Worms, bins and perpetual search for perfection

[Jewels]

I read something about some worms are consuming the food proper and some (specie) worms are feasting from the bacteria? or similar.
I can harvest night crawlers locally. Big as pencils.
I had a bin outdoors. I did not have it covered. The worms were over taken by parasites. My stomach turns thinking about it.

 

[Gweedo]

Heres pics of my first 5 gal bucket setup, didnt wanna waste the cracked buckets so repurposed for this. The second one is what ive been running for the last 8 weeks or so smells fantastic, just been tossing kitchen scraps, trim and stems , and cardboard strips and they seem to be doing very well, got a good rain today so tomorrow me and my boys will go stock up on more, big ass ones come uo all over my yard after a good rain

 

[Gweedo]

Gonna end up expanding for sure its virtually no labor and im starting to get the organic soil growing bug so much great stuff to learn growing buds i love it

 

[crimsonecho]

I read something about some worms are consuming the food proper and some (specie) worms are feasting from the bacteria? or similar.
I can harvest night crawlers locally. Big as pencils.
I had a bin outdoors. I did not have it covered. The worms were over taken by parasites. My stomach turns thinking about it.

Thats too bad man. Poor guys. Yeah keeping it covered is a good move.

As far as i know worms don’t eat the food per se. They don’t have any teeth or anything. They just swallow tiny bits of organic matter and the microbes in their guts breaks down what they can (this includes the decomposer microbes on that moldy organic matter) and then this process keeps going till there is nothing left.

This is how i understood it at least. Well in anycase it works. Hahah.

Nightcrawlers are supposed to be very good at this thing too. You are lucky for having such a healthy population around yoy. I would take advantage of that.

 

[crimsonecho]

Gonna end up expanding for sure its virtually no labor and im starting to get the organic soil growing bug so much great stuff to learn growing buds i love it

Seems like a very decent setup man. Thats what i was doing until watermelon rinds fucked it for me. Too much moisture on those narrow buckets.. well not a good combination. But if it works it works.

Definitely cant compare homemade ewc with any store bought stuff. All of my soil mixed with ewc has a white mycellium cover on top and its now cooking in a tray.

I can’t say much about bacteria as i don’t have a microscope but fungi is easily visible and i have never had such healthy colonies with store bought stuff.

 

[Gweedo]

So questions ive had on this is
A if i get a few gnats in the stuff is it ruined
B is mold occasionally forming on the surface a good or bad thing
Both problems are easily remedied with a good stir but now im unsure of the quality

 

[Gweedo]

Im hoping i jump started my bennies with the ancient forest i added in the beginning and my second re wetting had a bit of great white in it, i know some of it is root based life only but some of whats in there had to have taken off in that rich of a soil mix

 

[crimsonecho]

So questions ive had on this is
A if i get a few gnats in the stuff is it ruined
B is mold occasionally forming on the surface a good or bad thing
Both problems are easily remedied with a good stir but now im unsure of the quality

Mold breaks down the organic matter as long as its not foul it should be ok. Like anything white and maybe greenish is ok. Usually bad fuckers are black. But no, mold is good it will not diminish the quality.

I never had gnats in the bins. Keeping it covered and freezing the organic material before throwing it in the bin would eliminate all flies and bugs. Of course thaw it covered. Their eggs and larvea may stay alive in there and later hatch in your grow area so keeping it clean from the start is a better route imo.

 

[crimsonecho]

Im hoping i jump started my bennies with the ancient forest i added in the beginning and my second re wetting had a bit of great white in it, i know some of it is root based life only but some of whats in there had to have taken off in that rich of a soil mix

No need to even add anything. Worms have shit ton of different microbes in their guts and they pass all those bennies into the ewc. Don’t get me wrong it will not hurt anything but why waste your money.

Edit; i mean anything bottled or prepackaged. Your ewc will be superior to all of them.

 

[Gweedo]

Ten four so freeze all my green stuff first then thaw covered then toss in, i been just tossing in and half ass burying the stuff, more diligent must i be lol

 

[crimsonecho]

Ten four so freeze all my green stuff first then thaw covered then toss in, i been just tossing in and half ass burying the stuff, more diligent must i be lol

Yeah definitely. I never had a single fly or gnat in the bin. Just keep it 2-3 days in the freezer. Easy.

 

[Gweedo]

I was just treating the bin more like a compost bin at the start i always hit with a bit of GW or some brewed tea, just to get the composting action going quicker, figured it may helo the stuff in my bin break down quicker, as the worns are working

 

[crimsonecho]

I was just treating the bin more like a compost bin at the start i always hit with a bit of GW or some brewed tea, just to get the composting action going quicker, figured it may helo the stuff in my bin break down quicker, as the worns are working

Definitely man it probably did too. Just saying now your bin is richer than any bottled shit you can get.

 

[Gweedo]

Whats your thoughts on adding leaf litter in there as a food source i live in a hardwood forest basically and ive got tons of it composting outside

 

[crimsonecho]

Whats your thoughts on adding leaf litter in there as a food source i live in a hardwood forest basically and ive got tons of it composting outside

Its good. As long as no bad bugs or anything in there very benefical. A good hot compost or again freezing those leaves before adding it to the bin may do the trick. Mobile elements are taken away by the plants but immobile elements are still there in the fallen leaves so lots of nutrition for your plants and worms love it ime.

Another good aspect of freezing is that it shatters the cell walls of the organic material so a faster decomposition is possible by freezing the material and then thawing it out.

 

[crimsonecho]

Since i scaled up i stopped doing slurries and started just throwing the organic waste in. After breaking it down to smaller pieces and freezing of course. The bin is thriving. I threw in fresh cannabis leaves and stems just 2-3 days ago and they really seem moldy today. Thats cool. Now i covered it with leaves as seen in the pics. These are all from my indoor area and i was thinking how useful a seperate indoor bin is. I can be sure about getting pest free fertilizer year around as long as i freeze the stuff before feeding it to them and abide by the basic rules of hygiene. Thats cool.

Not much from the outside goes into my indoor bin and this is almost a closed loop in that sense. Where i feed the ewc to cannabis and some other indoor plants and then i feed those plants to the ewc. Ok bit of fruit goes in and some carrots some coffee etc. but i freeze everything to keep it pest free. So all in all. Good deal. Again the ewc looks and smells delicious. But it is taking a little longer since i stopped making slurries. As we have hit the one month mark but still i haven’t harvested. Although the bin is pretty much full, i think it can be better. Well a price to my laziness.

 

[crimsonecho]

Yep, 3 days later and here it is. Very cool! Burying this stuff is usually a much better idea but i just wanted see what kind of fungal growth i would get and voilà!

 

[BigBallzWillie]

My take on worm farming is slightly different

First thing is I don't work for them, in fact I don't do anything for them besides rolling several 2x8's laid out in garden paths, once a year. I did that yesterday grabbed 6 gallons of worm crap total. The 2x8's work good with a square shovel. The planks then go on the grass next to where they were. Repeat next year. I also moved the compost pile and netted 30 gallons of compost. Takes about 15 minutes to fill the pail. That bucket of worms are nightcrawlers and were under the board in the first pic. I pluck them out by hand and re-distribute. Wanna go fishing??? Here ya go, these are good!

 

[crimsonecho]

My take on worm farming is slightly different

First thing is I don't work for them, in fact I don't do anything for them besides rolling several 2x8's laid out in garden paths, once a year. I did that yesterday grabbed 6 gallons of worm crap total. The 2x8's work good with a square shovel. The planks then go on the grass next to where they were. Repeat next year. I also moved the compost pile and netted 30 gallons of compost. Takes about 15 minutes to fill the pail. That bucket of worms are nightcrawlers and were under the board in the first pic. I pluck them out by hand and re-distribute. Wanna go fishing??? Here ya go, these are good!View attachment 25906

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Looks cool man. Indoors it has to be different tho. I’m working in a limited space and with a standard amount of household waste so the composting has to happen fast or my freezer gets full.

Pre-processing makes it happen much faster. But to be honest things are kinda hectic now and i have many tasks to manage so i gave up on pre-processing and it does take twice as long to get the same consistency but what are you gonna do.

I have a garden to do composting in but i don’t want to bring in anything from outside to my indoor plants. It’s almost a closed system now. Dead plant material gets composted with some frozen food waste and compost grows the plants then after the harvest plant material goes into to the bin and the cycle goes on.

Well anyway, homemade compost is just great and yours look great too. Thanks for sharing your process.

 

[Hillbill]

Whats your thoughts on adding leaf litter in there as a food source i live in a hardwood forest basically and ive got tons of it composting outside

Just watch out as to not import too many pests like centipedes