If you add carbon with each feeding, such as shredded cardboard or coconut coir or peat moss with lime, you won't need drainage in the bottom. The carbon sources will absorb the moisture and leave the bin with nice flaky soft fluffy castings rather than chunks of muddy castings. Yes the worms will survive in the castings as you show them, but they would thrive and reproduce much more if their bedding was more appropriate to their true needs
Hiya Carpenter Family :) Once the vermicompost is fairly dry it can be run through a very fine sieve, catching the cocoons, which can then be put into a new bin. However that's far too much hard work and as I'm feeding the worms, I prefer them to do the work lol - so what I do now is just harvest the obvious worms, using the migration technique of feeding just one side of the bin, then add a slice of melon skin to what's left. Any baby worms will make their way to the melon skin as it's the only food in the bin, making it easy to remove them. The presence of food will trigger the cocoons to hatch, and over a period of about 6 to 8 weeks depending on conditions, there'll be no worms and no cocoons left in the vermicompost. I show what I mean here: ruclips.net/video/eHSUIjuFHCc/видео.html
I hate the word dude. It just seems disrespectful to me. The original poster did have a bin that was lacking carbon for sure. Clearly it needed some cardboard or coconut coir or leaves so it would balance out the moisture and make the castings black and flaky. Castings are called black gold because they really should be black in color and flaky not big brown chunks as is shown in this video. Hopefully he has since learned and corrected it. We all have to start somewhere and we all learn along the way. There's not a single person who knows any skill that didn't make a mistake along the way
Very nice! Your worms look healthy. Was the bin started using mostly paper? I just started my first bin this year, but it is becoming reasonably fluffy by comparison. I started with shredded cardboard, composted manure, and peat. I find paper tends to become the consistency of clay.
Hi Phillip paper isn't really great to be honest although it can be effective. The issue is it clumps together too easily meaning no air gets through and unless you break it up regularly, which you can see in this video I didn't, it becomes quite a mess!
+London Worms could you advise on a problem I am having with one of my bins? I put some wood shavings (the stuff used for rabbit bedding) in one bin which I now wish I hadn't. When I add the slightest amount of food, the bin gets extremely hot and the worms escape. I have had to resort to feeding a dry food. They seem to love it, but it defeats the purpose of home composting if I cannot add kitchen scraps. They are doing a good job with the bedding as-is. Think I should just wait for the bedding to break down or start over? Do you know of another way to prevent the thermo bacteria from going nuclear?
+Phillip Page I suspect from what you're saying it's the rabbit poop in the bedding mixed with the added nitrogen from the food stuff that's doing it. That stuff is awesome for heating up compost piles. I use the shavings from the guineapig bedding and it never get that's hot when mixed with foodscraps. But it has very little guineapig poop in it. Also if your scraps include coffee grounds or cereals that is guaranteed when mixed with the bedding to send temps soaring. I would set up a small container and precompost the bedding and foodscraps. It will only be very hot for a day or so and would then be suitable for feeding to the bin. Also keep an eye on the amt of coffee grounds added if you're feeding them to the bin.
If u want super castings use biochar it makes it super dark and fluffy I layer aged manure coco coir pumice azomite neem meal kelp meal corn massa biochar and wheat flour. Worms in that bucket seem too be more active at surface and way more Castings in comparison to other other buckets with just the compost and cardboard
The cocoon is what we see after the egg and sperm has been collected and fused by the mucous sheath of the clitellum sliding down the worms body and being deposited in the soil or bedding. The embryo is fed by the nutrients in the cocoon until that happy day when a baby worm hatches 😊
They were just shy. They're very happy and healthy and have gone on to produce many generations of worm composters since this was filmed :-) Thanks for watching. Hope all is well :)
If you add carbon with each feeding, such as shredded cardboard or coconut coir or peat moss with lime, you won't need drainage in the bottom. The carbon sources will absorb the moisture and leave the bin with nice flaky soft fluffy castings rather than chunks of muddy castings. Yes the worms will survive in the castings as you show them, but they would thrive and reproduce much more if their bedding was more appropriate to their true needs
Please explain how to 'screen' out cocoons. Thanks
Hiya Carpenter Family :)
Once the vermicompost is fairly dry it can be run through a very fine sieve, catching the cocoons, which can then be put into a new bin. However that's far too much hard work and as I'm feeding the worms, I prefer them to do the work lol - so what I do now is just harvest the obvious worms, using the migration technique of feeding just one side of the bin, then add a slice of melon skin to what's left. Any baby worms will make their way to the melon skin as it's the only food in the bin, making it easy to remove them. The presence of food will trigger the cocoons to hatch, and over a period of about 6 to 8 weeks depending on conditions, there'll be no worms and no cocoons left in the vermicompost.
I show what I mean here: ruclips.net/video/eHSUIjuFHCc/видео.html
This dude has the worst looking bins I’ve seen. Hopefully they are in better shape now....
Thanks for watching :) Hope all is well. All bins along with the worms you'll be glad to hear are in great shape :-)
I hate the word dude. It just seems disrespectful to me. The original poster did have a bin that was lacking carbon for sure. Clearly it needed some cardboard or coconut coir or leaves so it would balance out the moisture and make the castings black and flaky. Castings are called black gold because they really should be black in color and flaky not big brown chunks as is shown in this video. Hopefully he has since learned and corrected it. We all have to start somewhere and we all learn along the way. There's not a single person who knows any skill that didn't make a mistake along the way
Very nice! Your worms look healthy. Was the bin started using mostly paper? I just started my first bin this year, but it is becoming reasonably fluffy by comparison. I started with shredded cardboard, composted manure, and peat. I find paper tends to become the consistency of clay.
Hi Phillip
paper isn't really great to be honest although it can be effective. The issue is it clumps together too easily meaning no air gets through and unless you break it up regularly, which you can see in this video I didn't, it becomes quite a mess!
+London Worms could you advise on a problem I am having with one of my bins? I put some wood shavings (the stuff used for rabbit bedding) in one bin which I now wish I hadn't. When I add the slightest amount of food, the bin gets extremely hot and the worms escape. I have had to resort to feeding a dry food. They seem to love it, but it defeats the purpose of home composting if I cannot add kitchen scraps. They are doing a good job with the bedding as-is. Think I should just wait for the bedding to break down or start over? Do you know of another way to prevent the thermo bacteria from going nuclear?
+Phillip Page I suspect from what you're saying it's the rabbit poop in the bedding mixed with the added nitrogen from the food stuff that's doing it. That stuff is awesome for heating up compost piles. I use the shavings from the guineapig bedding and it never get that's hot when mixed with foodscraps. But it has very little guineapig poop in it.
Also if your scraps include coffee grounds or cereals that is guaranteed when mixed with the bedding to send temps soaring.
I would set up a small container and precompost the bedding and foodscraps. It will only be very hot for a day or so and would then be suitable for feeding to the bin. Also keep an eye on the amt of coffee grounds added if you're feeding them to the bin.
+London Worms great idea to pre compost the bedding. Thank you. Love the video.
I use pumice for iration helps with drainage
Hiya Scotty - That sounds like a very good idea and good use of the pumice.
If u want super castings use biochar it makes it super dark and fluffy I layer aged manure coco coir pumice azomite neem meal kelp meal corn massa biochar and wheat flour. Worms in that bucket seem too be more active at surface and way more Castings in comparison to other other buckets with just the compost and cardboard
These are NOT cocoons but eggs. ;-)
Experts call them cocoons, see J Siddique etc.. :)
The cocoon is what we see after the egg and sperm has been collected and fused by the mucous sheath of the clitellum sliding down the worms body and being deposited in the soil or bedding. The embryo is fed by the nutrients in the cocoon until that happy day when a baby worm hatches 😊
So just like an egg... ?
@@derekfrost8991 Cheers Derek. Hope all is well
@@markward7598 Yes but not quite :) They're different :) Thanks for watching Mark. Hope all is well.
A lot of them appear dead. They don’t look good.
They were just shy. They're very happy and healthy and have gone on to produce many generations of worm composters since this was filmed :-) Thanks for watching. Hope all is well :)
The guy in the video,you could have left the worms alone for another 2 weeks to finish the large pieces
True Svetla - but I wanted to get a move on at the time and start some more bins. Thanks for watching. Hope all is well :)