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Cayenne's Guide to Vermicompost a.k.a. WORMS!!!
- Thread starter Cayennemist
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I wouldn't say i'm an "expert" either, but having started a worm farm and using tea for 3 seasons now I've learned from my mistakes and have done quit a bit of research on the process so I can perfect my bin.
On a side note you don't put paper in a bin for the worms to use as "food". Paper acts as a natural bedding and allows them to make a home out of and reproduce. Although they will consume a portion of the bedding they typically only do that when they can't find other viable food sources.
I know a local worm breeder that I will trade my excess worms to when I have too for bedding he already made. You should check out his tutorial on how to make a large amount of bedding quickly and easily. Most small operations just shred a bit of newspaper add water and drain, but this guy has 20+ active bins and makes a ton of bedding quick and easy.
http://home.earthlink.net/~mccrawls/id2.html
Now I understand the stinky garage thing LGHT! I thought it was all due to fishy equipment!
Keep going Cay... Good info!
That's not even the half of it. I currently have 2 coolerdors setup to age my cigars in behind the fishing gear also. Since I've been collecting cigars for over 20 years and already have a 7' humidor with about 250 boxes in the home I had to either figure out a way to keep them in the garage or stop buying cigars. So what I did was go out and buy a new cooler drag it around behind the truck to scuff it up a bit put some dirt on it and then put some of that fish fertilizer in the white bottle on the top and let it sit out in the sun for a bit and put a few fishing stickers on it to make it look beat up and used. Although it looks horrible on the outside on the inside it's very clean and perfect. Now I can store another 50 or so boxes of cigars and NEVER have to worry about her going near them or looking for a cooler to use... The only problem is i'm starting to run out of room in the garage for all my hidden treasures!!
Yes you can buy Worm castings in a bag.
Sure You can add it to the top of the soil.
Or mix it in to soil, like some of the best potting mixes available have already, like Fox Farms.
"What nutrients are contained in castings? At what ratios" lol Thats where things get crazy.
I have seen this
http://mypeoplepc.com/members/arbra/trinity/id14.html
If some one asked you how much N-P-K was in the soil in an active Rainforest, what would you say?...
In nature things are a lot different than pure N-P-K .
You are getting nutrients from Bacteria, fungi, and hormones. So my answer to you would be "Enough"
I know that seems a little scary, but think about it, This is the way these plants where meant to work. God, Budda, Darwin, or what ever you believe, do you think these plants where designed to be fed MiracleGrow? Sure some plants do bad in nature, but then again some do well, in fact most do well. So the trick is finding the optimal soil food web for your plant type.
For example, You don't want a dense rich soil for Cactus, or it will hold to much water and not be optimal.
I need help with that answer, more so how to explain it.
This is a very interesting topic for sure!!
For a good explanation on how this stuff works check out this link http://microbeorganics.com/ and go down to the part where he discusses
It makes for some good reading and explains some of this in a way that's easier to understand.
The Pepper Guru is right when he says that it's all about the " Soil Foodweb" . If you google that you will find lots of reading material.
Cayennemist you are doing a great job here. Keep up the hard work.
For a good explanation on how this stuff works check out this link http://microbeorganics.com/ and go down to the part where he discusses
It makes for some good reading and explains some of this in a way that's easier to understand.
The Pepper Guru is right when he says that it's all about the " Soil Foodweb" . If you google that you will find lots of reading material.
Cayennemist you are doing a great job here. Keep up the hard work.
Thanks, and check out the latest update Part 3 "using you castings"
Now you tell me! I guess its partially my fault for not asking you guys here about this before trying my own mix this year with it. Its probably closer to the 40-50% range for all of my containers. Live and learn. At least I mixed in a good amount of perlite to help the drainage. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Well at least I gave some good business to the worm farm right up the street.
I too built my own worm bin a little while ago and have been using tea quite a bit lately
What I wanted to share with everyone, which might vary from state to state, country to country is how to find your own red wigglers...
When I first made the worm bin, I went to michlendons and bought 2 containers of 200 live worms. Total: 24 dollars. Total worms: 400.
The worms were medium sized, nothin huge.. and definitely expensive IMO. I've seen many many websites, local and not selling them for about the same price. I have a few hundred plants goin and want some serious worm production and there was no way I was gonna buy 30lbs of red wigglers lol.. So I had an idea. They are the best compost worms out there so.. why not check the compost pile?
I started a compost pile about a month ago before I decided to go with the worm bin. Mainly grass from mowing the lawn, left over fruits and veggies, etc.. Been turning it a good 3-5 times a week. I thought, what better place to check for redwigglers..
Turns out, the surrounding areas of the compost pile (not the heated center) were full of red wigglers!
An easy dead giveaway is the yellow tip on the tail (you can see it perfectly on the picture Caymist posted on page 1)
So anyway, start a compost bin somewhere in your yard, on the ground obviously, and watch the wigglers show! I've been collected for 3 days, thats it, and I've easily collected 800+ red wigglers. Big ones at that. Which boils down to 50+dollars of store bought worms.. I've spent maybe 15 minutes total searching for these worms. Time well spent and money saved.
Hope this helps a few.
Great topic CayMist.
Brandon
What I wanted to share with everyone, which might vary from state to state, country to country is how to find your own red wigglers...
When I first made the worm bin, I went to michlendons and bought 2 containers of 200 live worms. Total: 24 dollars. Total worms: 400.
The worms were medium sized, nothin huge.. and definitely expensive IMO. I've seen many many websites, local and not selling them for about the same price. I have a few hundred plants goin and want some serious worm production and there was no way I was gonna buy 30lbs of red wigglers lol.. So I had an idea. They are the best compost worms out there so.. why not check the compost pile?
I started a compost pile about a month ago before I decided to go with the worm bin. Mainly grass from mowing the lawn, left over fruits and veggies, etc.. Been turning it a good 3-5 times a week. I thought, what better place to check for redwigglers..
Turns out, the surrounding areas of the compost pile (not the heated center) were full of red wigglers!
An easy dead giveaway is the yellow tip on the tail (you can see it perfectly on the picture Caymist posted on page 1)
So anyway, start a compost bin somewhere in your yard, on the ground obviously, and watch the wigglers show! I've been collected for 3 days, thats it, and I've easily collected 800+ red wigglers. Big ones at that. Which boils down to 50+dollars of store bought worms.. I've spent maybe 15 minutes total searching for these worms. Time well spent and money saved.
Hope this helps a few.
Great topic CayMist.
Brandon
FREAKING YES! few things...
1. THANKS for your tip!
2. I will be doing this very soon
3. Have you seen any results using Worm Tea?
4. How do you use your worm Tea? Foliar or on the soil or both?
5. Nice setup you got there!
No problem! I've been all about finding cheap ways to do things lately(savin for a few 1000watt MH HPS bulbs lol..) I have seen great results from using the worm tea. I had a pretty bad bacspot infection that eventually got to the point where I had to remove every leaf on every plant. For some unknown reason once the new growth started coming back about half of the plants were coming back yellow as can be.. I was using botanicare products with no results, I tried damn near everything. I still to this day don't know what the reason was. My only guess is some crazy trace mineral that was missing or an odd deficiency that wasn't NPK Mag, or Cal. Once I started lookin at more organic ways to do things I decided to try out the worm/compost tea. After the first application, 3 days later, 99% of the yellow plants were now back to emerald green and growing twice as fast as they were. So whatever my plants were missing, they certainly got it from the tea. From that day forward, I've been a believer.
As for how I use it, I've been foliar and soil feeding them lately, I'll be starting another 20 or so species here in a few weeks and I'm really interested to see how fast the seedlings grow with the tea compard to the previous botanicare, superthrive fertilizers I used back in January. I'll keep you posted!
Thanks for the reply man
Brandon
I feel like there has been a explosion of growth since I started using it. I use no Cal-Mag, no N-P-K, nothing but tea now. My plants are greener, better shaped, grow faster, and aren't getting bugs. I did have a snail problem in the front yard, but that was fixed by moving my plants.
I may make a little guide to Kelp4Free, as I seem to be having good luck with that as well.
I was thinking about that same thing! Anybody near the coast I feel could do it. My dad lives on the sound and the beach is always covered in seaweed. Fresh seaweed incorperated into the tea? Or better yet, harvest a ton of it off the beach and let it sundry? Not a bad idea and worth a shot if you ask me. Don't know if that's where you were goin with it so hopefully were on the same page lol.
Brandon
Brandon
Yep! I filled a 7gal at the beach. now it is sitting in my green house. I rinsed it well and stored it in a bucket. I throw it in a blender and then add it to my worm tea.
All over the net, hydro stores, big garden stores, and maybe me haha.
I knew nothing of worm (poop) farming before I read this. You did a great job...I just convinced my fiance that the hydrolysate bucket wasn't radioactive....worms next.....?... 
I have been using a single rubbermaid bin for about a year without ever harvesting. My container is quite tall, and its approx. half full. Do you see a problem with just using one bin and leaving 7 inches of worm castings in the bottom while building on top???. ( drainage and air holes are in abandunce... approx 7 bajillion small holes drilled in this container)
I used this guy http://unclejimswormfarm.com/ was here quick
I used worm castings that I bought from a seller in the same province who shipped them over to me. I believe the tea had a good effect on the peppers and an absolutely amazing positive impact on the growth of my tomatoes. But I am new at this, and I only let the tea sit for one day before using it. I'm sure the results would have been even better had I read this thread first.
Using your castings
The point of AACT, Actively Aerated Compost Tea, is to concentrate the microbial life from the castings to many times more than just the castings alone. Also, this will allow for foliar feeding.
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