A dozen eggs each day?! Sounds like you better forget about growing plants & farming worms and begin putting your energy into raising a bunch of chickens :)
Can do both. I do worms. Chickens and mealworms (i started mealworms bc i use them to clean trophy skulls. But both worms and mealworms make great chicken food
Yesterday i was asking myself what would be a starter composting design, you just answered my question. I really appreciate it! Implemented cleverness, indeed!!
Great video, interesting that you have no issues with onions and citrus, people are always warning against that stuff but my experience is similar to yours. I like the method a lot, it seems way less labor intensive than stacking trays or bins
I have a place I dump all my scraps, the worms Naturally come and eat them. I "NEVER" BUY WORMS! Why people complicate this is a wonder to me!😬 My Granny did this and it worked!
just a heads up, Your playlist for the no grit bin is backwards. I was shredding paper and watching the experiment from finish to start..... I love your videos. Thank you!
I must say- you are a free thinker. Not just worms... all the buddies who eat and process organic matter too. A lot of life in there. I just started a worm bin last month and I'm pretty excited about your approach to this.
Anne, We are a new member of your channel. We are all about worms, and I would love to utilize one of these 55 gallon worm bins. Great video and lots of information. Thanks from a new friend.
I know coco and other stuff makes good bedding for worms but i don't have access to that stuff for my worm bin I started instead of worm composting in yardwaste composter to a bin to harvest wormcasting to cut down on the cost and or can't be gain quickly in area i live. I know fertilizer soils in bags you buy bad for worms or slows down metabolism to digesting for the worms but im hoping the nightcrawlers break down hardware store less desirable soil and fertilizer to lessor more digestible and microbiological life in the soil and nutrients building. What are your thoughts or using regular potting soil or peat moss and tropical soil mixes for worm bedding and no coffee grounds in worm box slows down on breeding of the worms in a videos study i just watch too?
Thanks for great vid!! I just bought a barrel to make a big blue!! But after a harvest, how long can castings survive before use? And is it beneficial to put them in the garden in the fall? or should I store them till spring?
They are good to add to the garden any time. Storage is tricky. If they dry out you have to get them wet again and add some worms to refresh the microbes.
Hi Ann, I like watching your videos. I started my own bin a couple months ago. It is a plastic storage tote with holes drilled on each side and canvas material on the inside to allow airflow. It has been working fairly well and I've harvested once from it. I recently added an avocado and found the mites gravitated right towards the shell. Is the mite population ever something to be concerned about in the bin?
Think of the mites and springtails as guardian angels. they show up when needed and fade into the background when they are not. They are good at preprocessing food the worms can't eat right away. I don't do anything at all now. In the past I would treat with Neem or bt but I'm fairly sure they went away on their own.
You should find someone to trade castings for eggs 😂. Great video. I kinda copied your set up when I built my 55gal barrel by just cutting it in half and keeping both ends on. So I just have 2 separate bins. Thanks for sharing.
It’s not a passive system but it’s my favorite on the platform. Patrick’s outdoor bin is right there to. It seems once the perameters are in-line it’s super forgiving, produces a ton of high quality “drying” casting without a ton of work!! Awesomeness Ann!! Still no internet, so off to the garden lol Have a great 4th !! Cheers 🌱🤞👍👍👍🇺🇸
There’s 1 way to know what the quality level is and that is a test we just met someone who happened to be close and wants to barter therefore there will be no guessing or wondering I already new they are good but we keep improving and striving so it will be easier to keep consistent quality unlike most of people pushing paper cardboard castings
I think this is the first time I have seen you move the castings down into the newly-emptied harvest end. This is the system I have been getting going, though on a smaller scale than Big Blue. I went from a five-gallon bucket to a shallow bin about 2 1/2 feet long and started working toward a horizontal migration system, where I add food and bedding at one end and take castings out of the other. I think of it as a "treadmill" system, because the worms stay in almost the same place from an outside perspective while they move one direction within material that moves the other direction. I was beginning to think I just was never going to get it to work quite as hoped, maybe because the bin was so small, until about ten days ago, when I was able to harvest about 1 1/2-2 cups of castings from the harvest end that had no cocoons and relatively few worms (which I separated by light migration and then dumped into the feeding end). While separating the worms from the castings, I found just a few small bits of their cardboard bedding, which I also picked out, but overall, the castings seemed pretty "finished." I'm hoping that over the next few harvests, I will start getting fewer and fewer worms in the harvested castings. I just need to learn to be patient with the system. And with the worms!
What was the plastic bag at the center joint? I just love Blue, and have modeled two of my own bins after it. I'm curious of there's any danger to overfeeding if you dont care about flies and such? My outdoor bin is getting the majority of the kitchen scraps so I can let the big compost bin mature for fall spreading.
Yes, blue was a rain barrel in his last life. There is a hole there where the pipe went through. The glued on plug fell out. As far as over feeding, I would only worry about a build up of methane/ ammonia in the castings and bedding killing the worms. That being said it also depends on how fast the food will decompose and how many worms are in the bin. I keep testing the limits of how much food they can eat in 3 weeks. Make sure the worms have some place to go that is comfortable if you over do it. 😃👍🏼🪱
Thanks for ALL you do for us. I’m wondering, do you put the cover on your bins for your prepared bedding? And, I put the lid on freshly harvested casting and after a week I opened it and it was the worst smell ever. Like something died. I dumped it into a larger bin to make sure there was nothing else in it and it actually attracted large unwanted flies. I think they thought it was manure!😅. Seriously though. 😮
That might have been dead worms. They smell the worst. I don't put the lid on tight. Donald is correct it needs air flow. The worm bins often get a piece of foam or bubble wrap on the feeding end to preserve moisture. The other side is open in summer. When the furnace is on the whole bin gets a light cover.
I use a similiar method but don't put bedding in the worm bin, just food. I produce 2 to 4 liters of organic waste a day. I have a compost bin in my basement right beside my worm bin. The kitchen waste is layered into one end of that with shredded newsprint and cardboard. Worm food comes out the orher end. I turn both bins once a week and usually harvest castings every two weeks. Everything from my kitchen ex ept grease and fat goes into the bin, roasted and ground bones, ground eggshells, rock dust and neem seed meal are sprinkled into the worm bin when I turn it. I keep them covered with landscape fabric to keeps gnats and flies out. The kitchen waste breaks down much faster going into an active bin and the worms burn through the ready to eat food. Cheers.
It sounds silly but I have found they do what they want. Some worms will stay with the old food to the last crumb and others are in the new food the same day. I have to work at their speed. 🪱👍🏼😃
@@PlantObsessed I would love to see how you use your castings in your garden, Ann. I know you did a video a while back showing giving castings to hostas and maybe grapevine? Anyway, I'm overloaded with castings right now and wondering how best to use them. Because I have wood chip mulch everywhere, the mulch is full of worms. Do I give those plants growing in the mulch more castings?? I'm not able to do a foliar spray, but maybe that would be a better use of these castings. ~ Sandra
Thanks for such an interesting talk on worms. You've really got it down!! I see you don't wear gloves... Lots of biology in that vermiculite... Hope you've not got any nicks on your hands. Can you do a vid about volumes & problems pls?
I love what you are doing, but you have an awful lot of shredded plastic coated paper. Please consider finding a better carbon source for your own health.
Can someone link a video of the building the big blue? Just curious about how it was fastened and sealed? I am thinking about camper seal? and 10/32 screws and nuts?
Hi Ann I like watching your videos . Just started with worm composting last 2 months. I saw that after putting food after 10 days there are maggots in food .is it okay for the worms. Need ur help. Thank you in advance.
It sounds like you may have fed too much and didn't bury it deep enough. The flies will be very annoying for you I don't think the worms will be hurt. It takes about 6 months for the ecosystem in the worm bin to develop to handle large feeding. The mites, bacteria, springtails and fungi that help the worms breakdown the food are not in high enough numbers to prevent your maggot.problem. I would add as much bedding on top that will fit to prevent them from turning into flies. Good luck. All experience is good to learn from.
In the bin I don't let them dry 100%. Sometimes I forget about my stored casting and they can lose the microbes. In that case I add enough water to make it livable again and add a few worms back to rework the bin and refresh the microbes. Thank you for watching 😃🪱😃
Species of worm does matter. If you have natural red wigglers on your garden or barn yes they will work. If you are looking at deep dwelling worms with a flat tail they will not work. In my area the worms that come up after a rain, those are the deep ones. If you don't mind stating very small the bait worms at Walmart are either red wigglers or European nightcrawlers.👍🏼😁🪱
Hi Anne. Love watching your channel. I’d love to hear what you use when you start a new raised bed…. Other than the castings of course . Keep up the good work 👍🏻
That has been a learning curve for me. The first ones I just used soil from the garden. Future ones I did huglekulture plus soil and compost. This year I ran out of my compost. I used cheap bagged soil and compost. That was a mistake. Too much wood chips. It has been sucking nutrients and the plants are not doing well. I'll go back to local soil and my compost in the future.
Holey Guacamole that was a lot of roley poleys scurring around in the feeding end!! Lots of great helpers in Blu!! Lots of good tips (beside the two main ones) and info in the video (love the discussion on biology versus NPK) Yay!! Party in the Avo-Condo!! What?? An Avo-Condo inside an Avo-Condo??? "The Pit" It's a night club inside the Avo-Condo!! Lots of W=urban legends gonna be busted with that feeding!! Looking forward to the kimchi results! Super awesome video Ann!! As always I learned a lot!!🪱🪱🪱
Thank you for watching 😃 yes the pit is super exclusive club. Lol. The rolly pollys are getting nuts and taking over. Pretty soon it will be a pill bug bin.
A little less talk, a lot more action. A LOT of superfluous information and rambling. I fast forwarded after a few minutes to the point where the new bedding was added. Could have made this video 2 minutes long and conveyed the relevant information.
Little known fact. People newer to worm farming often like the long videos. I believe you can sort by video length or watch the video at 2x speed like I often do. Happy worming 👍🏼😃🪱
You can Make rhubarb pie. Tastes very similar to strawberry pie. Much healthier really good for you very sweet and yummy. Or you can juice it. It's really good that way too adds a lot of green and it adds the flavor of mild strawberry. And the sweetness of the plant itself. Excellent with kale and things like that
Great explanation on the wedge method and what you are trying to accomplish. Good move using the leftovers to start inoculating the fresh bedding. Hmm kimchi it will be neat to see on the next check in how that’s making out. 😁🪱🪱
