This is a picture of the 1/2 gallon worm harvest from a gallon of worm bin stuff.
Worms:
Unlike it's relatives common 'earthworms' and 'night crawlers' these guys can be kept captive in containers and be harvested for bait or just used to produce worm castings and worm tea.
We know there is a lot of worms in your regular compost pile, but the idea of keeping these dudes is to harvest their pure products .
They will not do as good free in the soil as their relatives. So don't harvest them and throw them in your vegetable box/bed; they will get eaten by birds or they will dry out.
Worms need moisture in their bodies to dilute oxygen and use it, but since they don't swim and too much water will kill them. They are hermaphrodites but need to mate to create a cocoon ( a little lemon looking thing) that will hatch 3 or 4 little worms. They also need some dirt in their boxes. Wigglers don't like to be disturbed, but tolerate it better than their wild relatives. They also hate sun and bright light so don't torture them, use a red light to examine your bin.
Bedding is important for them... this is where we find them doing their stuff... Each time you empty an egg case you shred it and add it to your daily offer or dry your old crops as we do and add it in top to avoid flies laying eggs in your food scraps. Flies are not going to try to dig through 1 or 2 inches of dried leaves. (But there will be fruit flies going in and out the holes, it's normal and the last thing you want to do is to get O.C.D. with a worm bin.) ha,ha
Harvesting a bin is a whole day project and it requires the use of light to sort the worms from the castings. On top of a tarp put little hills (handful) of your bin's content and let them hide from the light, remove the top and edges of the little hill of compost until you get to a spaghetti of worms (please cover them soon!). You can use a yogurt container to put the worms in once you separate them out and a couple larger containers for the compost that you will then add to your garden. Do as many handfuls as you and your helpful friends can handle. There will be worm cocoons in the castings so a handful of that will be enough to start a new colonies.
The best recycled container to do a new worm bin is a big used cooler, drill some holes in the top and use it's built in faucet to get the tea.
Worm tea is super-mega-ultra-high in nitrogen, not exactly sure of the measure, but a rule of thumb to water plants with worm tea is to dilute the dark liquid in water in a ratio of 1/10 at least. We dilute more and apply often. Different plants have different needs. If you just poor pure worm tea in a plant you will kill it for sure.
They prefer a vegan diet, but will can take dairy.
The only no-no is lemons, meat, and candy. (these last two is because of the raccoons)
We know there is a lot of worms in your regular compost pile, but the idea of keeping these dudes is to harvest their pure products .
They will not do as good free in the soil as their relatives. So don't harvest them and throw them in your vegetable box/bed; they will get eaten by birds or they will dry out.
Worms need moisture in their bodies to dilute oxygen and use it, but since they don't swim and too much water will kill them. They are hermaphrodites but need to mate to create a cocoon ( a little lemon looking thing) that will hatch 3 or 4 little worms. They also need some dirt in their boxes. Wigglers don't like to be disturbed, but tolerate it better than their wild relatives. They also hate sun and bright light so don't torture them, use a red light to examine your bin.
Bedding is important for them... this is where we find them doing their stuff... Each time you empty an egg case you shred it and add it to your daily offer or dry your old crops as we do and add it in top to avoid flies laying eggs in your food scraps. Flies are not going to try to dig through 1 or 2 inches of dried leaves. (But there will be fruit flies going in and out the holes, it's normal and the last thing you want to do is to get O.C.D. with a worm bin.) ha,ha
Harvesting a bin is a whole day project and it requires the use of light to sort the worms from the castings. On top of a tarp put little hills (handful) of your bin's content and let them hide from the light, remove the top and edges of the little hill of compost until you get to a spaghetti of worms (please cover them soon!). You can use a yogurt container to put the worms in once you separate them out and a couple larger containers for the compost that you will then add to your garden. Do as many handfuls as you and your helpful friends can handle. There will be worm cocoons in the castings so a handful of that will be enough to start a new colonies.
The best recycled container to do a new worm bin is a big used cooler, drill some holes in the top and use it's built in faucet to get the tea.
Worm tea is super-mega-ultra-high in nitrogen, not exactly sure of the measure, but a rule of thumb to water plants with worm tea is to dilute the dark liquid in water in a ratio of 1/10 at least. We dilute more and apply often. Different plants have different needs. If you just poor pure worm tea in a plant you will kill it for sure.
They prefer a vegan diet, but will can take dairy.
The only no-no is lemons, meat, and candy. (these last two is because of the raccoons)
Great video and learning experience!
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if you have named any of the worms.
ReplyDeletewell... not really.But I talk to them when I'm working on the bin... you now, good vibes flow.
ReplyDeleteA worm bin eliminates the hassle of separating the worms from the casings and the tea. The City of Berkeley sells them to residents for about $30 and I've seen a bunch lying around unused at friends' houses. You might try freecycle or craigslist. I love my worms & their bin!
ReplyDeleteTerry
well, I like to have some quality time with my worms...
ReplyDeleteThose 'RELN worm factory' (rectangular black bin with different levels) are to small for us and I don't think they totally separate worms from castings, they are very well marketed and efficient as any other worm bin where the worm keeper is willing to deal with the job.
Same reason why we don't do irrigation here, we check the plants one by one... takes time but we enjoy it.