Jump to the following parts of this episode: 0:02:20 Best Place to Keep Worms to Make Worm Castings 0:03:10 Support Me By Purchasing a GYG Tee Shirt 0:03:45 Have a suitable container for keeping your worms 0:04:48 Perfect Reusable Tote to Keep Worms 0:06:30 Main Bedding and Food Source for Worms 0:07:42 Screening Bedding to Save Space and Create Higher Quality Castings 0:10:15 Additional Ingredients to Feed Worms 0:12:54 Specific Ingredients to Feed Worms 0:14:20 BioChar 0:14:37 Spent Coffee Grounds 0:15:14 Kelp Meal 0:15:50 Rock Dust 0:17:25 Soil Humates 0:17:53 Crab Shell Meal 0:19:18 Ratios of Ingredients 0:20:01 Mixing the Ingredients into the Bedding Material 0:20:47 Fluffer to Make Nice Bedding Material for Worms 0:21:42 Filling Totes with Bedding Material 0:22:52 How the Proper Worm Density 0:25:20 Worms being grown in a protected environment 0:27:12 When to Harvest Worm Castings 0:31:23 How to dry castings to the perfect moisture percentage 0:33:40 What a good dried worm castings should look like 0:35:27 Finished Worm Castings 0:35:27 Bagging up the Worm Castings 0:40:29 Other Products besides 100% castings 0:41:02 Superchar - Castings and Biochar 0:41:33 Growers Blend Potting Soil 0:42:01 Organic Solution Ambrosia - Worm Casting Tea 0:42:47 How they Make Ambrosia - Worm Casting Tea 0:44:47 Making a Raised Bed out of Produce Totes - Testing Castings 0:46:41 Always ask for Food Soil Web testing Report when Buying Worm Castings & Compost 0:53:37 Interview with Brian 0:53:50 why did you decide to start a worm casting company? 0:56:22 What kinds of worms are you using? What kind did you use? 0:57:57 why are the Worm Castings so valuable to Gardeners, Farmers and Landscapers? 1:01:22 Will you share the proportions of the different ingredients to add to make your castings? 01:03:35 What are some ingredients people might want to add to their worm bin? 01:07:47 What is the most important tip for raising worms at home? 01:10:22 What is the difference between Worm Leachate and Worm Tea? 01:13:27 Why should someone by the Ambrosia instead of Worm Castings and Make your own? 01:15:22 Why it's not a good idea to feed a single stock (manure) to worms? 01:18:22 How would test results look for a manure based casting? 01:20:02 How should your worm castings be used? 01:22:52 Any Special Offers for my GYG Viewers? 01:24:13 What is your website and contact information?
Thanks, John ! it's great that you're allowing people to 'zero in' to exactly what they want to hear by showing your time stamps for different parts of your videos.
Summary (for info mostly relevant to home growers): 1. You can keep them in your raised beds, or standard produce tubs/totes. Density < 1 pound of worms per square foot. Round barrels not great. 2. Bedding: functional bedding of active wood/leaves compost screened to an 1/8 inch. Full of microbes and value-added product. 3. Food: 1.Biochar - important for microbe space 2. Spent coffee grounds locally grown 3. Kelp adds trace minerals 4. Rock dust for gizzards, and 70+ trace minerals 5. Soil Humates (least important) 6. High kitenase ground exoskeletons, shrimp/crab shell meals, hair, nails, etc. Used coffee grounds, newspaper, REALLY love cardboard. No meats, fats, etc. 4. Fluffer: fluffs earlier food and adds air and space for microbial activity. 5. Don't put your worms in a greenhouse, etc. And ensure temperature regulation similar to what YOU would also be comfortable in. 6. Harvest: Horizontal migration or upward migration is good strategy. 7. Dry castings if they are too moist, as it stunts microbial activity. Shouldn't be sticking together, or like dust. Barely balls up, like 1 day dried chocolate cake 8. Bagging: Have airflow in your bags (not sealed containers/bags) 9. Use casting products to produce other products, like tea/ambrosia, but only buy castings and don't waste your money on others, if buying. Interview: What worms: started with African nightcrawlers, but too hard to regulate humidity and temperature. Now use red wigglers. Use worms that are native to your region.
Thanks John and Bryan! John I discovered your channel many, many, many years ago as I was contemplating container gardening. You have provided a wealth of information. I like that you leave no stone unturned, no need for questions you give us all the information upfront. As far as the trolls that complain of long videos, nevermind them, let them go to those short videos that leave us with lots of questions that you may or not get the opportunity to answer. Why are they here? They must find your content interesting. Everything can't be consolidated into a tweet form, emojis aren't a very intelligent way of communicating. Keep doing you! Most of us appreciate it. Blessings!
Awww, I am so happy to listen to someone who feels bad when worms die! Well, I agree. I am a bit nervous about trying to grow worms, but I will continue to watch your videos. They are excellent, you have so much knowledge. Thank you for what you do!
I used to bring worm farms indoors during winter but now I keep them in the dog house (insulated 8x12 shed). The key is maintaining temp >50F with a small NG btu heater. With only the pilot light on is enough to keep it comfortably heated during the winter months here in NJ. In summer I cover worms with moist paper and if really hot put ice cubes on top. Friends/family save me their veg scraps and I shred paper bags, paper, and cardboard. I think worms are very easy to care for. They recycle and provide worm tea and castings for the garden.
@Tyler Durden You heard extremely wrong. The fungal sugars produced by the mycelium have anti bacterial properties, which breeds more resilient worms. There's hundreds of thousands of bacteria for every microgram of soil that fungi compete with. When you inoculate your bin you are selecting for more cooperative, Areobic, forms of bacteria within the soil food web of your bin as fungi will out compete anaerobic bacteria within the deeper substrate of your bin. They also predigest the sawdust and substrate mix, making for easier digestion for the worms. Thanks to the growth of the mycelium spent mushroom blocks have an almost 1:1 green to carbon ratio & low ammonia balance making it ideal for worms. The mycelium once inoculated in the bin also helps break down the waste, bringing it to more soluble form for your worms faster. I also innoculate my bin with Glomalin producing soil fungi. Glomalin is a protein produced on the outside of the hyphae strands that acts as a glue, "glomming" the soil & creating combed soil structure, also known as a Loam. Worm bins that have low fungal activity produce lower grade castings, with a less balanced NPK ratio and higher concentrations of anaerobes,.rather than the Areobic organism's you produce castings for. With less enviromental stimulation the worms are not as active, causing worm breeders to over feed their worms coffee grinds, producing high nitrate castings that will give a high-yield of foilage growth without any actual production from ones plants. Giving the illusion of fertility, with a much lower fruiting yields. Sunflowers are in particularly sensitive to this disbalance, and are ideal for control trials. when you see people with massive sunflowers that never form a flower head it's because they've given their plant too much nitrate. this happens to people who use worm castings that have been given too much coffee grind to speed up the rate of break down within isolated worm bins. You don't need as much coffee grind when you have fungal pre digesting the bin for the worms. In nature these worms are natural partners of Fungi. Who ever told you this produces " the worst" castings is completely ignorant of myco-vermiculture & the natural ecology we pulled these organism's from.
@@mansoor2020 Any works, it's a good way to handle the waste stream of producing any kind of Mushroom. You can take the blocks from indoor grows, compost them with the worms, then feed those castings into your outdoor mushroom beds for indoor/outdoor co production.
@merph1 Both, we make our own but we also go and pick them up from other cultivator's. Contamination of molds and bacteria is Always a risk when doing lab work, so alot of growers will just toss out their spent or contaminated blocks because they don't know how to handle the waste stream. Alot of cultivator's will give them away for free, which we then go get.
Amazing....after watching the first video..I bought the Organic Solutions for our Peppers in Florida.....now, I am so excited to understand how it all works together...our peppers were huge..just like John said....
I have learned SO MUCH about gardening by watching your videos, John. You are amazing. I have 82 different types of vegetables growing in my garden right now because of you, in Allen, Texas! In the city!!! You should come see!! Thank you for all you do for all of us gardeners out here in JohnKohlerLand!!!!
I’ve actually purchased organic solutions worm castings literally as soon as I saw John’s pepper video. Granted I’ve never used any other company, but the stuff works amazing! Definitely going to get more when I run out!
I don't blame him at all for not disclosing all his info... It was great of him to provide the information that he has. Great video. I learned alot. Thanks
Hair and nails are keratin, not chitin. Chitin is most common in arthropods. Some readily available sources of chitin might be shrimp shells, meal worms, or dead bees (if you keep bees).
Dead bees? I have my first worms ever. I also get dead bees in my uncovered pool once in a while. Out of curiosity, can I put it in my worm bin instead of chucking it into the yard?
@@melodylamour6123the pool water has chlorine in it. Probably not a good idea to use bees soaked in chlorine. It may evaporate but I wouldn’t chance it.
Hi, I wanted to mention how important your videos have been to my first year of gardening in Las Vegas, I never thought in the 12 years I've lived here that gardening would be an option, but I was wrong, I have a small space around my patio and have been able to grow a good bit of veggies, so wanted to thank you for the knowledge that you've been so generous in sharing with me. Thank you
Wow im genuinely impressed by your video bro. Im a rapper and businessman thats recently converted to gardening. This video is everything you want for a “how to” guide. Literally feels like i was there getting a company tour. Good job by you and the cameraman/woman
When I bought my house, the entire yard was all concrete. We decided to build a raise bed all along our fence and filled it with 100% compost soil from a local nursery. I'm not sure where all the worms came from but I couldn't believe the amount of worms that resulted in my raise beds. My soil is rich in worm castings and that results in amazing production of plants for me.
Thank you so much for posting this, John! I've been looking for a good source of worm castings. Love your videos! (P.S. For those who complain they're too long, try watching at 1.5 speed)
I live right next to a big coffee shop where I get my coffee grounds for free and I live right next to a big-time restaurant where I get all my egg shells for free and rotten vegetables and I go to the side street vegetable stands and get everything for free and use it to feed my worms. So far. My worms have been breeding like crazy.
Ty again John. I truly appreciate your u-tube channel. I enjoy watching with my morning cup of coffee. Nothing like starting the day off with knowledge and java
John, I really appreciate this video. I have a fledgling worm farm using a flow though reactor (which I spent a lot of money on and doesn't really work all that well). Had I seen this video six months ago I would have followed this model to the T. But its never too late to make improvements. Binyamin from Galil Soil Farm
These castings are incredible, I always get some when in southern CA. For those in northern California, there's also a place in Oroville that seems to have similar quality.
@@syrenecrowell7378 Freezing isn't really an issue in California, but worms survive where it's cold by burrowing a little lower. If you have your own worms in a container where it's cold, you may need to bring it inside.
The reason we need the liquid solution is to be able to amend really large spaces like pastures. Using physical castings would be way to expensive for amending acres of land
@33:41 my question." by drying in sunlight might be killing almost all microorganisms and all the remaining one get might remain just good fluffy soil. Is not it on a safer side to let it remain over moist as in the bounded form @33:46 ?" Thank you John for tonnes of information in good details.
Awesome video! Thanks so much for the amazing tour & interview. You've inspired me to step up my worm bedding set up, and I've already gotten started today! 👏 👏
Thanks for yet another good presentation on best castings. I'm in South Africa have my own backyard worm farm since 2008. Not serious on the business however, on course to get into business.
40 years ago my dad tried raising African Nightcrawlers for bait but they were hard to grow and red wigglers got into his beds from some dirt he added and took over but after watching this maybe they just survived the food and the climate better. he kept them in the basement where it was fairly cool. He also fed them sewer sludge. which probably had a bit of protein in it. The beds looked like raised beds but were up on tables, at least 3 x6 maybe bigger. The basement had a dirt floor, I guess it was a cellar. But he would dig a trough in the center of the beds going lengthwise and put the food in the trough so they could come and go from the food. He also fed corn meal. He gave up on the nightcrawlers.
Thanks for this info. In Europe we don't have the same choice on soils and work castings. I already have a worm pile working but i plan to make it bigger and better.
A fun video. I looked at the length of the video and tried to figure how you were going to go that long. Glad I watched the whole thing. Very interesting. I'm in Pennsylvania and there are groups here doing the worm composting. I haven't used the casting idea in the gardens yet but maybe next summer I'll experiment.
i got the best castings. organic compost fed including ground avocado seeds, pineapple, orange, banana peals, apples, coffee grounds, etc, leaf mold, ground toasted egg shells, some bokashi compost, mushroom wash after a day in the sun to collect vitamin d from microbes i guess, cooked rice for more microbes, etc, and why not some azomite. one thing i don't have, but i would love, is a cow manure.
Great video John! Beginner here. Should I even concern myself with NPK vs just focus on using worm castings given how effective these worm castings seem to be? If I am missing something (?) maybe you can talk about the relationship between those two things, how to effectively be thinking about them and work with their relationship in my garden in a future video. Cheers...
I have a worm bin. From time to time I'll get a handful of castings (worms and all) and add it to one of the tubs or big pots that I grow plants in. I've been thinking of composting stuff before feeding it to the worms prior to seeing this video.
Just subscribed. Great info on worms and other gardening tips. I'm about to order red wigglers for the first time for my compost bin and garden. Thanks.
Rabbit manure bedding and food is good enough for me. I grow super hot peppers that grow to about five feet tall and about that wide. Their production rate are super too.
Older comment but great idea any worms are better than none the different types dwell in different depths and have different dietary needs so the red wigglers live closest to top of soil where they will be composting plus feeding and the earth worms are deeper so they can help with aeriation of the soil for your deeper roots while also helping to feed your plants with their castings
Just buy red wigglers for every plot. Feed the worms properly. They reward you with castings plentiful, and keeping your soil aerated. Take for instance. Having a 15 gallon living soil in a 5x5. I started them with 300 worms, and a quarter cup of feed mix I blend together. After 90 days they more than doubled because of the existing eggs. Now I'm feeding one cup every 2 weeks and it's all gone. Probably approaching a thousand worms inside of 15 gallon. Plants love it. I don't buy any fertilizer. The worms do all the work. Dry brown leaves, used coffee grounds, egg shell, and fruit, or vegetable peelings all ground up. Put in a coffee cup. Turn upside down on top of soil. Push mulch back around the cup. You want the most biodiversity. Red wigglers, springtails, roly polies, beneficial mites.
I know this is a late reply, but worms can't break down biochar. The biochar gets innoculated with bacteria, enzymes and nutrients as the worms eat around it. I add biochar to my compost bin, and then feed that compost to my worms. Works great
I have made 4 -5 gallon red wiggler worm bins and do get the worm tea from each. It appears that my larger worms have disappeared but can see many small baby like worms. Did I do something wrong or is this a natural part of the evolution. Was it something in the products I was composting? Would appreciate your insight from you and your group.
Hey, I’m watching this video in Florida, and love the info. But when I go to the link you provide for this company, it says that this website is unsafe and is stealing your personal info! Idk what is going on. But it does the same when I like them up directly on the internet. Maybe you can reach out to them to let them know? Thanks for all your doing to inform us newbies to growing. Thanks John! Stay Blessed! You’re very good at explaining the info. ❤
Hi John, I love your shows and bought your growing your greens t-shirt. Have you heard of VermisTerra? They’re known for their organic worm castings and tea. Can you do a episode on them?
I ordered the worm casting and it didn’t come in a bag like that. It was a clear bag with no labeling. I clicked the link from another video you posted to boogie brew. I’m wondering if they sent me the right product.
If you ad BioChar to the worm feeding area some of the worm castings nutrient will be absorbed into the bioChar for the long term betterment of the soil you grow in.
I am in Greece and I am started organic farming Professionally, so I decided to make my own vermicompost, because buying seaweed for its growth hormones it will cost me for my kind of farming 1000 euro per month, lol, and reading through some research, vermicompost has all the growth hormones the plants needs, but I don't want to use animal products, (with exception of horse manure, if I can find free range horse manure in my country) like crab shell meal, is there an alternative? because if I make my own vermicompost the point is to lower the cost and achieve a decent quality of vermicompost. Anyway, thank you for this video, it gave me a realistic idea of how to make one of the best quality of compost, I will also buy a book from a specialist and I will see what I have available in my country and what I can use as an alternative, and how to make this as balanced as possible. I mean the point is to lower the cost and to have decent compost. You have helped me through your videos a lot to make some decisions of how to make my garden. You have lots of options and there are many great products in USA that I really wanted to use, but unfortunately I cannot use many of them professionally because of customs and shipping. I bought SEA 90 and european law doesn't recognize sea 90 as something that can come to the country, they forbit it. Many don't ship to greece they don't exist in europe, unless they use a language and I cannot find or google them, so I am left with whats available in my country and hopefully I will succeed to make a nice quality vermicompost for my plants. Who knows, maybe I will achieve this with trial and error and be a supplier for greece and europe. Oh man, those stupid laws and shipping. Seriously it stops individual progress..... on the other hand, if you can't find it... make it yourself! I think it is a good business opportunity.
is any kelp tested for Fukushima radiation?> It took a while to find a local edible food nursery that carried worm castings without kelp. And I figure, I would rather use woody and green plants fro land anyway, I grew up in Newport Beach and no plants we had, and I lived lucky, the ocean broke across the street from my house, and no plant ever ate any kelp though it washed up across the street all the time lol I like your channel thanks for all the info. I decided to make over a raised planter that has mostly clay with some sand, and crushed rocked 2 or 3 inch diameter, under. I put in 3000 red worms, a large bag of top soil, box of volcano rock dust high in potash and calcium, aded fungus, and I differ from your 2016 show on LA City "mulch" as it depends where you go. I live in Los Feliz so, .5 miles from where your show was done, but I go to a small pile next to the LA River bike path. It is called mulch, but, it is layered, and they add to it all the time. Today, I found rich black layers with well decomposing woody chips, and soil or broken down materials, it was like stratum, I had to mine it. It also had fungus and I want more, there is some, I found when clearing, but the clay has never had a lot of roots through it 0- hence the worms, and I planted flowers, native coastal California form Learners? And milkweed seeds, but also, strawberries and melons, inland ten herbs plus local garlic. Newbie I learn a lot form you, cheers
I have a question about vermicomposting. My partner likes to bring home flowers and it's such a shame to throw them out after the blooms fade. Can I feed the flower petals to my worms if I rinse them off first or should I not take any chances of there being a pesticide or herbicide?
How about condensation after you seal both ends. Maybe a 3M type of breathable tape to put "below" so panel can release moisture, allow air etc.. maybe>?
Great Video John! Thank you. Did you mention in the video how long it takes for one bin to mature from start to finish? I am going to watch it again to try and figure it out.
did you have the kelp (west coast kelp) tested for radioactivity from Fukushima? I finally found a local brand with out kelp. When I needed an iodine supplement, health practitioners directed me to Icelandic kelp, rather than local California kelp.
When I was a kid my dad decided to grow African nightcrawlers in our basement. He had so much trouble with them. He built wooden worm bins and would feed them in a trough down the middle all kinds of things but they kept dying (it was really cool in the basement year round) and when red wigglers took over he was so disgusted he quit. He thought he had gotten some nightcrawlers that had red wigglers in them. Nobody could figure out what he was doing, but he was a fisherman and thought he could sell them for bait to bait shops.
Fantastic solutions. Will be ordering as i live in so cal. Please please plrase do a video on worm tea. Im at that point and could use your expertise. Hey if we went to Camarillo can u buy castings from them directly.? I live pretty close. Thx again!!!
I’m thinking about feed my worms a Alfalfa & Kelp mix in addition to other ingredients shared in this video hopping for a super charged castings... Have someone tried this before or have experience using alfalfa meal in worm bins?
Hi John, can you answer a question.. can worm tea be re-brewed or can I add molasses to "old" worm tea as food to boost it up again... just wondering if is possible, in case I need to keep it alive for selling. Also, can you explain, if can, how to make ambrosia at home... i think you was doing it but the guy kinda talk his way out of it wiht the 30.000 dollars machine answer. Anyway, great interview and the guy also was very helpful. I like how you separate your videos by time and topics on the description and how you take your time to deeply approach the topic too. Thank you
Hi John, I live in Redington Beach, Florida and I have been following your videos. I purchased the worm castings from Organic Solutions... when I planted my peppers..they took off....the first crop were gorgeous and big! Bigger than any peppers I have grown in the past!.....But....here is the caveat....after one crop was picked the preceding crops became smaller and smaller...do you have any suggestions....all peppers were coming from the same originally planted pepper plant.
I bet you need to fertilize between crops to keep production up. A side-dressing of vermicompost would be fine, as would a foliar spray of tea made from worm compost.
Organic Solutions seems to possibly be out of business? Im trying to buy a large quantity and cant find it anywhere. I tried Boogie Brew as well without success. Do you know of somewhere else that I can purchase OS castings? If not, can you recommend another company of high quality castings? Thanks for your amazing content!!! Im a fan for life
Meat is healthy, matter of fact organ meats are the most potent food hands down ... I always roll my eyes when people think eating plants is automatically healthy 🙄
“Meat is healthy” is just as bad as anyone generalizing about a plant diet. There’s many different types of meat that’s raised many different ways with tons of different antibiotics and hormones, etc. if you knew anything about a healthy diet you wouldn’t be lumping in all meat together.
@@SeanMc8181 you know darn well what meat im referring to , grass fed grass finished free range open range organ meats. That is not something any plant can do . Not one vegetable or vegetables picked or grown organic or not can come close to the nutrition of meat. And i would prefer a basic ground beef to any assortment of veggies you could give me. Ever watch the show Alone? You get your prime perfect example how your body was made . You die on plants and you can die on protein. A human needs FAT and fatty meat and organ meats are it. Period no ifs and or butts about it. Kinda like climate change , its four seasons and you cannot control how close the earth is getting to the ☀️ sun.
