I threw some in mine and it’s throwing off a little extra warmth. The spent substrate seems good to go though.
I really like using bark in my bedding, it works awesome inside and outside. My go to ratios for quite some time are 2 gals compost or leaf mold ( or peat), 1 gallon bark, 1/2 gallon rice hulls with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of each amendment from coots mix. If I had your stash of bark, for the outside bin I would just add whatever else I had around. Used soil, compost, whatever. I would probably throw some greens on the bottom too. HTH Cheers Os
I did mix in some leaf mold that I had. I've been trying to locate some rice hulls locally for some awhile now, so far no luck. That's the only downfall living where I do major shopping is 100 miles away oneway. Gonna be going to my local (30 miles oneway is local for me) Amish feed store today I'll ask if they can get rice hulls. The thing I found out about the Amish is they don't go out of there way to help the English (us) any more than they have to. Thanks for the suggestion much appreciated.
You could totally skip the rice hulls. I just like to get the extra silica in the mix. I find em at the beer home brew store. I am with ya on the driving thing. I have to drive 30 miles to get to a grocery store. Cheers Os
I really want to add them to my bedding. I have for some time now. When I ask about them today at the feed store they gave me a deer in the headlight stare. so I knew that was a no, as I mentioned before the Amish don't go out of there way to help the English. I should be able to find a brew store within a fifty-mile radius I would hope anyhow. I'll just work into one of my other trips. I won't need them till Oct. When I add them, do I add the same amount as perlite? I add right around 20% perlite
That’s a pretty good ratio. Just see how it looks and go from there. Tip when you are at the brewing store. Ask for rice hull ‘filter’. For whatever reason they don’t seem to know what you are asking about until you call it filter. Cheers Os
I put my old organic soil in a container and put cannabis leaves and food scraps with some boogie brew compost tea mix in and have let that run for a month now, noticed a lot of gnats in the bin so I gave it a even coating of neem and a few days later I saw all this mold and I’m wondering if that’s good thing or a bad thing
When you say compost tea mix, did you just mix in the liquid? If you start seeing fungus gnats, what I did to keep em out is just put on a thicker bed covering. In my case, coco coir (coarse) helped a lot... made about 1.5" bedding... make sure the top isn't too moist... cause gnats like moisture. You can also just put a cup of apple cider vinegar next to your bin, the gnats will fall into it. A plate with water and dish soap works really well too, especially if you put a light next to it / over it.
IMO2. But, I keep failing to get good clean mycelium. I'm getting oranges,yellows and in this batch I got some greens. I'm still in the virgin stages of KNF. And can't seem to find much info on how to find cleaner sources of mycelium to grow and harvest.
Ah ic - hoping to go down that rabbit hole in the future, sounds really interesting. Still got my no-till training wheels atm. Hope you find the solution my friend. Btw, what is your guys' opinion on putting frozen food in the worm bin? I keep my scraps in the freezer, I just been throwing em in frozen into the bin and letting them thaw under the bedding (I make sure I don't put it directly on any worms). But wondering if that's OK
It works just fine! The only reason I often thaw first is it’s easier to bury and cover when it’s not rock hard. Cheers Os
When I harvest my comfrey some goes a freezer I have in my garage for just that purpose. I feed it to them in the winter never let it unthaw. It keeps my bedding from drying out from the soil heating cable that I have in the bedding in the wintertime.
My guess is that's mycelium, when I dust my bin with neem and barley powder I get the same result... if the worms even let it get to that point they slurp it up pretty quickly
Those cloud looking fluff looks like cobweb to me. Put a qtip in some h2o2 and run it through some, if it dissolves its cobweb. The h2o2 won't hurt myc. Its from too high rh with not enough fae. Sent from the future
So forgive me here as I know absolutely nothing about knf, but what are you trying to do exactly? If your trying to colonize an unpasteurized substrate indoors you're gonna contam no doubt. The green is most likely trichoderma, and that's bad stuff dude. There's plenty of things to use for spawn, and a few reliable sites for spores, or lcs, or even just ordering already colonized spawn. I'll be sterilizing jars today again actually. Wbs, coffee, and gypsum soaking now Sent from the future
What I'm trying to accomplish is to collect indigenous micro organisms. If I do collect some undesirables, which I'm finding is almost impossible not to.. It should not pose to much of an issue. I'm also making OHN (ORIENTAL HERBAL NUTRIENT) this is suppose to kill off the smaller undesirable micro-organisms we collect with our IMO. At least this is my understanding of the process. Remember I'm not collecting in a sterile environment like you would for mushrooms.
Ah okay I see whats going on. Honestly I figured that, but I was thrown off when you said clean myc. Still a little above my pay scale Sent from the future
Went to feed the worms today and finally have little babies. Bins about 2 months old give or take. Started adding more fruit than vegetables and there's a noticeable difference in activity Edit: i started the bin may 21st, so just over a month old. Double checked my journal so the date is accurate Just winging it day to day