Worm Farming.

[yanks26]

Ellie NY Chick - We gotta keep in touch and converse about worm farming as it looks like we are both new to it.

They say to feed the worms on one half of the bin and then once there is compost there, remove it and work the other half. Does that mean you have to remove all the dirt on that half of the bin or just the top part?

I dont understand what they mean by removing worm castings.

 

[Ellie_NY_chick]

I'm not sure, but it doesn't sound pretty! I think the shaker box is the way to go. I may just spring for the worm bin. One made from wood just wouldn't hold up as well and may leak.

I guess I'll just have to watch eBay and Craigslist...

 

[jvls1942]

my brother raised worms in his basement for years in homemade plywood boxes.. they must not have much of an odor or else my SIL would not have let him do it..
he also raised night crawlers.. I guess you cannot raise the reds and NC in the same boxes, though.

we were going fishing and I asked him if he had worms.. he said "yes, but I'm going anyhow."

 

[onebuggirl]

If there is an odor then there is something wrong and you need to fix it. As for the holes in the bottom...they are little drill bit holes. I could catch the "tea" in a tray but my basement is unfinished..120 year old house with dirt floors and such.

 

[Buckguy20]

I tried worm farming once but every time I planted one , it just crawled away.

 

[Amyable]

I found this site in a DIY garden project book. Its a worm vermiculture business in Mississippi; seems like the website has a lot of info.

http://www.magicwiggler.com/

 

[miss_jayne]

Quote:
worm castings=worm poop

 

[Scrambled Egg]

As long as you bury the scraps that you feed them pretty well in the peat/dirt mixture you have them in, there is no smell at all. Alot of workplaces have worm bins inside to recycle. In fact they will die if they get too cold or too hot, so inside may even be better. The "tea" or the liquid runoff, which is "castings" (worm poo essentially) smells like nothing you have ever smelled in this world and WILL make you gag. It is like the worst chicken poo and water mix ever...BUT it's really really concentrated, so mix it with alot of water and use it in you garden and it's like the best nutrient ever for your soil..just a little goes a long way!!! Those bins (mine was about 70 bucks) have trays with holes in the bottoms the size of pencil lead maybe a bit bigger...you have to put down newspaper and then your dirt or a coconut peat block that you soak in water and then squeeze out and put in the tray, they love that. They cant be too wet or too dry as red worms absorb through their skin and that is a mositure driven thing. Once you get the hang of it it's really easy..just the basics..don't feed again until all food is gone and it's better to grind or mash up their food before you put it in there or they will have to wait for it to rot a bit to get mushy..they love mashed apples and cornmeal...keep the peat/dirt moist but not wet or dry, keep them in a constant temperature, and change the trays about every two months. They will eat the food and use wht they need from the dirt/peat and migrate up through the holes into the tray above..a new fresh one you just started. You can run your hands through the dirt/castings/left over peat in the tray they have just left and make sure you get all the worms and drop them in the top tray, then put the stuff in the abandoned tray in your garden as pure compost. In another month or so, add a fresh tray above that one and they will start migrating up again..should have alot of new worms by then too, think they mate and make new worms like every 5 -7 days..they snug around each other to mate, like a long hug. It's a pretty cool hobby really, very GREEN!!

 

[smom1976]

Quote:
Is that a comercial bought worm farm or did you make it?

and is that a big ole bunny by that far bench?

 

[yanks26]

How do those tray worm bins work? Like are all the trays the same or does the fineness of the dirt get smaller and smaller as it travels down? I dont get it. lol. Are the worms able to creep their way up from one tray to the next as you take old ones off the bottom and put it on top?