fertilizer Making my own fertilizer

Pepperjack91 said:
If I put the egg shells in like they are now, will that give them calcium further into the season since they take a long time to degrade?
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     That depends on a LOT of things… Soil pH, organic/inorganic ratio of soil, soil microbe populations, drainage, temperature… Soil chemistry is a HUGE can of worms!
 
Nice little project you have going!

I thought I'd drop in and add an idea to the ever expanding awesome knowledge that's being delivered already.

Look in to compost tea. Sounds like something you would be very interested in.

Cheers!
 
Yeah... I have heard about people reporting the aciditiy of coffee grounds*... even saying that they are to acidic for worms... however, I have a fairly funny anecdote about that.  Back in christmas of 2009 my aunt gave my little brother a cup full of red wrigglers from her worm farms in hopes that he might derrive some joy from feeding the little dudes.  Well... my brother fixed up a tub with shredded wet newspapers as recommended, and placed the worms inside.  That was literally the extent to which he cared for them...  I went back to school in Lexington, while my brother basically neglexted the worm farm... so my Dad, who is a very busy man, was responsible for theiur well-being.  He kept the worm farm in the warmest room of the house and only fed it used coffee grounds/filters.  There was something sitting on top of the tub... so he would just barely lift a corner of the lid and slide the coffee refuse in.  Well after the entire winter, I came home for summer break and decided i wanted to make a worm farm.  We slid the tub out and popped off the lid to discover that the 35 gallon tub was nearly 1/3 full of pure worms... literally a writhing, undulating mass of worms.  I like to jest that there were more worms in that one neglected tub than in all of my 12 X 35 gallon worm farms put together. (I have 12 worm farms in the summer (6 in winter)).  So the point is.. they love coffee grounds and filters... and they dont mind high heat (that room gets to 85 in the winter.)  Futhermore.... those worms means of ventilation was morew like gas exchange than fresh air exchange (there were but a few tiny holes in the lid.   Worms are tough little dudes.  As I mentioned poreviously... all of my worms are descended from that population of worms in that unfortunate tub... just get a farm going and keep it going for decades.
 
It seemed more like a miracle to me.... I was afraid there would be pretty much nothing in there but some crispy dead worms....
 
You know... about that water... it doesnt seem like the coffee grounds would have contained enough to sustain them... maybe he did pour in a glass every now and then... because I certainly do water my worm farms.
 
It is indeed... we swung by there on our way home to Kentucky after our 12,000 mile trip around the country in 2012.


Nice! I was just there in September to climb. Flew from Ohio to Austin Texas to meet my rock climbing partner and we drove north to the tower in 22 hours straight through.

Love that place! Have you ever ventured over to the blue mountains in NC?
 
I figured you would have to add water.. I may have to look into this idea because I think I like it more than composting. My compost bin hasn't been very successful and this sounds way easier and more fun.
 
Pepperjack91 said:
I figured you would have to add water.. I may have to look into this idea because I think I like it more than composting. My compost bin hasn't been very successful and this sounds way easier and more fun.
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The thing is with compost... you need tonage* worth of material to do it right.  And when i say "right" I mean the specific method of "hot composting" where your goal is to create such large colonies of microorgansims that their thermo genesis produced from the rapid metabolism of your starting ingredients will quickly achieve pastuerization temperatures in the center of the pile 130-160+F.  Such composting methods require careful control of size, balanced composition (balance Nitrogens with Carbons), pH levels, moisture content, and temperature (if the pile becomes too hot then it will *sterilize the compost causing (bad) bacterial blooms as well as drying out the substrate extremely rapidly).  The truth is that most gardeners have compost piles that do not undergo the pasteurization phase and are therefore slightly risky to use.  The advantage of "hot composting" is this pasteurization process, which kills most of the bad guys while preserving most of the good guys while also killing weed seeds and insects, as well as its relatively quick turn-around... in other words... if you compose it correctly and do the work of "turning" the pile diligently.. you will get useable compost from your starting materials much more quickly.  I know everyone has had the experience of starting a compost pile... but it doesnt really do anything.  That is because you need a pile that is at least 4x4x4 and no larger than 5x5x5 and balanced in composition, as well as being pH, moisture, and temp regulated to get good compost in less than 1 year.
 
Also... here I should add that I recommend pasteurizing your worm castings before application for the same reasons.... bubbling the worm castings in AACT will largely acheive the same end though

Which... if you are truly attempting to make your own, totally organic nutrient solution then AACT is where its @ :party:     And you can use your compost and worm castings... in the brew.
 
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