Vermicomposting (Make your own Worm Castings)

There are a million ways to skin a cat, but I think a well made bedding consisting of compost or manure with a bulking agent like bark and or rice hulls, gives you a better finished product in the end. Going this route, adding food like banana peels or melon rinds becomes only supplemental in feeding and not the main food source. You will also end up with castings that aren't super dense, which end up working much better in a soil mix.
Its all good no matter how you make em, and all better than what they sell in the stores.
There are some pretty good recipes in the thread "Converting to Vermiculture based Gardening".
cheers
os

 

I like using oatmeal from time to time, coffee grounds, cardboard, pinebark, eggshells, alfalfa meal, canna stalks and leaves, i use peat, compost, cardboard, spent soil. I Think the key to quality well balanced ewc is variety. Good luck


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Somebody oughta bump that thread! Haven't seen @wetdog in awhile. I'll have a garage to up my worm game with in about a week.
RD

 

Steer manure is an issue because it usually contains a high concentration of Na. It will usually be sourced from a CAFO or feedlot where nearly anything is allowed. Dairy cows are treated much better typically.
I came across a study that indicated chicken manure has 1/10 the liming power of calcite lime! This may be something for those with hardwater to consider. I'm going to add somewhere between 1/2-1Tbs of sulfur to each c.f. of chicken manure used in my compost bin to counter this liming effect.
RD

 

My castings are pure worm castings - I used a small amount of top soil to start it over a year ago - it is a simple bucket worm farm system - I put all plant and veggie trimmings and old roots as well as tea bags, coffee grounds and egg shells with 200 euro night crawlers - give it a stirring once a week. get castings and tea from it

 

Do you mind expanding on this? Not sure what it means in laymen's term tbh haha. Someone on reddit told me that I should use Chicken manure from home depot instead of steer manure if i want to use a bagged manure in my worm bin

 

The chicken manure is the better choice between the two for sure.

Here's an excerpt from the University of Georgia.
POULTRY LITTER AND SOIL PH
"Soil pH is considered a master variable because it is so important in controlling the availability of nutrients in the soil for plants to use. Most grasses have optimum yield and quality at a soil pH of 6.0. Since calcium carbonate (lime) is used in the feed rations of poultry, the litter can serve as a dilute liming material (about 1/10 strength of most agricultural limestones). Consequently, the use of poultry litter can help maintain soil pH and reduce the frequency of lime applications."
What this means is 10lbs of chicken manure has the same liming effect as 1lb of ag lime. For a guy like Sinse or Wetdog that have water around 20-30ppm this really isn't much of a concern. In fact it is a good thing. My water is jacked up with tons of bicarbonate, Ca and Mg over 300ppm. All of which bump the pH up over time ~ took about a year and a half for me to start having issues.
One of my rooms either received none or very little composted chicken manure and the other room received quite a bit. The room without has always done better and responded to Sulfur well. The one with tons of chicken manure got to the point where I replaced all the soil. Sulfur is used to lower pH. Look up a Calcium Carbonate Equivalent or CCE chart it may help you get a better understanding.

Short story long... I love chicken poo.
RD

 

so chicken poo is usually alkaline so it raises pH? and when you source water thats 300+ ppm already it becomes a problem when you use too much chicken poo? but a little is okay? so you made new soil and now you don't add tons of chicken manure?

my water municipal water is about 400 ppm out the tap im not sure what it mostly consist of but i imagine similar if your water is also municipal water?

i'm also wondering if the same effects can be had by feeding chicken manure to worms and using the resultant vermicompost on the plants? can worms be fed too much chicken manure perhaps? actually wondering the same thing with anything. is too much kelp in vermicompost possibly bad for the plants? or too much oyster shell that has been turned to vermicompost maybe?

 

My source water is bad enough to cause problems all by itself. It is much different than the water I'd used for years and it's only 8 miles away. I can't speak for what's in your water but at 400ppm it may be a good idea to find out. If you can't obtain a water report for free you can get it tested for around $30.
According to the UGA chicken manure is alkaline and should be considered when applying it or other liming agents. If one were to use nothing but vermicompost made from chicken manure in a soil mix it is probably a good idea to use a lil less liming agents than normal. Or the liming effect can be counteracted by adding sulfur to the chicken manure. Or you could mix chicken manure with peat moss to feed the worms as peat moss is acidic.
Other than saying yes. I'll let someone else answer about adding too much of this or that causing issues with VC.
RD

 

Get a water test ASAP and eliminate the guesswork. IMO, and from experience, this is a simple step that gets overlooked by many newer growers. Some folks have great water sources and don’t need it, but most likely you don’t and a quick test will give you valuable information as you move forward. If not, problems can arise quickly that are hard to remediate... right @ElRanchoDeluxe ?

 

I found my water report! Not sure how to translate the data though. Can someone well-versed in reading water reports verify if my water has anything I should be concerned about? I'm in San Diego and live right next to the MIRAMAR WATER treatment facility so I'm sure that's where my water comes from

https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/water_quality_report_2018_final.pdf

 

Well I did just remove 20 yards of soil because of this and replaced it with 12-14 yards. Here's a pic of the worst damage, pretty devastating.

 

Google Na levels irrigation water .edu

 

Wow, That sucks..

 

I run a Worm Cafe. Just harvested one bin of the three. I got about 26 pounds of screened castings. I use a No. 12 mesh screen for my finished product.

 

Well, I’m certainly not an expert on any of this but I have been looking at a few water tests lately and seeing how they relate to my own particular situation. Just understand that this is not a one size fits all scenario so YMMV.
By looking at your results I see three standout line items.
You have high pH levels. You’re up around 8.0, that’s really high for growing cannabis. You’re here in the vermicompost thread so I assume that you’re growing in soil. You’ll want to get a pH pen and adjust those levels down to the 6.6- 6.8 range.
You’re levels of alkalinity are pretty high too, anything over 90 is considered less than optimal for plant growth.
Your TDS levels are definitely high too, approaching severe actually. 500 ppm is where the EPA starts considering it to be severe. You are around 450!
I don’t think any of this is unusual, given where you live. Coastal regions naturally suffer from these conditions, but don’t worry... get yourself a decent RO system and you should be good to go.
BTW... I’m n old So Cal bum myself. I lived in SD for 25 years, bounced around Alpine, El Cajon, Santee, Coronado, San Marcos, and finally Escondido before I bailed out altogether!

 

I'd be happy to give a full answer but I don't think we should muck up the worm thread anymore than we already have.

 

I would definitely appreciate it! I tried googling NA levels water irrigation like you said and was lost what I was looking for!

So my pH is so high I should pH my water before watering it in maybe? I'm in no-till living soil.. I was under the impression that no-till living soil should buffer the pH for me as long as the incoming pH wasn't wayyyy crazy. With 8 as my pH i should look into pH-ing my water before watering?

Are levels of alkalinity basically referring to things in the water that cause the pH to go up? so the higher the levels of alkalinity the more likely the water will drift up?

yeah, i've always known my ppm is around 450. I use an RO system for my indoor grow and figured i could use tap waterr for my outdoor grow since my outdoor is no-till living soil (indoor is hydro).

I really don't wantt o use RO water outdoor because for every gallon of RO water I make thats about 3 to 4 gallons going down the drain... if i can manage with tap water i figured i would. But having to fill up my blumats 55-gallon reservoir with RO water would take forever with my current RO system.

 

@hakav3li

I'm a bit north of you in the L.A. basin. My city water is a steady 8.5 PH and never changes.
1 pound of Chicken manure and a tablespoon of Sulfur dust or Prills per site twice a year. AKA every other planting. I do 4 harvests a year from my outside sites.

I was into my second year of growing this way before all that high PH water eventually started to show as lockout. Since I use so much water there was no way I was going to PH and lug buckets of water around the yard. I'm to old and broken for that crap. Plenty of researching later I chose the sulfur dusting as my fix to the issues and it's worked very well for me.

BNW