This is vermicompost. At least, it started out that way. Last year, one of my bins got overrun by geckos, which decimated the population of my worm bins. At first, I was really pissed - but then, things just kept going on, as normal. It seems that where the worms left off, the mites, roaches, soldier flies, and others, kept right on going. In fact, I prefer this consistency of what I'm getting now, over my worm castings.
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Composting is often a multi-step process. Unfortunately, nature doesn't work uniformly, so composting needs some refinement, often times. (at least, the way I use it in my containers)
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This is some of my "raw" product. As you can see, it's still got "remnants" in it.
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From the first picture, you can see that I have some of my "raw product" in a screen. I'm working a small batch for a single planting here. I prefer not to store my compost, as I like to use it with all of its microbial load intact.
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This is about how much I use for a 5 gallon bucket: (for reference, that's a 13 gallon tub, and this is approximately a #1 nursery pot full)
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And finally, this is a better idea of how the compost should behave. It should not be "heavy" or "muddy". It should not make bricks, like adobe. It actually should feel like millions of little feathers in your hand.
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https://youtu.be/XFnuuCiRGps
.
Composting is often a multi-step process. Unfortunately, nature doesn't work uniformly, so composting needs some refinement, often times. (at least, the way I use it in my containers)
.
This is some of my "raw" product. As you can see, it's still got "remnants" in it.
.
.
.
From the first picture, you can see that I have some of my "raw product" in a screen. I'm working a small batch for a single planting here. I prefer not to store my compost, as I like to use it with all of its microbial load intact.
.
.
.
This is about how much I use for a 5 gallon bucket: (for reference, that's a 13 gallon tub, and this is approximately a #1 nursery pot full)
.
.
.
And finally, this is a better idea of how the compost should behave. It should not be "heavy" or "muddy". It should not make bricks, like adobe. It actually should feel like millions of little feathers in your hand.
.
https://youtu.be/XFnuuCiRGps