FunTimeGrowHap That's how you get big amounts of castings - manure. Having a little worm bin for kitchen scraps is a very admirable thing to do - seriously. But look at the water levels in foods that you might add - even apples are 84% water and by the time you get to the leaf items you're up to 98%+ - water. Plus this plant material has to be broken down by the microbes in the worm bin - not the worms. Manure is already partially composted in a similar way to worm manure (castings). It is easily broken down in the worm bins when the microbes in the manure match up with the colonies in the bin. Add some alfalfa meal (about 1/4 cup to each s.f.), glacial rock dust (same amount) and you'll have top of the line castings. Add some comfrey and they'll be off the chart. Comfrey contains the same amount of Nitrogen and Phosphorus as animal manure and has 3.8x the levels of Potassium (K). LD
The poster you really want to engage about vermicomosting is MistaFishKilla. He produces they finest worm castings that I've ever seen in my life. It's not even close - when screened they come out like powder. Literally. He runs Timothy grass and alpaca manure and some other plant material. He's also growing a massive amount of comfrey - like 9 plants = 1,200 lbs. of biomass a year of just comfrey. He's also growing clover and borage. The castings made from these materials will push his castings even higher. If that's possible. LD
Considering its' wild growth, what would be best for growing comfrey as a square foot gardener? I was thinking one plant in a 2x2 box at least. My backyard is a very hot cement pad in a city, so I make due.
Get the comfrey variety "Bocking 14" from Horizon Herbs in Williams, Oregon. This is a sterile version meaning that it won't spread like wildfire like its cousin - shudder. You could grow a single plant in a 2' x 2' easily. It will send down roots up to 15' deep which is deeper than many trees. What this means is that it pulls elements from deep in the earth and moves it into the upper levels of the root zone. But more importantly is that this plant is what is called a 'biodynamic nutrient accumulator' meaning that it pulls in minerals and other elements in excess of what it needs to survive. And it does this at astonishing levels. Besides the (in)famous N-P=K paradigm, you have uber high levels of elemental Calcium, Sulphur, Silica, Magnesium, Boron, Iron, Copper, etc. All in forms easily used by the plant via cation exchange and fungi adsorbtion. Check out some of the videos at YouTube using the string 'comfrey tea' or just 'comfrey' and what you'll find is that about 90% are from England and from what I can understand it's unheard of to be an organic gardener or farmer and not have one of the Bocking strains growing (the Bocking 14 was one of 10 that were released by Dr. Lawrence Hills in the 1950's. So you can make tea, extracts and have worm food as well as green mulch for your raised beds. Root starts from Horizon Herbs are $2.00 each - LOL I recently read the book by Dr. Hills on comfrey - pretty amazing researcher. His work is quoted on almost every web site, blog, article, etc. discussing the Bocking 14 cultivar. LD
From an article published in 1978 in Mother Earth News titled How To Make Cow Manure - Without a Cow is an interesting approach to taking large amounts of plant material and turning it into (basically) silage which can be fed to worms. In this form the plant material will not cause the bedding to heat up like a thermal compost which can happen if one isn't monitoring the C:N ratio of the material going into the bins. LD
After a quick trip to youtube, I think I might even test comfrey's effectiveness as an excema treatment. I've got plenty of kudzu to tinker with the garbage bag manure to. It appears this super invasive plant has finely found a use. Sounds like it's time for a big cheap upgrade around here!
You've got kudzu? I'd say you're dancing. Toss in some stinging nettles, yarrow and dandelion and your 'nute program' is finished - Ovah. LD
Poison Oak - some of the highest levels of elemental Phosphorus of any plant you can find. Soak for 4 - 6 weeks in water, strain and apply at 1 cup to 15 cups of water (making 1 gallon). Apply to the soils in your garden areas. Besides Phosphorus there are the usual panorama of plant compounds - auxins, PGR, SAR triggers, etc. It's probably best to wear heavy leather gloves when harvesting Poison Oak! LD
This question is in regard to the tea collected in the containers under your worm bin. I know that you dilute it with water but can you give me an idea of a good ratio of tea to water. Like how much of the tea would I add to say 5 gallons of water?
Lol. You asked if I've got kudzu. The city pays a whole crew of people just to keep it from overgrowing the freeways. I suspect it would start eating people if we let it go long enough. Thanks again for helping out. I do not miss the nute store.
LumperDawgz2, What size bins do you have? I'm looking into vermicomposting for myself and others. I have all the organic cow manure I could ever want. I also have 12 bocking 14 and yarrow plants. 40 acres & plenty of time!!!
The new one is 8' x 2' and is a flow-through type of design, i.e. you feed from the top and the bottom of the bin is a grate of some kind which the finished compost drops out of the bottom of the bin. Here is a link that shows the general concept of this type of bin. It works very well. I added 10 lbs. of worms a few days ago and will be adding another 10 lbs. this weekend. That will bring me up to about 25 lbs. total and by November it should be fully charged with 40 - 50 lbs. of worms. This will produce approximately 1.5 c.f. of worm castings each week and possibly as much as 2 c.f. if I can keep the temps under control during the fall and winter months. LD
JUST WIPED OUT ONE OF MY BINS!! A rookie mistake from being distracted. Going down to my cousins dairy (now just beef cows), to visit my Dad who was there. Wanted to see to the worms before we left so the would be ok for a few days to a week. Like I said, distracted thinking about the trip and I,1. buried laying mash under fresh peat bedding, and 2. Completely covered the fresh bedding with watermelon rinds. Can we say anaerobic? They might of survived the mash being buried under the fresh bedding since it wasn't that thick. But, then I spritzed it, and THEN put the watermelon rinds wall to wall, pretty much solid, no way for any air. Of course, when I opened the bin and got through gagging at the smell, everything clicked as to what I did. The other bin got no fresh bedding and only a few cantaloupe rinds and were dancing and singing. They REALLY like cantaloupe. Oh well ... I was going to start a third bin for European's, just for fishing, but now I'll just use the first bin. Gonna add some perlite to the peat bedding to help lighten it up. Should be ok, as I've just read on a worm forum that food grade DE makes a good addition and the worms will actually eat it. If DE doesn't harm the worms, I doubt if perlite will. If anyone has any input on this (the perlite), it would be appreciated. Soon, they will get Comfrey! Wet
I have had a very successful worm composting set up in my basement useing 5gal plastic buckets ...BUT fruit flies are florishing as we move on into summer...I have moved the worm buckets out in the backyard and under the crepe myrtle hedge were there is constant shade... in Okla summers are hot and often humid (great for growing things allowed and forbidden)...i am afraid I may cook the worms or hurt the operation...any wisdom or advice please!
My compost has been in the same place for 30 years, just flipped back and forth to turn the pile, then harvest when ready. At this time I am ready to harvest a two year old pile 2x2x6. Except for the coarse material on the top of the pile, everything is composted to the size of sawdust and there are lots of worms in every fork full when turning. If I screen this through a 1/4 in hardware cloth and then through a window screen to get the fine particles, would this be considered worm castings or would you still use this as a compost ingredient in soil mixes, or would this be harvesting the same as worm castings from these bins? Thanks for any info. PW
I throw a couple of those large refreezable blue ice things they use in coolers. Put it in for the heat of the day, rinse and freeze at night. It brings down the worm bin temperature quite a bit.
ThanX for the cool-pak tip MrVoorhees!...I worked a bucket last sunday and all was well with the operation...harvested a coffee can full of castings...worms seem to be alright even in the triple digit heatwave...only thing is the worm-tea drippings in my catch trays evaporate quickly.
Go easy on the peels of citrus fruit. I throw all rinds/peeled skin from most anything I eat into my worm bin. Only thing that doesn't go in is anything with seeds.