Worm Bin Additives ??

Discussion in 'Growing Organic Marijuana' started by wetdog, Jul 11, 2010.

  1. #101 bigc29, Oct 27, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 27, 2014
    some guy told me yesterday not to add(feed) tomatos to my worms? ive been putting tomatos in my bin for 4 years now
     
    and i was wondering if i can add Tostido's(chips) & cereal(shreddie's)  i got like bags that been on the fridge for like 6, 7 months

     
  2. Try a little and see. Might be a bit concerned about the salt in the chips and sugar in the cereal, but like the tomatoes, using them for 4 years with no ill effects sorta blows what that guy said out of the water.
     
    Small amounts to see how the worms react isn't going to hurt anything.
     
    Wet
     
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  3. Wet,

    I've read your postings on several occasions and could not find any follow up to this posting. Have you made any modifications since and of not, have you continued to have success?
    I like you struggled to separate my coccoons from bins as I harvested and am on the process of making a 3 tier system of screens to filter worms, castings and coccoons. Did you ever come up with anything different t to do the same?
    One last question, on your mix you noted bokashi wheat and alfalfa meals (bokashi). You prepared both as on the Pod Chef video and then added with the other ingredients and wet down and waited a week or so before adding to your bins, correct?
    I appreciate you sharing your experiences and knowledge...Thanks man.



     
  4. WOW! What a blast from the past!

    Yeah, the bedding is slightly different, but still peat based and not quite as 'busy' with amendments. It's:
    Peat moss
    Lime @1cup/cf
    Perlite @~25%
    Play sand @~1cup+/cf
    Rock dust @~1cup/cf (if you have it. If not, NBD)
    1cup/cf of kelp meal, OR, neem cake, OR, alfalfa, Or, whatever to get the microbes woke up. Don't need a lot.

    That's pretty much it for the basic bedding now. ^^

    Also, pretty much quit adding bokashi bran to the bedding mix finding it worked just as well sprinkled on top of the bin and much less effort. Ran out for a bit, but recently located a local source and snagged a 50# bag of wheat bran. Alfalfa meal is nowhere to be found, but the pellets are easy and cheap, just a bit harder to work with.

    The big secret to all the cocoons was the laying mash, sprinkled on the surface. Apparently it works on worms as well as chickens AFA laying eggs. Just be sure to never bury it, as it will sour.

    For screening, all that is used now is a 1/4" screen, to screen out the largest worms. The 3 main bins are so dense with worms it's hardly worth the effort. Smaller *working* bins aren't screened at all, the VC used 'as is'.

    I'll try and explain. The 3 main bins are 18 gal Rubbermaid totes that get harvested perhaps 2x/year. The working bins are 10 gal totes (same dimensions, but not as tall), that have ~4 gal of bedding and fed just once or twice and then used, worms and all, for the outdoor growing season. This is almost all garden crops. I bait worms from the main bins using melon rinds, 1 or 2 handfuls/working bin. Never noticed much of a dent in the populations from removing the worms.

    The working bins will be started before March for use in May or June and it's just easier to use the VC right from the small bins, plus, everything seems to benefit from the fresh infusion of worms.

    Enough of my babble, hope it helped.

    Wet
     
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  5. Awesome...Thanks!
    I appreciate you sharing.
     
  6. Do you add anything else, like compost, for them to go through?
     
  7. Not really. Not in the bins anyway. My 'compost' pile is a layer of leaf mulch ~10" thick on the raised beds. It's full of worms and more are added regularly with fresh VC. So, it gets worked, just not in the bin.

    I feed the bins mainly with coffee grounds and fresh, frozen comfrey. Also keep coffee jugs with neem cake, kelp meal, laying mash, and sometimes, oatmeal, for the occasional top dress between feedings. Like a nosh.

    Works well for me, since everything in the bin is known and avoids nasty surprises from unknown sources.

    Wet
     
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  8. Wh
    What are your thoughts on using a peat & composted manure mix?
     
  9. I use it in my 'working' bins quite a bit (the ones that are used 'as is'), because of one small problem.

    The Black Kow composted manure that I use also has the same pine bark fines I use in my soil mix. Tried them in my bedding some time ago, where they worked great, right up till the 1/4" screen came into play. Perlite will crunch down and go through the screen. Bark fines, not so much.

    The worms flat out love it, mixed with peat (still need perlite for aeration), top dressed for growing plants, where ever in the garden. I just avoid it on stuff that will be screened due to lazyness, but still use 4-6 bags/year.

    Kinda shy away from *collected* manure due to the possibility of herbicide contamination. This is a very real thing and can wreck a garden, so, be sure of the source.

    Wet
     
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  10. Thanks!
     
  11. I have great luck using compost of chicken manure, leaf mold, aeration, etc as bedding.
    os
     
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  12. When you use the wheat bran bokashi in your bedding, how long do you let it set before introducing the worms?
     
  13. #113 wetdog, Feb 26, 2017
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2017
    DT
     
  14. Me?

    Usually a week or 2, or? With worms, you usually know well in advance before bedding is needed and I'll make it a few weeks before it's needed.

    If you're adding high N stuff that will heat up, be sure to let it cool down before adding the worms.

    Wet
     
  15. Yeah..Sorry..lol

    Thanks!
     
  16. YOW!

    Got a notifacation of a 'like' from @NoNutesForMe and went to check since I haven't been posting much of late and was really surprised that this 9+ YO thread popped up.

    Was less surprised at how very little has changed (other than now having 7 bins), in all those years. Minor tweaks here and there as stuff worked well, or, not so well and things got adjusted accordingly.

    Lots of information and observations in the 4 or so years that this thread bumped along though.

    Wet
     
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    • Agree Agree x 1
  17. Yeah,
    I don’t know how I ended up here, been on a vermicomposting info absorbing spree, already planning the next soil mix and what I’m going to do. Got a one gallon fabric pot with some worms a friend gave me and I’m about to build a 3 chamber 5 gallon bucket vermicomposting bin with graded hardware cloth sifting screens built in.

    Just trying to read as much as I can on how to make the best castings I can for as inexpensively as possible. What I’m coming to is; wood fines, comfrey, leaves, bedding and amendments some MBP rockdust and biochar when I can. Keep it all moist and if you’re going to use kitchen scrap compost, then freeze it when you have to much to add at one time. If you blend it up first then the worms will eat it faster.

    Going to try to come up with a really good inexpensive design for my vermicomposting bucket bin and potentially post a tutorial here. I’ve seen one already that has some decent ideas but it’s a little over complicated. But I haven’t seen a stickied diy vermicomposting bin on here. The key is a 3 chamber system that’ll catch the leachate in the bottom third container, and also having an air filter built into the top to keep nasty smells at bay and allow breathing. Debating wether putting hardware cloth around the sides of one of the buckets as well as drilling holes through the bottom for worms to travel and making it so you can attach a metal rod through the center so it will spin on a stand to easily sift the castings through 1/4” hardware cloth.

    I’ve seen you guys build some pretty hardcore worm bins but for the little guy with limited resources I want to try to get Something that’ll cost less than $30 to make. For me it’ll be super cheap considering I have most of this laying around and friends that work at hardware stores.


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  18. You can do batch vermicomposting in a fabric pot, cant get simpler than that. My current bin is a 10 gallon tote, no drainage or screens or nothing. Just a tote i filled with compost and covered with some cardboard.
     
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  19. I do the same with 20 gal and larger totes. When it’s time to harvest, I set a 5 gal bucket on top of bedding with a little compost and some melon rinds to catch most of the worms, and harvest / refill tote.
    I made a stacked 5 gal bin for my neighbor last winter, it was just too small to make good castings imo. I made her a tote setup, and it works much better. More surface area really helps, especially with red wrigglers.
    I too have used a 10 gal smart pot, and it worked good, just have to have a trap, at harvest. I set the smarty on a saucer too catch the leechate, and let it reabsorb. Worked good and easy.
    Cheers
    Os
     
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  20. I was thinking of cutting a lot of the bucket out and fastening hardware cloth to the cut out space in the sides and the bottom to get a lot of exposure to the material in the other bucket. I was just going to drill a bunch of holes but now I think I can do a better job. 5 gallons is a lot of volume, should be able to get a decent amount of castings from a five gallon set up if you can get enough exposure between materials in the middle and top bucket. Then being able to separate out the finished material and screen it for harvest with a simple spinning kind of harvester should just maximize efficacy.


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