How Long Before I Can Harvest Worm Castings?
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- Опубликовано: 2 июл 2024
- Article on Harvesting Worm Castings
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In this video, Steve discusses the two main factors that determine how long you need to wait in order to harvest worm castings from your worm bin.
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Развлечения
For those who raise worms for personal use, the food scraps can be frozen and thawed before feeding it to the worms. This ruptures the cells of the scraps and makes it easier for the worms and microbes to break down.
I freeze mine and then blend them up and pour them into a cute worm shaped mold I got at Michael’s! They love it :)
And freezing kills the fruit flys!
Many people starting out are in too big a hurry , impatient and end up quitting . I started out like most everyone does a small or large rubber tote , maybe a 1-2000 wigglers. My space is small so cant really expand and now I have the factory 360 which works well for me. I get enough for my own needs and to share some with sis and brother. I have found over the years its best to save and freeze kitchen scraps, then thaw and run thru a processor and save as needed to feed. More recently I have advanced to making a grain feed which the worms are loving. Oats, corn meal, wheat flour, and chicken crumbles. Previously I have used cardboard and shredded paper , but not so much any more as junk mail shredding wasnt getting used. By using the factory 360 and using 4-5 trays I process the bottom tray at least every month.
I have a big pile of leaf mold. It is maybe 3-4 years old. The bottom of the pile already looks like castings since it has broken down so much. The worms love it!
Great overview - no fluff... just a bunch of useful info delivered quickly and clearly 👍🏻
Thanks AV! Your channel is giving me a high bar to shoot for! :)
I appreciate that - thank you Steve!
My bedding is coconut coir and shredded paper topped with wheat grass. When the wheat grass is almost gone, I then blend kitchen veggies, fruit, coffee grounds, and egg shells for the worms. I have them in 5 gallon containers 1/2 full, and I give them a cup of scrap mixture every two weeks. I can change out a bucket about every 3 months.
Started a new worm bin a couple weeks ago of shredded brown paper. I normally use natural bedding, shredded leaves, unfinished compost, leaf mold and a bit of native soil.
I want to see under the microscope the differences in the biology. Took a peek at one of my natural bins the other day, nematodes, microarthropods, testate amoebas, flagellates, nice strands of beneficial fungi, spores and of course a healthy population of varied bacteria.
When I started my worm bins 3 years ago, I used shredded paper as bedding, in less than a year I switched to natural bedding, it just made sense to me.
Thanks for the information, Steve. I almost always do a partial harvest on my tote systems so that I leave a portion of the Microsystems of the bin intact. That way, the worms and cocoons aren't disrupted when I add the new bedding.
~ Sandra
Great explanations Steve!! Definitely describes what I see in my bins...and why my mature bins break down scraps so much quicker!! Looking forward to setting up my UWB soon!!🪱🪱🪱
What I like about the reed sedge peat /black peat/worm peat/ peat, is that it is so rich in microbiology that if one finds a piece that resembles a small stick one can put in between their index finger and thumb, apply light pressure and it will just crumble into tiny pieces. One can also place it in the palm of their hand and with the palm of their other hand rub it, and it crumbles into pieces a little larger than powder without much effort.
My landscape supplier sells two types of reed sedge. One type is strait from the bog and sold as black peat. The second is processed further with screening/sifting and with 10% glacial sand added, it is sold as garden soil. The garden soil is also sold as worm peat for $10 less a yard.
My favorite thing about the worm peat is that it is so high in nutrition for worms, that using the correct number of worms to the correct amount of peat one can have a very fast turnaround of castings as the worms grow very fast and stay very healthy (grains/chow mixed into the peat). One can also double the number of worms and hold them in the peat for extended periods and the worms remain healthy, although they do not have the rabid growth rate (top fed grains/chow). Then when the time is right, they can go back to rapid casting production and fast growth rates.
Have a great Day!
Can I ask where do you get your supply of reed sedge peat from? Thanks
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u immediatly get to the point, help the community, overal, best wormchannel.
Well, that was fun! Thanks for the plug, Steve. LOVE my Urban Worms Bags.... all SIX of them!!! (:
Rock on, Mary Ann! :)
Very well put together. Great information.
Thanks so much Trapper! Hope you're doing well!
Brilliant Video 👏👏👏👏Juno
Great Job!!! Hey the Rookie mistakes link was not in the vid when I clicked. Do you have a link for that?
Hi Steve. Great video! I have a serious question or 2. Can I send little video, to show you what I’ve only recently discovered??
Take the kitchen waste and put in old blender to help break down all the material . Add Paper shreddings and or fall leaves for dry matter.
Actually blending isn't always a good idea. It can speed up the rate that water gets released and can harm the bin
another great video! I have two bins of worms. one is red wigglers and the other is my original earth worms. I'm upgrading to a bath tub vermicompost bin. can I combine the red wigglers and earth worms in my new bin? if not, then I'm thinking I might just release the earth worms in to my garden and concentrate on the red wigglers. ty
Can you buy the Reed Sedge Peat or is it strictly for commercial use?
I put my leaves in the freezer for a couple of days to kill invasives
I'm finding some of my worms turning yrlllow,, especially ially on the tip, moving forward..
Hi Dave,
A yellow tip is a telltale sign of a red wiggler. Nothing to be worried about!
do you have to harvest the castings if you are using your worm bin for fishing?
Not necessarily, but at some point the worms will need new food.
So Either the worms need a bulk batch and a month to slowly break down and eat 30 pounds of compost. Contrary to what people say that they eat a pound a day? And by that logic you could harvest a pound a day…it’s just that the worms are usually spread out over a large surface. So is it hard to harvest 1 pound of spread out worm castings? Or do the worms take 30
Days to slowly break down 30 pounds of added compost. Also are they eating soil at the same time that makes you need to add mabye 20 pounds a month?
Contrary to what uneducated people on the internet say, worms consume about a third of their bodyweight a day. All compost reduces in size by about 2/3... So 30 lbs of organic matter going into a composting system will result in about 10 lbs of finished material.
Your girl is perfect!
Are oak leaves, partially decomposed, good for the bag? I've heard that oak, because of the tannin is too acidic. I'd like to know the answer as I have a very large California Valley Oak living in my front yard and it throws off a ton, literally, of leaves.
I think oak is just fine, Alvin! Black walnut is the stuff I stay away from.
@@UrbanWormCompany Zero Black Walnuts on the property. My leaf piles are showing signs of breaking down albeit slowly, but then I only ran them through the mover 3 times so still a fair amount of coarse material. The bag got some transitioning material a month back and no adverse reactions. Lots of little baby worms currently.
So wait please tell me why are we talking about bedding being more or less broken down contributing aren’t they eating the compost and wouldn’t the material and particle size of the compost speed up the process?….so does the worms create a microbial world that help the compost decompose on top of the soil/bedding how does the ramp up period help the worms eat the added compost.
Worms process all organic matter in a bin. Bacteria and fungi are what truly perform the decomposition. Everything else just helps. There are microorganisms on all surfaces, including in a worm bin. The action of worms eating and excreting matter does help to increase the microbial populations. Worms actually gain nutrition from microbes, the organic matter is fiber. So worms need to have a good population of microbes in place for them to get what they need in their diet.
@@UrbanWormCompany so the worms help with part of the break down that’s already happening by natural composting conditions. Except when they put the compost through their digestive system and excrete the castings those castings (even though they excrete them in one isolated layer?) contributes microbes to the un digested compost, Which further breaks down the compost for the worms to eat better as the microbes increase. So I would think if the microbes give the worm nutrition as the castings contribute to the microbes that- 1. Their appetite is motivated to to eat more of what actually gives them the food they want compared to earlier. so this would means they are personally motivated to eat faster and more of what they like 2. More nutrients for the worm create better quality castings than the first round. 3 the nutrition helps build up the worms vitality so they are able to move quicker. The worm becomes healthier and stronger which helps the worm eat faster besides them just eating what they like.?
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