Help for Hot Weather in my biggest bin.- African nightcrawlers
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- Опубликовано: 4 май 2024
- 55 Gallon Worm Compost Bin- Harvest , Feed and Look at this beast bin
/ @plantobsessed
This bin was made from cutting a 55 gallon food grade barrel in half long ways and screwing the open ends together to make a 6 foot long bin.
To see the previous video click here • 55 Gallon Compost Worm...
The bin lives in the cellar of my 200-year-old house. In the winter the furnace dries it out, and in the wet season the moisture leaching through the bricks makes the basement very humid. The current set up was started near the first of the year 2021 after the wormpocolypse. A rat was in the basement and all the bins had to be moved to totes and buckets with lids on to protect them. When the rat was ended, I added 4 or more of the in-progress bins/ buckets with the compost mix of red, blue and European nightcrawlers in them to fill the big blue bin. I continued to add ground leaves and food. Currently the bin is undergoing a refresh. I am harvesting the castings as the top of the bin dries and adding new bedding and food. Keeping the moisture even in the bin is difficult in the wet summer. I flip or fluff the bin to keep the air in the bedding. Back to the wedge method starting now.
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Watermelon is a fast food for my worms.
Yes I think it is faster than pumpkin 🪱👍🏼😃
Same. And the watermelon I’ve found is faster then other melons, mine get canterlope in the summer as it’s the cheapest and I leave it on the side a few weeks to get good mold going and then chop it up for em and put it in all the bins.
Otherwise they just get leftovers and the outside that we don’t eat of everything else.
Mine love pumpkin too!! I had mini pumpkins from my classroom and I cut the bottom of and left it in the bin and it took about a month for them to get it down to nothing but a stem. It's amazing because I didn't have many worms at the time! I put a frozen Ziploc bag full of pureed pumpkin in my bin a few weeks ago and it was gone within days!!
It is amazing how fast they go through puree food.🪱😃👍🏼
Seen a bunch of seedlings/sprouts in the bin. I like the ANCs experiment, think it’s worth putting a few in and see if there is a noticeable difference in the bedding.
I just peaked in there today. its 80 in the basement and they are loving it. I had to give them a snack. :)
😂🤣😂I think you would be good at gold panning too!! I love the juicy worm ball Blue produces at the end!! I think those ANC's you added will be a big help for your carbon consumption! Another excellent video Ann!🪱🪱🪱
Thank you. I hope they go to work and not up the wall. Lol. I guess I'll find out later. So far so good. 🪱👍🏼😀
I only have ANC. I have them in 1 three-storey palace and 1 single bin under covered carpark, which I consider indoor. For outdoor, I have 6 small in-ground bins. I started with 250 grams ANC (USD16) last February in the three-storey bin and expanded to total 8 bins today. I just bought another 250g (at double the price of last Feb. Thanks to you for all the videos that I watched during dinner. And I thank my husband who has worm-phobia for his blessing.❤
thank you very much that well put my worried mine to rest
I’ve always enjoyed watching you just dig right in 😅
My worms EAT EVERYTHING 😅 YAY!!! For the African Nightcrawler’s, watch out though when my basement hit about 55 due to an outdoor ice storm I lost a bunch of them. Remember when I had Covid the first time? I didn’t see my Worms for two months and they were fine. A little skinny, but at least alive.
Blue is right under a heat vent. I can open that in the winter to keep the area locally warm.😃👍🏼🪱
I think worms do a lot better living in harmony than most people! Good job, Blue! You are a worm rock star. I find pumpkin goes if the individual chunks aren't too big. My worms loved the tamale corn husks! 🌽
~ Sandra
For sure, worms do diversity and inclusion much better than most humans. Thank you for the reminder. I have corn in the freezer.🪱👍🏼😃
well, thanks to you, amazingly i opened a bin of unsifted casting and found a mango tree, one BIG about 8 inches and another just starting!! now what? i live in texas, i guess i will plant them!!
I also have mango, papaya and avocado bonsai trees. Good worms!! 🪱😃👍🏼
I think worms might have a sweet tooth. They love gooey sweet food
I agree. My worms like sweet things too. 🪱😃👍🏼
Haha, the sifting always is so therapeutic. :) Bought a new sifter, similar to the one you have (4mm, 6mm) and used it for the first time yesterday. It is such a timesaver. What took 2-3 hours before is now a matter of about 20-30 minutes. :)
Yes, they are the best. I was lucky to have them already for the soil. 🪱😁👍🏼
My worms love pumpkin. Just fed them some mini cubes that had been frozen. I planted my tomatoes. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed as I watch the weather.
Yep it is rain season here as well. Fingers crossed the African nightcrawlers and blue worms stay put in their bins. 🪱👍🏼😃
Watermelon and cantaloupes are our worms favotite food, they process this in absolutely no time.
I love the lace that is left behind from cantaloupe melons. 🪱👍🏼😃
It's worth trying ANC again, Ann. Sometimes bins just don't work the way we think they will, so putting them in an established system may be just what's needed.
~ Sandra
You are 100% Right the first time I had them in the basement I was a newbie. 😃👍🏼🪱
carrot greens/corn husks/bananas and mangos! my like goes nuts for
I have not tried carrot greens before. Im growing them this year so they will get a chance to try them. 🪱👍🏼😀
I blend the frozen, thawed vegetable scraps, and mix that with the cardboard with whatever dry mix that's going on at the time. Add water to suit. Let set for a day or so, feed, and nothing left after a couple of weeks.
You blend the frozen vegetables in a blender?
@@justagirlsd3000 Bad sentence structure. Thaw, then blend.
That sounds like a great plan. 🪱👍🏼😃
If it's a good enough blender, he just made Margaritas for the worms 😁😁👍🏼
Oh man... I LOVE my African Nightcrawlers, but I don't dare put them in anything with an open top. I can't seem to get them to not wander out of the bin otherwise. Even just the standard lids that came with my totes they were able to wiggle their way past, so I've had to get creative to keep them in. I'd love to see if it works out for you though! They're really cool worms!
I have the same experience with them. The rest of the clew is in the zipped vermi bag. I'm hoping they will like the very established ecosystem of Blue. If not it is about 20 worms. 👍🏼😃🪱
I had some I think were canadian worms, and I mixed in European Nightcrawlers. I haven't seen the Canadian worms in a while. Didn't see them escape but they could just be hiding!
I wonder if they are smaller now and look similar.👍🏼😁🪱
My worms love avocado
Yes, and the cool worm ball they make in the skin is always cool to find.🪱👍🏼😃
My worms love banana peels, lettuce and my juicing scraps from the juicer...
I have thought about getting into juicing just for the worms food lol.👍🏼😁🪱
They 😍 it!
The stem of the pumpkin that takes awhile if memory serves😂
Yeah on the order of years. 🪱👍🏼😃
The vibration from all those big trucks that drive by made the ANCs run out of their bins 😮
We will see. At least with the brick floor they have a fighting chance in the summer😃👍🏼🪱
@@PlantObsessed LMAO
Watermelon and strawberry is my worm’s favorite
Yes, definitely melon is the best.🪱😁👍🏼
1:15 I heard that! Our “last” frost was April 18th and we've had mid ti high 80 days already. But we'll be getting 40° weather later this week.
Like, HOW?!
Fingers crossed I stay above 40 here. I took my figs outside.😃👍🏼🪱
Hiya Ann.....love to see the worm ball. They are doing very well and mamma is happy. Love the fluffing.
Thank you. I hope you have a wonderful day 👍🏼😃🪱
Do your blues attempt to escape during rain events? I have a 5 gallon bin with a tulle cover but during rain events they try to crawl out. I’m afraid to leave my bins uncovered.
The blues do crawl. Very rarely do they escape blue? I'm not sure why not. My African nightcrawlers usually escape. 👍🏼🪱☺️
I just started preparing bedding
Let me know how your worms like it🪱👍🏼😃
more questions,
1-do you choose cross cut instead of microcut because it offers more aeration? i have found microcut cardboard get's eaten so fast but i need to add something else like straw or rice hull for air.
2-do you think more fungal dominated (vs nitrogen dominated) bedding is better? adding more decaying forest materials, leaves, straw, wood, etc, mycellium, spent mushroom blocks etc?
My thinking with my shredder was most pages of thickness and cheapest with the best review on Amazon. Fungal vs bacterial... I don't think about it much because my plan is to keep stuff out of the landfill. If I have mushroom blocks they go in if it is boxes and paper it goes in. I do promote nitrogen in the bedding I make by adding kelp meal. I want the carbon to take the needed nitrogen to breakdown and also have some left for the plants later. 🪱😀👍🏼
@@PlantObsessed recently i've gone down the rabbit hole reading about fungal vs nitrogen soils/castings. from what my unscientific mind has gleaned is fungal contributes to better aeration but most importantly more fruit growth as opposed to leafy greens. thus nitrogen soils give the appearance of bounty but its really not so. interesting .i would be happy to share my sources but there are so many. also the 'dominated' word is misleading. our soils are lacking fungas big time. the goal is just to increase it.
tired joke here but many species of worms can live together because they aren't humans ... grit- part of the input of my compost is partially decomposed raked up old oak leaves along with the native dirt. so i have been figuring that that should be enough grit to serve that function in the worms bedding. but lately i've been also adding well ground egg shells from the blender and more recently azomite along with a few rolled oats and a bit of molasses. compost- gets people food scraps and coffee grounds which i think is another source of grit for the worms even after many weeks and being turned in a pile. favorite food? hard to tell as compost bedding looks a lot like the finished casting. the main difference being texture (mostly felt by hand) and particle size. but ya, pumpkin and yams and soft things they love.
I can't remember what I did with egg shells before I had worms. Lol😃👍🏼🪱
Hello! What Zone are you in??? We are 8b in the western foothills of the cascades.
I am in central Illinois zone 5 🪱😃👍🏼
hi there, i have fallen in love with anc's. they produce castings faster than blues i think. i wonder if you've ever tried gypsum for grit and calcium? i can't find much info on that. thanks, nancy
I have heard of people using gypsum but I have not heard the results. 🪱👍🏼😃
re grit! i hate grinding eggs but to avoid salmonella going into the garden i do bake them. salmonella doesn't hurt the worms but it hurts people. i use a Magic Bullet bought for 2$ at thrift store. it pulverizes anything quickly and is 10X larger than spice or coffee grinder. also if sending it thru the blender with food works that's great. i thought it had to be pulverized. i buy azomite and oyster shell powder in bulk for grit. bought a bag of play sand at home depot for 5$ that will last me years. haven't tried it yet but people say it works fine. (the particle size seems big to me). i think any rock dust will work as grit also adding minerals. some insist on glacial rock dust as the best. i buy any of these amendments in bulk, 20-50 lbs for 20$ and they last me over a year. (except i go thru oyster shell and egg shels faster for some reason)
In my case my family goes through a ton of eggs. I have used sand and azomite too with good results.👍🏼😀🪱
ok got my barrels. i thought i saw somewhere a video with step by step instructions on making the 6 ft bin but i can't find it now. can you help? i am 71, widow, quite handy but could use some guidance esp re tools used for cutting (jigsaw? circular saw?) and the seam (screws and hot glue?) thanks!
Hello- here is the link to the build. Good luck - let me know how it goes!! ruclips.net/video/vLAqssdJmNM/видео.html
@@PlantObsessed yes i have watched that video many times but it doesn't talk about making the vessel. BUT this time i read thru all the comments and replies , as obviously i had once before and ALL of my questions were answered. thanks so much! i'm excited!!
I think the biomass will definitely keep ANC's going a lot of the year if not year round.
Fingers crossed. If they do well I might put them all in there lol.🪱👍🏼😃
Haha! _Sounds like rice krispies_ - yeah.. you're right 👍🏻
Hopefully I have not put people off of the Rice krispie cereal saying it sounds like worms. 😁👍🏼🪱
Rice Krispies are one of the best cereals if you ask me. I don't think you could say much to make me not like them :)
I wanted to ask you . Are them little bugs in your ben are they good bugs and if so what are there names . And was wondering if there good for the garden ? plus your videos are very help full ty much
The pill bugs are not good for seedlings. The springtails won't live if it is too dry. The brown and white mites are composters and eat dead stuff. They are not like the red mites that eat plants.🪱😃👍🏼
I gotta ask how do you keep your Europeans from wanting to escape
Where I live I only seem to have issues with the blue worms and African nightcrawlers. The red wigglers and euros seem content without a lid.🪱👍🏼😀
💙🥰
👍🏼😁🪱💙
Frozen stale bread. They devour it
Nice. I forgot about that. 🪱👍🏼😃
My 🪱❤️papaya
Yes, mine leaves a fuzzy husk behind. One time I thought it was a mouse. 👍🏼😃🪱
hi anne, i am going today to buy a food grade 55 gal drum. i would like to have one system instead of 10! and i really like the wedge method tho i've never tried it. i have 15,000 anc's (my favorite) and a few thousand each of euros, blues and reds. would you recommend i start with two halves of the drum? can i do wedge method with the smaller space? or is it far superior to make the drum into 'big blue'? thanks!
I have my euros in a half barrel. The wedge does work but not as well. I do think the wedge works better in blue. If you don't have the tools or space to make a big blue. The half barrel will do.🪱😀👍🏼
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