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harvesting Harvested my first worm castings

Proud Marine Dad

Proud Marine Dad

Finally harvested my first ever worm castings today.
There was so much shredded newpaper mixed in that I put the worm bin contents into a mesh nylon bag and shook it over this bucket to separate the castings.
It was a lot of work but I got enough castings to almost fill a gallon milk jug. :cool:

IMAG0070.jpg
 
I hope so Tylerdodd. ;)
I noticed less worms than when I started though so I am wondering if I am underfeeding them? :think:

The white specks in the castings are crushed egg shell by the way.
 
i looked into vermicomposting for a while but never got to doing it yet. the worms eat half their weight of food per week, so say you start with 1 pound of worms they will eat 1/2 pound of food waste and paper a week, what in the sense of food are you putting in there. i cant make out anything from the picture. and you should be misting the bucket everyday so its moist but not wet.
 
tylerdodd25_92 said:
i looked into vermicomposting for a while but never got to doing it yet. the worms eat half their weight of food per week, so say you start with 1 pound of worms they will eat 1/2 pound of food waste and paper a week, what in the sense of food are you putting in there. i cant make out anything from the picture. and you should be misting the bucket everyday so its moist but not wet.
Click to expand...

I am doing that but not misting it every day. Down where the worms are it is very moist but not wet.
I put some coffee grounds, egg shells and some potato peels or whatever I have once a week mixed with a little more shredded newspaper. It's about 1 lb of food, maybe.
The bin is on carpet on a concrete floor in the garage and the night time temps have been around 50 out there so the conditions are pretty good.
The lid has a large cut out that I put screen door material on to allow in air but not allow in bugs.
 

CarvinGuitarist, I've been raising worms for several years now. I've found that cardboard and or leaf mold makes the best bedding. Try not to overwater. I use mainly worm castings as my fertilizer. My 5 foot tall first season habaneros love the stuff!!
 
CarvinGuitarist said:
I am doing that but not misting it every day. Down where the worms are it is very moist but not wet.
I put some coffee grounds, egg shells and some potato peels or whatever I have once a week mixed with a little more shredded newspaper. It's about 1 lb of food, maybe.
The bin is on carpet on a concrete floor in the garage and the night time temps have been around 50 out there so the conditions are pretty good.
The lid has a large cut out that I put screen door material on to allow in air but not allow in bugs.
Click to expand...
you seem to know what your doing then. they should re populate soon enough
 
Thanks guys. I used most of the info from the book, "The Best Place for Garbage" by Sandra Weiss http://www.amazon.co...ace for Garbage

She seems very knowledgable although a little silly at times.

My bedding is all shredded newspaper about 8" thick. Maybe I will see if I can add some cardboard as Habanero Fellow recommends. She even said in the book that the worms love to eat the cardboard and she thinks it's the glue for some reason. :)

Habanero Fellow said:
Have you seen many cocoons (eggs) in the castings?
Click to expand...

I didn't look close. I will have to look again and see. There are crushed egg shells in it so I will have to look closer.
 
A worm cocoon looks like a tiny lemon. They were very hard to see at first but now that I am accustom to what they look like they are quite easy to see. Each capsule can have from 1 to 20 worms in it. Although it averages out to be about four. When harvesting worm castings from my smaller bin I try to harvest as many egg capsules as possible. But with the larger refrigerator bins, there's just too much material to worry about the cocoons.

Once you notice how well the worm castings work on your pepper, let us all know.

red-worm-cocoons.jpg


This picture from redwormcomposting.com may help you in spotting an egg capsule(cocoon).
 
i killed about 90% of my frst batch with too much water. i didn't add any but the vegies themselves contained so much, left undrained it drowned most of them. i now have a surviving population of hatchlings and a few new that i have added.

how long did it take your bin to produce that much?

i have heard that about the cardboard too.
 
brownb4 said:
i killed about 90% of my frst batch with too much water. i didn't add any but the vegies themselves contained so much, left undrained it drowned most of them. i now have a surviving population of hatchlings and a few new that i have added.

how long did it take your bin to produce that much?

i have heard that about the cardboard too.
Click to expand...

I started this bin in July so it's been over 4 months. I don't think the conditions were ever unfavorable either as I never saw any try to get out which is what they will do if it's too wet, too hot from too much nitrogen released from too many greens, etc.
 
tylerdodd25_92 said:
i looked into vermicomposting for a while but never got to doing it yet. the worms eat half their weight of food per week, so say you start with 1 pound of worms they will eat 1/2 pound of food waste and paper a week, what in the sense of food are you putting in there. i cant make out anything from the picture. and you should be misting the bucket everyday so its moist but not wet.
Click to expand...

Worms will eat 1/2 their weight each day...

CarvinGuitarist said:
I hope so Tylerdodd. ;)
I noticed less worms than when I started though so I am wondering if I am underfeeding them? :think:

The white specks in the castings are crushed egg shell by the way.
Click to expand...

Maybe the conditions aren`t favorable to the worms... red wigglers are prolific, in 4 months your population should have doubled
 
I don't know what's going on Alphaeon. I am about ready to just dump them in the compost bin as it seems more work than it's worth for me.
I assumed that if they didn't have enough food then they would eat the bedding of shredded newspaper as I read in that book.
Why the numbers have not doubled I can't answer. Not a single worm has crawled up the wall of the bin to try and escape so I assume the conditions are not that bad.
 
Before you go and dump em out i suggest you mix up all the bedding and waste you have there, to fluff it up a bit. Just mix it all together, then add wayyy more shredded paper to the top and feed more as well. if the paper is getting soggy at the top of the bin the casting still have too much moisture. Throw like a foot thick of shredding on top to start and see what happens. Once the castings build up it begins to get too wet... a good churning should help. cheers
 
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