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Worm Farm / Worm Tea / Show us yours.

Shadowchilli

Shadowchilli

I have a worm farm...
I have done a lot of reading in regards to how to use the juice (liquid) produced from a worm farm and how to make worm tea.
However everything I read seems to go against what I read just before.

My questions are:
1. Do you add worm castings into your soil mix? (if so at what ratio)
2. Do you use the liquid that drains off from your worm farm straight onto your plants? (have read that its toxic for plants)
3. Do you use an air pump for making worm tea? (or will it be ok if I stir it every day)
4. Is there anything I have missed??
Yeah I know questions questions questions...
Any help I would love.
Thanks,
Shadowchilli.

Edit: Thanks to everyone for answering the above questions.
Im now looking for some photos of your worm farm / tea brewing setups.
 
i don't have a worm bin but did try it a few years back, twice, both times i failed miserably, though i am willing to try again, i have a hard time paying for the high cost of the red wigglers, in my current financial situation.

but, i did buy a large bag of worm castings and here is what i do:

1. i added 1 cup of worm castings into 1 gallon soil containers.
2. i don't get the worm juice, since i don't have worms but i would take the liquid and add it into answer #3.
3. i used an air pump in my worm tea mix. 5 gallon pail, put in about 4 gallons of water added a quart/litre container of worm castings. i then added a goop of molassas and the liquid from my bokashi pail, it was about a quart/litre worth. i also stirred the tea every day for about 3 days. i further diluted this mix before applying to my soil plants, i used 1 quart/litre of fresh tea into a 12 litre pail of water.
4. you seemed to have touched on everything, as a side note, nothing died, nothing turned yellow, nothing had leaf burn and i did see some growth.

good luck.
 
I am really interested in this as well. I agree, information on this topic (as with most gardening stuff) is often varied. From what I have researched, castings can be used in a number of ways. They can be mixed into soil at 20-30%, or top dressing the plants with a strip of castings. It can be added in a ratio of 1:3 to water (or other liquid fertilizers) and put in a sprayer.

In regards to the worm tea, the air stone helps aerate the water, move the castings around, and let the mixture "breathe". Can you nix the air stone and stir it daily, yes. But if you look at how much more air would be running through it if you let the air stone go for a few days, vice stirring it up for a couple minutes every day, I would say spring for the air stone. If you are serious about using the tea, I would bite the bullet up front and spend about 50 bucks to set up a good tea bucket, which should last for a while. Google Compost Tea Bucket, or check YouTube for the same and you will get some ideas. You can get the air stones from pet shops or similar for pretty cheap.

Hope this helps a bit. I will definitely be checking back to learn more.

Matt
 
I've been making tea using Ancient Forest potting mix which contains EWC and also adding a pinch of MycoGrow soluble powder. The myco has tons of beneficial fungi which colonize the roots and help them take up nutrients faster.


I have seen first hand how fast roots grow in hydroponics when exposed to this tea. I have also seen how fast the roots will shrink and shrivel up if you switch from tea to h2o2 (two very incompatible and opposite approaches). I tried switching to h2o2 last week and it was a disaster. Then after 3 days of resuming the Tea, the roots look better than ever!! of course maybe I used too much h2o2 or shouldn't have switched mid-grow like that... but I won't be using h2o2 anymore after what I saw.

I use basically the same recipie as BurningColon with the addition of the mycogrow soluble. I use an aquarium filter bag to hold the EWC just to keep most of the particulates out of the final tea (no biggie for soil, but I prefer my hydro res to stay cleanish). Just add water, sugar, air, and let it bubble for 1-2 days before using it. The quantities of ewc you use isn't really important, I just use one or two handfulls to mix ~2gallons, but I bet the same amount could easily make alot more tea if you wanted.

You can store the tea in the fridge for about 10 days but it should be tossed out once it starts smelling foul.

freshly brewed tea smells "earthy" with maybe the slightest hint of a manure smell, but it's mostly sweet. If it smells rotten, like eggs or gym socks, something went wrong with the brewing process.
 
Shadowchilli said:
My questions are:
1. Do you add worm castings into your soil mix? (if so at what ratio)
I don't add worm castings to my soil, but if you do I wouldn't add too much because it will thicken your soil and decrease oxygen to the roots if too much is used.
Click to expand...

2. Do you use the liquid that drains off from your worm farm straight onto your plants? (have read that its toxic for plants)
DO NOT USE THAT it's called leachate and is in fact toxic to your plants.
Click to expand...

3. Do you use an air pump for making worm tea? (or will it be ok if I stir it every day)
You really need to do some research on "making worm tea" basically what your trying to do is increase the beneficial bacteria and microbes that are produced in worm castings and or soil. Then once you have several billion beneficial microbes you then foliar feed the microbes to the plant directly and use the excess to water the soil and roots. You can read about the benifits of worm tea here.

~~~~~~~~~~~> CLICK ME HERE
Click to expand...

4. Is there anything I have missed??

Pretty much the entire process and reason for growing worms and making tea, but you will get there don't worry. Took me a while to do the research as well.

Here is a link to the topic covered before so your not alone.

~~~~~~~~~~~> CLICK ME HERE
Good luck
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Nice info and links.
The only additional point I can add to that is:

In hydroponics, sometimes the tea is used to help cure root rot aka pythium. Some use it preventatively, some people will give it a shot once their plants are already in bad shape and it has a pretty high success rate for brining back plants that were on the verge :)
 
Thanks for all the info and those links!!!

I have read through all the info on those links and i think i have it all sorted now.
I will keep everyone updated on the progress as i make my first brew, probably next weekend...
 
I started a worm farm this year and think the worm tea did wonders for my chile and tomato plants. My only regret is that I did not remember to make worm tea more often during the growing season. My plants suffered from sunburn during the hardening process, aphids, and even fungus gnats. The colder than normal spring and early summer did not help either. Every time I applied worm tea to my potted and garden plants, I noticed improvement or recovery soon after. Next year I will use a strict schedule for making and using the tea and hope to have an even better season.
 
One thing i am not looking forward to, is seperating the worms from the castings....
Looks like unless you have a proper seperator you have to sit there and go through all the castings pile by pile, oh well its all for the benifit on the chilli's!!
 
I dont know your system, but when I was looking for one I came across this: http://www.redwormcomposting.com/the-worm-inn-continuous-flow-vermicomposting-system/ I think it would be easy enough to build and you could just put a "catch" below it so all the liquid drains while the castings stay in the bag.
 
Shadowchilli said:
Mgold86,
here is a link to the one that i have. Works really well and the worms breed really quick as well.
http://www.tumbleweed.com.au/worm-farming/worm-cafe
Click to expand...

I have something like the above, but 7 smaller trays. If you rotate your trays correctly you never have to "sort" the worms because as you add table scraps to be composted you add them to the top tray and the worms naturally crawl up between the trays looking for food.

After about 3 months you should be able to rotate a tray a month and the bottom tray will have very few if any worms left in it looking for food.
 
LGHT said:
I have something like the above, but 7 smaller trays. If you rotate your trays correctly you never have to "sort" the worms because as you add table scraps to be composted you add them to the top tray and the worms naturally crawl up between the trays looking for food.

After about 3 months you should be able to rotate a tray a month and the bottom tray will have very few if any worms left in it looking for food.
Click to expand...


I have read that worms dont like light (obviously), I have also read that i should be able to take the bottom working tray once its ready, put it on the top and leave the lid off for a little while, exposing the worms to light, and what worms there are there, will dig down into the other tray below.
Does this work for you or have you tried it?
 
Shadowchilli said:
I have read that worms dont like light (obviously), I have also read that i should be able to take the bottom working tray once its ready, put it on the top and leave the lid off for a little while, exposing the worms to light, and what worms there are there, will dig down into the other tray below.
Does this work for you or have you tried it?
Click to expand...

No need to. Again if you feed from the top down the worms will automatically migrate toward the top where the food is. Then as you add more food into the tray along with bedding you put that new tray on the top.
 
LGHT said:
No need to. Again if you feed from the top down the worms will automatically migrate toward the top where the food is. Then as you add more food into the tray along with bedding you put that new tray on the top.
Click to expand...

Thankyou again.
Your help has been invaluable.
 
Ok since all my questions have been answered, i want to see some pics of your worm farm setups, or tea brewing setups.
I will be taking a couple photos tomorrow of my worms to post here.

Come on people show us your worms :lol: :eek:
 
So i have setup my first worm tea brew. Evilbay provided me with an air pump which only cost me $6 including postage. It apparently provides air at a rate of 4L per minute from two tubes with air stones on the end.
I made the little bag out of some spare shade cloth i had sitting around, and i got the molasses from a livestock feed place, paid $3.50 for 2 liters :woohoo:

Here are some pics:

composttea.jpg


composttea1.jpg


composttea2.jpg
 
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