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I use watermelon rinds with a little pink flesh. I put flesh side down. Works really well. I check rinds daily and normally within 1 week I have little to no worm on the rinds. Then screen though 3/16 punch plate. Anything that makes it across going back in next cycle.
For me the easiest & most effortless way seems to be the approach in which they are given a fresh batch of bedding & food to migrate into.. while also allowing the finished castings to gradually dry - providing the worms with further motivation to exit 👍🏻
I think you need to remember that worms breath through their skin and need moisture to breath 💧 .. your killing your poor worms by being too hung up about separating your worms from the castings 😖 Also you need to remember that having the castings too dry your also killing the microbiology in the castings by drying them out too 🤦♀️ You’ll always have clumps when screening .. that’s when you use the light method 👍🏽
I wonder at what stage the castings become toxic to the worms? You have to be getting close at a year old. Maybe that was why some of the worms were looking sick? At almost an hour video that might have been 2 bruski!
Do they really become toxic or do they just become devoid of nutrition but still consumed (like empty calories?) resulting in lethargic undernourished worms?
That's certainly another valid consideration to take into account - one that I haven't really factored in. Perhaps running bins for longer might not be as good an idea as my most recent kick, which is to try running bins closer to their storage capacity (hopefully prompting reproduction, increasing worm population & thus the bin's throughput capability - ultimately reaching the need to harvest sooner by filling up the bin quicker) :)
I believe light separation or/and horizontal migration looks much less traumatic for the worms than all this shaking and sifting after being partially suffocated from drying out the bin…
Yeah - in a drive to get the material 'screening friendly' I think I went a bit overboard on drying it out. The skinny, dehydrated wormies are a clear indication of that... It is doubtful that I will try this again :)
When worms gather on my plastic bubble wrap, I like to spray it gently with water before laying it back down, once I'm done working with the bin. Lots of them rinse right back down into the bin.
Now that is a days work. Worm wranglers don’t work normal hours. You might want to consider placing a wet newspaper over the casting you will be migrating the worms from. Even after I have completed my migrations I keep a wet newspaper and plastic on top to keep all the goodies in the castings alive while I am using them. You deserve cold one or two. Thanks AV for sharing.
I covered with plastic, but nothing else. I have also installed a couple baiting stations... so hopefully I'll have the straggler worms out of the stuff soon. In the past I have kept my castings that are truly done & officially 'in storage' with a damp piece of paper on the surface and a plastic covering on top of that... but most recently I covered only with plastic. Perhaps I will add a sheet of paper to the storage bucket, beneath the plastic, which I can occasionally dampen if it becomes dry. It might also serve as a way to gauge the moisture level of the castings 👍🏻
I'm even wondering if that might also be a way to slowly recondition a batch of castings that were placed into storage a bit dry. A damp piece of paper would allow for the moisture to slowly absorb into the somewhat dry castings... 👍🏻
Perhaps if you just put all the worms and castings into the end of a bus bin, then add a bit of the bedding from each breeder bin, you create a horizontal migration. I like elevating the finished side and having really moist comfortable area for the worms to escape to. What this experiment demonstrated was that there are definitely pros and cons of this method. With the loss of worms and diminished size and activity level of the worms in this check in, it reinforces to me how much I prefer to keep the worms active during as much of the process as I can. I just like pushing the finished material to one end and adding to the other side. When I do my large harvests of the Hungry Bin and the Vermibag Lil Mammoth, just putting it all in a wheelbarrow and baiting them out and removing any unfinished items and large worms works great. Maybe if you put some holes in a felt grow bag and then putting all that stuff onto a new bin, the worms will just crawl out. I think if you use your castings in a potting mix, then it doesn’t really matter how wet or dry the castings are since you need moisture in your potting mix anyways. The material will keep breaking down in storage, so chunks aren’t a real problem. It’s mostly about getting mature worms out. FYI I find that those ‘wet boulders’ are usually pieces of bedding holding castings. It’s just as easy to add it to a new bin which gets a new bin off to a much better start. Also you could just throw those boulders into your storage bins and mix it. It keeps those bins active and feeds the babies hatching in there. My storage bins always decrease in size over time, so they always need being topped off 😂🎉
Since I had absolutely no space remaining in the bus box full of castings, I opted to set up a couple bait boxes. Hopefully I am able to lure the wormies out of the material. My hunch is that they will be on the lookout for a more moist place to be - so the bait boxes with soaked bedding plus some yummy pumpkin added will hopefully get any visitors to remain & not wander off back into the castings Like you, I also typically assume that a clumped boulder of castings is most probably a chunk of bedding with castings adhering to it :)
There are no significant characteristics of bus boxes that sets one apart from the other... Some happen to be a convenient size for my shelf, some are a color that I sorta like more than others, etc... but none of these are things I would consider to be meaningful to anyone else. Thank you for using my affiliate links (regardless of what you buy, whether its something I recommended or not, it all helps!)
I am a RU-vid chef and I am looking to create the perfect soil create vegetables, herbs. I did spend an hour watching this very interesting information. Please stay connected!
@@thebaldchef14 I'm a vermiculture producer and edible food producer aswell. I have an average perpetual worm population of approximately 10million worms in total. I'm also engaged at the moment doing lots of soil testing amending processes across many farms that are wanting to move away from synthetic fertilisers. %100 the produce tastes better,grow faster,bigger, healthier and the vitamins and minerals in the produce supercede everything thats store bought, we call store bought produce "Ghost Food" due to the hollow lack of nutrients. Once people experience REAL food they never want to go back to what they used to do and the flow on effects are immense as witnessed and continue to witness with people's health returning across the board! Food grown right is medicine, not a pill or potion sold from pharmaceutical companies!
I started out with worms that were given to me. I've also got some that were part of a swap. I also had a couple worm retailers graciously donate some worms, too :) They all do well. If you opt for the red wigglers then you won't be disappointed, they are - after all - the Cadillac of worms 👍🏻
Forgive me for being ignorant and confused. I looked up vermicomposting so my initial question of whether this is for fishing or composting was answered. Now I'm left with this question: is this for profit, for research, for your own gardening and/or other reasons?
It started out mainly as the creation of worm castings to nourish the plants in my garden. Over time I also gained a big appreciation for the redirection & reuse of compostable materials that would have otherwise ended up in my everyday trash destined for the landfill. I suppose I also get some satisfaction out of people learning & gaining an appreciation for worm farming after watching some of my videos. Thanks for watching!
It pains me to see you leave the worms sitting in the light for so long while you take your time and chat and then agitate even more , then see them dying and agitate some more. I've seen others doing the same types of things till the poor worms are foaming or bubbling. Seems so cruel I don't get it. I try to turn away but always come back due to lack of other good options
Sorry... this video was created over 14 months ago - so my recollection of what happened here is fuzzy. If you could provide me with a time index for the point in the video that you are referring to then I can review that part & try to clarify. Thank you!
