mushroom Compost that is OMRI listed for what that is worth and all the other ingredients listed except neem meal. I will start looking around for neem meal and a Biodynamic compost. What are your thoughts? Eld
Howdy, Eld! LD hasn't been around much as of late, unfortunately. But we've got some serious wormers hanging in the vermicomposting thread. Maybe you could find some help there? http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/334921-vermicomposting-make-your-own-worm-castings.html
Eld and LD... Lol Hey Eld, the last thing you want to do is to pay for compost to use as bedding/worm food. I would start collecting materials; old leaves, horse manure; have your friends start saving kitchen scraps - any organic matter you can come up with and start your own compost heap(s). Good luck with this! Like Waktoo said, the Vermicomposting thread is a great resource. Start reading! J