G'day Everyone, you can get worms online (link in the description above) but they have been scarce lately. Also, feel free to check out my website selfsufficientme.com/ Cheers :)
Hello. There. Question can you use night crawlers in the garden as you can get them as live food for reptiles and others and they are cheep like $10 maybe. Can u use them as composters or add them in an raised garden bed
When I lived in Alabama USA. I had 13 acres. 10 wooded, 3 cleared with my house garden, chicken coop and rabbit hutches. The rabbit hutches were just inside the wood line. Under the hutches I had worm beds. The rabbit stuff dropped through the wire mesh floor into the worm beds. I had plenty of worms for fishing and spreading around the garden. I retired from Ft Benning Georgia in November 2013. Moved to the Atlanta Georgia to be closer to family. We have just a bit over 3 1/2 acres. I have chickens but no rabbits. Our place is actually in Newnan Ga just south of Atlanta. This place had been a farm in the 1940s. Good soil, more worms in the soil than anyplace I've ever lived. First thing I did when I got here was to start building compost piles. I have a trailer with a 5hp vacuum I pull behind my mower. The grass clippings, chicken bedding, go in the piles. I buy cow manure for $25 a pickup truck load. Tree cutters dump wood chips here and it doesn't cost anything. I use all these things in our garden and landscape. I use old metal garage door panels to make raised beds. I get them free from people who don't want them. I advertise for them on Facebook marketplace. Everything working together works for me. Wish I could send you a few photos but I don't know how. Thanks for what you are doing. You are helping a lot of people. I sure wish RUclips had been around when I was getting started about 40 years ago. Would have saved me a lot of time, money and work.
G'day Will, you paint a great "reuse and recycle" self-sufficient picture mate and you obviously have first-hand experience using worms on your properties over the years. Thanks for sharing your very interesting story :)
@@Firevine so, are you in the Newnan Ga area? I'm also a blacksmith, woodworker and I've been working with leather since I was 13. I'm just an old man who has had a lot of interest over the years. I'm lucky enough to be married to my best friend. It's kind of sad that I have just about everything I've ever wanted. A good woodshop, blacksmith shop and plenty of room to garden. But I have health issues that prevent me from doing the things I love most days. I still do as much as I can. My wife tells me I should take it easy. I explained to her that if I just sat around watching TV. I'd probably be dead in a year. Working as much as I can helps keep me going. Would love to hear from you. Always willing to make another friend. I'd like to find someone with some of the same interests. Someone I could pass some of my knowledge to. It seems like such a waste when a person dies without passing on their skills to a younger person. Our kids either work to much or simply aren't interested.
The worms and worm eggs are produced nearby and can be mail ordered without visiting Bunnings. They have actual earthworms too www.kookaburrawormfarms.com.au
We bought 1/2 a mtn and the land has never been worked. We had to fall 17 trees to make room for our house and a fire break. We’ve been buying 1K worms a month for 3 years & putting them in our compost pile. We are now finding them in our flower beds, garden and in our small orchard (8 dwarf fruit trees). I didn’t know that we could buy worm eggs, so over the summer we will definitely be buying them to cut costs. Mark, I’ve learned a lot by watching your videos. Thanks !
I’ve been adding worm casings (eggs) for several years all over my property, I always have a ready supply of worms for fishing then I add the scraps, fish heads and guts from the fish cleanup to my garden like the Native American Indians did long ago! I love your gardening video’s Mark, stay safe and stay awesome!
@@viniciusdonadio948 Sir,actually when we cut the earthworm at the wrong node both pieces are going to die and if we chop it at the right node the anterior half grows and the rest dies..
I only in this last week started a worm farm and see how goes...I've always had compost piles doing there things now I'm going to see how the worms pan out !!
I've been renovating a friend's garden recently, and have relocated worms into the new beds of animal manure, letting them do the preparation for spring/summer planting. Love these wonderful helpers.☺
im in wisconsin, there are cows 500 feet from my garden... i get fresh poop all the time, and i have 300 gallon worm farm, sectioned off into 4 zones..
COVID OG KUSH you should make a video of your warm farm!! Ive got two 37 gallon totes growing night crawlers for fishing so far so good but im always learning new things !
Mark, your worm population is enviable. The way they jump around in your hand!!! Wow, frisky!!!! Like worms on “Red Bull!” I’m in zone 5 in Canada. I actually ordered the hungry bin from New Zealand and am quite happy with it. However if I lived in your warm climate, I wouldn’t bother with a worm farm either. I collected my red wrigglers from horse manure we bought locally. I will store the bin in our heated garage over our cold winter. Your information in this video is so important to the success of a good garden. Thanks for
Greetings from Finland from a fellow gardener! We are getting ready for the winter and snow. Most of the crop is already harvested and processed and it's time to get planning next seasons setup. Have a good season and may the garden-gods be on your side, mate!
I'm a huge worm additive advocate. They are a magnificent addition for so many reasons. When we started composting at home several years ago, we bought about 3k worms to add to the bin, our raised beds, and our flower gardens. The ground, initially, was hard packed, and almost unusable. After a few months, we noticed a marked improvement in the soil. Now, after about 3 years, I can easily dig down deep enough to grow long carrots (or, rather, the carrots can), big potatoes, horseradish, and just about anything else. In addition, with composting (kind of a hybrid system using worms and time) nothing in our kitchen goes to waste. Egg shells, veggie scraps, dryer lint, coffee grounds, news papers....you name it.
man, you nailed it. There are a lot of things you ' could ' do for your garden, but at some point you just have to figure out which things you want to do and which can be replaced just by purchases.
Love when I open my email and see a video from you. I'm smiling before I even open it. I'm addicted to your videos. I wish I could find a nice man with a good sense of humor and loves gardening and nature as much as I do. Nina's a lucky lady... And your a lucky man. She's beautiful and has a great personality also. To bad she's camera shy. Would love to see both of you out there, and sharing her knowledge also... Cheers.
Thank you Pamela! Hopefully, we can entice more blokes into gardening and expand that eligible pool to choose from. Personally, I think gardening is a better hobby than working on noisy motorbikes or cars - but that's just me lol... Cheers :)
I think you frightened the crap out of that red-bellied black snake. He's probably glad you didn't bite him or something. :) I have been doing the same process in my garden...direct bury compost. The worm population and size of the worms has increased significantly. After about two plus years of doing a method similar to yours my 24'x16' garden with crappy Colorado hard as a rock soil has turned into about 6-10" deep dark soft nutrient rich soil. Works great and really not too effort on my part.
I live in Ohio on a wooded lot, My property almost connects to a state park and the raccoon population is high and they are a menace. There's no way I could have an open compost like him, they would totally destroy it. I tried having a small container garden on my second story deck and they still managed to get up and destroy it. I wish I could afford to have some raised garden beds with a fence all around it and fencing of some sort over the top. I'm sick of racoons!!!
I have 2 worm farms and 3 compost bins built from pallets, plus a compost tumbler..., I love my worm farms because I transfer some worms into the pallet compost bins and it breaks down the pallet full of garden waste in a quarter of the time. I also use about 25% worm castings into my seed planting mix (75%) and have had a huge improvement in germination and seedling health.
Hi Mark. You don't need to look after a worm farm as the worms look after them self. For example, You could get get a bathtub off of Gumtree for free or something similar. I use two 100 liter plastic garden waste bins that have no bottom but has a lid. All I do is fill it with Horse Manure as halfway as "The Bedding" and slowly fill with some dry leaves and some kitchen scraps. I store them in an area that receives no direct sunlight and water it every now and then to keep the microbes happy and the area well moist and i have so many worms that I could expand the system 10x and in 12 months expand that system 10x again. I spend 5 minutes a week on the worms and can harvest around two or 3 of your tumblers in black gold every 12 months and my scale is tiny. I'm not an expert but worms don't need much at all. They give maximum output for minimal input.
In saying that. Worms will come naturally into the Garden system as you showed us as long as the soil biology is protect with a mulch that the worms will enjoy consuming. The first garden best i made was like this and it was amazing how many worms where under my straw mulch after just 4 months and i didn't add any.
It can really depend on the people you live with, for me just managing basic kitchen-waste compost is a challenge because I live with incompetent lazy drunks that can't wrap their pea brains around a simple two bin rotation, constantly mixing new waste in randomly so I never have finished product to use in pots because its always contaminated with new rotten stank. When I had worms they all eventually died in their own waste because the new pile kept getting mixed into the old pile. Like mentally deficient children in adult bodies. They pay their share of the rent though so I must tolerate it until I can financially free myself.
@@mytech6779 I know that feeling mate, I can't even keep the kitchen clean because my housemates don't wash their own cutlery. I once bought and use my own cutlery instead of using the shared one so that I don't need to wash the others... the result? Fly and whatnot infestation in the kitchen... and they use plastic bag to eat and drink ew.. I'm a lazy dude that hate cleaning as much as the next guy but that was too much. Thankfully I got better financially and moved out and now share house with someone who slightly better than them. I hope you can get off of them sooner than later.
Yes it works ! Set up few spots for feeding worms in the garden and they will just travel through your garden beds looking for food and distributing their castings along the way . This method works!
I used a compost tumbler with horse manure and grass clippings in a raised bed garden layered with lucerne hay for a no-dig garden, tomatoes were by the bucket full just off 2 plants 👍😊🦘🇦🇺
I am an urban gardener, I don't have the luxury of big piece of land to grow my food. I used composting worms in my containers and it works pretty fine. Thus, it is good concept
G'day Mark. I'm Doing the back to Eden gardening. And the amount of worm that live under my woodchips is insane. My chooks love them alot. Lol. But in my raised beds I put a 20L bucket with the bottom removed and some holes cut in the sides with a lid on. I put veggies scraps in with the worms I find in my woodchips. Works a treat. Yes I agree. Worm farm are time consuming. Great video.
Hey Mark!. Love your content and your attitude. Im planning on starting my self sufficient garden soon. Your videos have been very helpful for me as your climate is similar to ours over here in Central Florida, US.
@@KettenViper1 Garlic is so hard to grow here but its like the best thing ever. Idk i was just thinking i should buy cloves because its easy and cheap but do you think growing garlic is worth it here?
@@PyroManiacbwl "God demands the firstripen fruit" go get the fattest clove you can find, put them seperated into small containes w/ soil, can be anything, should even do well w/ a lid on it if you watch it (im in northern climate, just sharing the bread), put them in the frigde, leave them there 3 weeks. If you do it now, youll be ready for "traditional" coolclimate transplanting. Wether in pots or in soil, make sure it is free draining, no standing water where the clove goes, beans and peas are hindered in their growth when near grarlic. (source "Carrots loveTomatoes" Louise Riotte, great book, recommend it) Harvest is first indicated by the foliage turning brown, arround 33% (50%max), last indicated by the outer skin rotting away in the soil (source YT: Charles Dowding, a nothern climate gardener). If you see the plant form a "flower" bulb on the tip of it, i personally recommend to cut it of and eat it raw in salad or fried w/ butter :) it is a indication that harvest is near. If you however let it grow it will form a second bulb, focusing less on the "main" bulb in the ground, the cloves from that are also a blessing. To cure garlic simply tie some bulbs together at the necks and hang em well ventillated and dry for two weeks. For next season: start from the top again. Incase it is of moral concern: A blessing of a man called "Justin Rhodes" (a RUclipsr) ould say: JUST PLANT -whats the worst that could happen? having fun? [Additional sources: "The Gardening Channel with James Prigioni", "Nature's always right", "MIGardener" and because God is a blessing unto his people and goes even before me: "Pete Kanaris GreenDreamsFL" with his blessing of a friend "Jim Covaleski"(not on Yt)] God bless you and your doings
Great tip thanks Mark. Sifting castings from my worm bins became a tiresome chore, that I decided to empty the contents of the bins straight into the garden. Now that I know I can purchase the eggs I won’t feel guilty about retiring from worm farming.
@snuggmoney The manure got really hot and I had to wait a few months before it was safe to add the worms. It has since turned into some nice compost. I also have two other compost piles where I'm making regular compost. I just topped off a bed for a Fall Planting today.
Man... you’re really awesome. I really admire your hard work and I’m so grateful for RUclips existing so I can watch all your teachings and updates. Thank you for being so positive and uplifting in every video. Aloha Aussie.
I have realised just how lucky we are here in the UK with its damp weather. Our gardens are always full of these little wriggles and when I open my compost heap, they are everywhere! As are the birds!
@The Senate bruh you wouldn't last a day in a humid southern winter. Take that temp stick and throw it in the trash heat without water aint nothin. I was in Afghanistan in 120° heat and it doesnt hold a candle to the south
The Senate it’s really weird how my post about sympathizing with bearing a hot climate was read as some claim to being in the hottest state? Like what? 🧐 . Not to mention it doesn’t make sense to compare states with widely varying climates like TX and AZ, but I digress.
As someone with chronic pain, and difficulty doing a lot of the stuff I'd like to do, having things that generate something useful in a passive way (passive for me) is always going to be a priority, so yeah this is a great way of doing it!
I operate a charity that builds beautiful raised bed gardens for free. We place a special emphasis on construction layouts that reduce maintenance requirements, and allow those with mobility issues to enjoy the benefits of healthy natural food. If you live anywhere in the eastern US between Pittsburgh and Florida, we may be able to help you. 💚
@@shirleyk623 I hope to start a YT channel about our efforts in the next year. I would have liked to have done so already this year, but momentous macro-social events have prevented this. So please stay tuned. 🙂
@@archenema6792 I wish you good luck in the future of you starting a y-tube channel! I will be looking forward to watching it. I too suffer from chronic pain and my best days are in the garden growing food and raising worms. It allows me (for awhile) to forget about the pain while getting exercise that helps with my problems. Until then stay safe and well 😆😆😆😆😆
Everytime you show worms and they're so energetic it freaks me out a little, LOL, our worms (upstate New York) aren't that energetic. They move in slow motion.
Here in SE Georgia my worms are fast and wiggly...the bait red worms from the store are fat and slow compared to these in my yard. Crazy! Like mine are "muscle" worms
Been watching for a long while and never thought I could give advice back! For worm composting like you showed, or even in your beds, eggshells speed things up drastically! Bake them first along with whatever you are baking anyways, grind them up fine in a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle and spread the grit over your worm beds/compost/etc. Worms use grit to break down and digest material, so providing good grit also with calcium can produce higher yields from the worms in shorter periods of time! There are time lapse videos with proof all over the net and it makes a huge difference. I know you go through a lot of eggs there, so hey had to chime in!
Should avoid any cat waste in your garden or compost they carry some crazy parasite diseases, even apparently healthy cats and kittens. I like cats, I have a cat, but that is the one thing that never goes in my compost or garden. On the other hand if you can find plain unused unscented bentonite(clay) cat litter (usually the cheap stuff in a large bag) that can be a good addition to very sandy soil in small amounts well distributed adding both water and nutrient holding. If not mixed well or with a bit too much it will form a water barrier paste as it swells quite a large amount, Bentonite is actually used in a solid layer to plug leaks in basements and pond bottoms, as well as for making well-drilling mud.
@The Senate Do you not know how fields are fertilised, or something? Otherwise, it's composted rather than used directly. Cat shit applied straight tends to leave dead patches in grass.
Skorpy Nekomimi well unless you use hot compost rules, which would kill the worms before it kills the potential cat disease, they aren’t breaking down the dangerous component in any useful timeframe.
Hey Mark great video / info yet again. I like you, don’t have a worm farm as such, but practice Hugelkulture and just top dress every year , and would have literally millions of worms through my vege garden beds . Feed em and they thrive. Thanks . Ps you can keep ya winter snakes there’s enough over summer.
I highly recommend to everyone to have a camera ready when uncover you compost heaps/piles as it is a great way to spot wildlife in your area. I still have old pictures I need to upload to inaturalist thanks to the life that visited my old compost pile. A great video as always. Green thumb up!
I use the same stuff. Straight into the compost bin with the cheapest bag of “soil” (basically ground up wood chips) I can get and some food scraps/handful or three of hay. I then dig into it a month later, took a handful of worms and spread them individually round the garden. Now I’m finding them in veggie pots.
I listened to an interview with Rob Lowe yesterday. He was talking about a movie where he convinced the director to have a cow tipping scene. He said the director had never heard of that ... never ... heard ... of .... that. It’s weird the things you assume are ubiquitous. To that point I assumed Mark had said “pies”. Southern Mississippi checking in.
That reminds me. A little bird fell out of the nest. He started chirping for help. A cow comes along and drops a cow pie on him. He keeps chirping. Now along comes a wolf hears the little bird picks him up by the scruff of his neck cleans the cow pie off and gulp! What's the moral? Life gives you crap doesn't mean it for bad, and if someone comes along and cleans you up well, it might not be for good. GULP!
Thank you for your wonderful uploads. I've been an organic gardener for 50-60 years and treat the soil/environment/worm population with the same dignity/respect that you do I have a rich worm population of worms.....some about the size of rattlesnakes (not quite, but I do sometimes check their tails for rattles!). I bought my place from a guy that fished constantly so he threw his worms out on the lawn when he had extras. I don't know if the various kinds of worms crossbreed but looking at some of them convinces me that they do.
@@Mechanical_Star May be you don't have knowledge of what's use of nature and natural remedies your bloody most medication is made from animal content heart attack medicine cancer check details okay donkey's sick mind's
@@debyaka Probably in his bedroom or maybe the dining hall in some homes. Or maybe he wrote the comment in the bathroom on his phone, you know, the ones with screens and all? I'm curious though, Why do you ask? How does the location of his computer interest you? Oh just in case you're interested in knowing where I got my computer, it was from a computer shop. You know, shops that sell computers? It was right next to a vegetable shop, I bought some of those too. BTW, Where'd you train your ignorance? Takes a lot of hard training to be this ignorant you know 😂
??? Actual Indian from India? Or native from america? Doesn't matter just curious about where the gardening habit is from. (Also I'm autistic and get confused on words and I'm native from america and always confused on how others say that.)
A man who handles fresh cow poop with his bare hands would never lie about worms. Your use of the word "plop" made me burst out laughing. Lovely videos, informative and fun. Cheers from the US!
Thanks Mark. I built a worm farm back in March when isolating in northern NSW. I already had one from the hardware store but it was too small and always overflowing with kitchen scraps. I used an old bathtub on a stand I made with a tap on the plug hole. Works great and heaps of room. I'm looking at harvesting the castings and some worms for new and old garden beds in the next week or so. Cheers again.
Where we are on the Mornington Peninsula, there isn't anywhere I can easily find to get raw cow or chicken manure. Tho there are places that have horse manure, which I grab if I see. Thinking in the next few weeks might build a dual covered bin and just order in aged compost and manure from the local garden centres, might not be perfect, but you use what you can use. Our winter beds (5 sq metres) we put in when we went into the first lockdown are not far away from most of them coming out so want to refresh them and give them a new coat of sugar cane mulch (3rd time in what 5 months lol worms are busy. We just finished added 8 more sq metres of raised beds, they are mulched but waiting for mid-Sept for planting, and are 75% of the way to preparing the front yard for 7 fruit trees. I do have a question in terms of the beds, clearly, aged stuff is the best I can do, but should I remove the mulch dump it into the compost bin, then add the compost, manure and then more mulch, or would it be best just to dump the compost manure and new mulch and just sandwich the old stuff underneath?
Down our way there is a grass fed beef farmer in Dandenong. Near the grave yard off Thompson road. In Somerville there are quite a few organic chicken farms as well. You can also source heaps of horse poop but I would recommend piling and tarping it to get it hot enough to invalidate the weed seeds first. Also a lot of manure gets bought up because Debco is manufactured on tyabb
@@eMavern_Emporium that has to be the only beef farmer that there is around here lol. I knew of the ones near Somerville, but most I asked said trailer and I kinda need it at least bagged to carry it. There is an egg farm on Potts Rd I was going to ask once lockdown is over. Also I have never had problems with horse and seeds in the poop. Never had anything show up more than normal.
@@matthewfarrell317 I had rotten luck with horse poop so I thought I'd chuck that caution out there. That's the chook farm I was thinking on Potts road. I'm pretty bad with street names. I'm going to set up a small scale compost pile (two 1x1 bays) and use what's in the garden but to start off when lock down is over I'll suss out burdettes mix they are reasonably priced especially for delivery
@@eMavern_Emporium Caution noted, I get my horse from Potts Rd ironically, grab a bag or two when a house leaves in out. Never had much seeds in that one. I have the compost bin, but my plan was to make a covered double bay, to have my finished compost and any extra compost stored for later use and a manure bay to store it. So I can try and get it bulk. Didn't know Burdetts did compost will look into it. Been using Daisy's for their veggie mix (which is amazing).
G'day Matthew, sometimes if the mulch hasn't broken down and is relatively fresh I will remove it to add compost and other soil improvers then just put it straight back. Sandwiching it will still be fine but if that's easier for you. Cheers :)
I have plastic boxes on the eastern side of the house, no problem with heat. Lots of worms put a cubic meter on the lemon tree which gives us four lemons for 45 weeks of the year.
I do this by getting a few buckets from the local cow farms. This year I used a mix of composted cow manure and compost mixed with what soil was already there to plant the smaller Nantes carrots. These never get huge like grocery store carrots but they are so much sweeter and don’t have a chemical after taste.
Can't beat the worm juice from worm farms. My plants just explode with growth and produce as a result. A great resource from a worm farm which takes very little care. My compost and garden is already chock full of worms so don't see the point in adding them here whereas with the worm farm I can use the juice in a more targeted way. It's worth having having the farm just for the juice if nothing else.
I do something similar, buying worms occasionally and adding them to my compost bins. This helps break down the compost and the worms are transferred into the garden when using the decomposed compost.
After you catch your breath old man tell me how dangerous was the snake ....? scale from 1-10? MY GUESS IS A SOLID 8. earned your views today brother. new subject for a video....HOW TO GROW A TON OF SNAKES IN YOUR GARDEN....SPIDERS....CENTIPEDES,
I think red bellies *can* kill people but it’s incredibly rare for them to actually do so. They also eat other snakes, like the dangerous ones. Mark also lives near civilisation so even if he got a good bite he should be fine. So like a 4/10. Not pleasant but alive
As long has he doesn’t accidentally step on it, it’s more afraid of the overhead giant. Compost being nice as warm can on rare occasion become a nesting site for snakes. 🐍
Google Search... This species is not aggressive and will usually retreat before attacking, although when it is threatened it will raise its body from the ground flatten its neck, hiss and perform a series of strikes. There have been no recorded human deaths as a result of a Red-bellied Black Snake bite to date in Australia.
@@Keachybean yes i have done the research as well ...still cant take any chances down under ....8 out of 10 snakes can kill ya .....more than a few spiders and other insects can ruin your day quickly. gardening is a tricky task i reckon ....lol always wanted to visit ....someday maybe .....surf with the sharks ?
Love your help vids and especially this one. I dont have a large property like you, in fact my property is more related to a postage stamp. I do worm farming inside using "worm factory" trays. Been using it for yrs and it supplies not only me but my sis and bro with a 5 gal bucket of "black gold" to add to their plants and tomato plants each yr. Even in my postage stamp yard I grow a few tomatoes trying for size , so far my largest tom. is 2 lb 10oz. trying to get the magical 3 lb growing domingo. Last yr I did weigh in a 2.37 lb brandywine , they normally are in the 1.5 lb range. Also in my small yard I also grow enough plants that hummingbirds can use , planting especially for them and other pollenators.
Normal Earthworms are just as good as red wigglers and tiger worms, I have many worm farms with millions of Earthworms! Dont be tricked into buying expensive red wrigglers and tiger worms!
You know, I'm new to worm farming. I have one bed with earthworms and one with red wigglers. It seems the earth worms are more interested in eating bedding than veggies. The wigglers seem the opposite and jump all over veggies. Have you noticed anything like this?
@@hizzlemobizzle I just have earthworms mate, no other worm species are in my vegetable beds ... I love Earthworms and they are FREE! God created them for a reason and they do a beautiful job and eat everything, even cardboard, paper and much more and dont touch the veggies!
@@hizzlemobizzle red wigglers(aka manure worms) naturally live in piles of organic matter and are more tolerant of being disturbed by digging, nightcrawlers live in burrows down deep and come up to eat at night, red worms multiply fast in the warm season and make much faster work of manure heaps. I was glad I bought a pack. (one small pack is all it takes for a home operation ...if you don't kill them) I see the nightcrawlers move into my mature cold compost.
As an avid freshwater fisherman and gardener I feel a worm farm is a must. I made ours out of an old cast iron bed and a plywood cover. Every time I go fishing, I take a dozen night crawlers with me. When I get home, all leftover crawlers are “planted” in the garden. Works out perfectly and saves cash too as night crawlers are $3.15 a dozen if ya buy them.
Ok Mark, now we're going out to our garden to get some of our worms for our planter veggies - we have perennial peanut ground cover and often find big worms when we weed. You have great ideas and we appreciate all that you teach us...and yes, our t-shirts arrived, so we'll be styin' in the garden as we dig for worms. And, as Floridians, it might be a while but if we ever get off of our property and once we re-engage with other people, we'll proudly wear the t-shirts and let everyone know how we became such successful Covid-farmers!
@@katipohl2431 Except for when it isn't. A mate of mine here in Germany contacted a company selling a "WurzelAktivator" ("root activator") to ask what the active ingredients were as it wasn't made clear on the packaging. The response he got back is that they're prevented, by law, from labelling what the ingredients are, which is absolutely fucking ridiculous. They can sell it to Hobbygärtner, but are prevented from telling them what it is!???? Dumbest shit I've ever heard! Here's a quote from the email. "Produkte, die Pflanzenhormone, wie Auxine (Indol-3-essigsäure, 4-(Indol-3-yl)buttersäure und 1-Naphthylessigsäure gehören zu den Auxinen) und weitere Hormone enthalten, müssen in Deutschland und in der EU behördlich als Pflanzenschutzmittel zugelassenen werden. Diese Pflanzenschutzmittel sind in Deutschland und in der EU nicht für Hobbygärtner erhältlich. Im [Produkt] sind Vorstufen dieser Pflanzenhormone enthalten. Wir dürfen diese allerdings nicht deklarieren, da sie sonst als Pflanzenschutzmittel zugelassen werden müssten. Insofern dürfen wir also aus juristischen Gründen keinen genauen Inhalt deklarieren."
Some lively worms you have there! I'm a cattle farmer, so I have unlimited supplies of this brown gold. The planters I've made this year I've filled (not dressed) with a two year old mixture of manure & hay. It looks close to what you have there, though not quite as many worms. I've been toying with the idea of adding worms to speed up the breakdown process but I didn't know you can buy the eggs. I'd use the link you gave, but I'm on the other side of the world! Cheers!
I brought a whole lot of worms for my big container Gardens and just put them into the potting mix and i really noticed a difference a few months later
I really appreciated your response to the snake. That was great! I moved to a steep hillside area of Appalachians with no snake experience so learning snake reactive behavior is important.
Thank you, I don't comment on any videos, I have watched a few of yours and I sacribe. You are very clear no B.S. You keep me interested in watching the whole video which is rare for me. Thank you keep up the great work, good luck with it all.
Yep. Well Done. I grow worms in beds under my rabbit cages. The pure/screened 'castings' sell for 15 USD a lb here. Plus the semi finished compost is ALL I ever need to add to my raised beds. I also set it up so that any excess moisture gets collected for 'worm tea' for foliar feeding. Full circle. As far as I'M concerned, Worms are my most important 'livestock'.
There’s a channel I think it’s called dirtpatchheaven she uses large raised garden beds as giant compost piles that generate heat allowing earlier growth in winter by providing bottom heat, very interesting concept “hot beds”
Thinking of adding them to my wicking beds. To encourage soil life & inprove soil structure. To me eggs are a better option. Not as tender as hatched worms, can choose when you want to add them, instead of "I have to do it TODAY".
Like so many others, I didn't know worm eggs could be purchased. I purchase a few live red worms at a pet store that were intended as lizard food. Gave them a good home in a tote filled with moistened half-composted yard waste. They got busy and now we have a surfeit of them. Some neighbors have chickens, and the worms happen to be wiggly and 11% protein...
Thanks for the giggle at the end. I've been hopping like that a bit around my garden in Florida this season. Really appreciate all your vids. Thank you.
My dad was a farmer, I regret that i didn't learn a lot from him before he passed away 11 years ago.. but here I'm correcting my mistake. Thanks brother much love from UAE.. ps: it'll be amazing if you can give an advice to a different climate gardening.
G'day Everyone, you can get worms online (link in the description above) but they have been scarce lately. Also, feel free to check out my website selfsufficientme.com/ Cheers :)
Hello. There.
Question can you use night crawlers in the garden as you can get them as live food for reptiles and others and they are cheep like $10 maybe. Can u use them as composters or add them in an raised garden bed
@@the_animal_ark that's what I use I just dump my leftover bait into my pots
@@the_animal_ark no potash.!!!
How long until my cherry tomatoes plants grow tomatoes? There big right now
Me either😱
This guy handles poop in the most professional way imaginable.
He be grabbing a handful like its just plain dirt. He's actually changed how I handle my cow poop.
I love him and his videos but cringe every time he grabs a handful of poop 💩
POOP? What about how he handles SNAKES!? And venomous ones at that!
He handled that cow dung like how I make rice balls for myself
Lance Bulkan mmmm poop balls
Frankly, I'm disturbed that anyone would think you would lie about WORMS.
Yes! I trust this channel you’ve been up front and honest as much as possible which is why I love your videos and watch them all
This guy is so real and funny, I don't think he could lie about anything.
He doesn't come across as a liar. If people think that there is something wrong mentally
I've watched dozens of Mark's videos and never caught him in a lie yet. He's not out to scam anyone.
I was going to make the same comment hahaha😭
When I lived in Alabama USA. I had 13 acres. 10 wooded, 3 cleared with my house garden, chicken coop and rabbit hutches. The rabbit hutches were just inside the wood line. Under the hutches I had worm beds. The rabbit stuff dropped through the wire mesh floor into the worm beds. I had plenty of worms for fishing and spreading around the garden. I retired from Ft Benning Georgia in November 2013. Moved to the Atlanta Georgia to be closer to family. We have just a bit over 3 1/2 acres. I have chickens but no rabbits. Our place is actually in Newnan Ga just south of Atlanta. This place had been a farm in the 1940s. Good soil, more worms in the soil than anyplace I've ever lived. First thing I did when I got here was to start building compost piles. I have a trailer with a 5hp vacuum I pull behind my mower. The grass clippings, chicken bedding, go in the piles. I buy cow manure for $25 a pickup truck load. Tree cutters dump wood chips here and it doesn't cost anything. I use all these things in our garden and landscape. I use old metal garage door panels to make raised beds. I get them free from people who don't want them. I advertise for them on Facebook marketplace. Everything working together works for me. Wish I could send you a few photos but I don't know how. Thanks for what you are doing. You are helping a lot of people. I sure wish RUclips had been around when I was getting started about 40 years ago. Would have saved me a lot of time, money and work.
G'day Will, you paint a great "reuse and recycle" self-sufficient picture mate and you obviously have first-hand experience using worms on your properties over the years. Thanks for sharing your very interesting story :)
Interesting to stumble across someone who might be my neighbor in RUclips comments.
@@Firevine so, are you in the Newnan Ga area? I'm also a blacksmith, woodworker and I've been working with leather since I was 13. I'm just an old man who has had a lot of interest over the years. I'm lucky enough to be married to my best friend. It's kind of sad that I have just about everything I've ever wanted. A good woodshop, blacksmith shop and plenty of room to garden. But I have health issues that prevent me from doing the things I love most days. I still do as much as I can. My wife tells me I should take it easy. I explained to her that if I just sat around watching TV. I'd probably be dead in a year. Working as much as I can helps keep me going. Would love to hear from you. Always willing to make another friend. I'd like to find someone with some of the same interests. Someone I could pass some of my knowledge to. It seems like such a waste when a person dies without passing on their skills to a younger person. Our kids either work to much or simply aren't interested.
Stonks
I didn’t know you could even buy worm eggs!!!! That’s on the list, thanks👍
This trick is getting them to sit on their eggs.
Only IF your local bunnings has stock on the shelves, I had to wait 3 months to get my eggs but they doing really well in the compost atm 👍
@@blackpackhomesteadchrisand7337 LMAO
The worms and worm eggs are produced nearby and can be mail ordered without visiting Bunnings. They have actual earthworms too
www.kookaburrawormfarms.com.au
And here I thought they gave live birth
This guy is so unrated. I’ve learned so much from him and he doesn’t bs around!
Agree . The best one ☝️
Also agree, typical normal aussie without the ridiculous ego unlike most people these days!
He's just a good honest all-rounder with a world of info through tried and tested means on he's own gardens👍😃 etc
We bought 1/2 a mtn and the land has never been worked.
We had to fall 17 trees to make room for our house and a fire break.
We’ve been buying 1K worms a month for 3 years & putting them in our compost pile.
We are now finding them in our flower beds, garden and in our small orchard (8 dwarf fruit trees).
I didn’t know that we could buy worm eggs, so over the summer we will definitely be buying them to cut costs.
Mark, I’ve learned a lot by watching your videos. Thanks !
I’ve been adding worm casings (eggs) for several years all over my property, I always have a ready supply of worms for fishing then I add the scraps, fish heads and guts from the fish cleanup to my garden like the Native American Indians did long ago! I love your gardening video’s Mark, stay safe and stay awesome!
Thomas Victorian I said casings which is like a vessel full of worm eggs, and yes castings are worm poop/fertilizer
Thomas Victorian they are also called cocoon’s each casing or cocoon have around twenty eggs
The worm castings are apparently incredible for plants...the worms have made all the nutrients really available for the plant roots to just drink up.
8:06 The worms are thinking 'it's the end!!! Armageddon!!!" I feel so guilty when I accidentally chop a worm, I apologize to it.
icouldjustscream That shows you have a noble spirit in my opinion.
That's wormageddon. Lol.
If you chop a worm it grows into two, and that's incredible :D
@@viniciusdonadio948 Sir,actually when we cut the earthworm at the wrong node both pieces are going to die and if we chop it at the right node the anterior half grows and the rest dies..
icouldjustscream : humility 👏
I didn’t know worm eggs existed. That’s a great gift for my free range chickens they love worms.
Good protein source too.
Our family of 2 has a worm farm with two bins and they break down all the scraps from our kitchen! They're so fast! I love being a wormer!
I only in this last week started a worm farm and see how goes...I've always had compost piles doing there things now I'm going to see how the worms pan out !!
I just finished a chore. Tomorrow is my day off. I might have to stay up late, it doesn’t matter. I’m down for a self sufficient me bingewatch.
Thank you! :)
I've been renovating a friend's garden recently, and have relocated worms into the new beds of animal manure, letting them do the preparation for spring/summer planting. Love these wonderful helpers.☺
im in wisconsin, there are cows 500 feet from my garden... i get fresh poop all the time, and i have 300 gallon worm farm, sectioned off into 4 zones..
Very lucky! Great stuff :)
Black Guns Matter lol, I can see the steam coming out of the snowflake ears when they see your name! :D
COVID OG KUSH you should make a video of your warm farm!! Ive got two 37 gallon totes growing night crawlers for fishing so far so good but im always learning new things !
Mark, your worm population is enviable. The way they jump around in your hand!!! Wow, frisky!!!! Like worms on “Red Bull!”
I’m in zone 5 in Canada. I actually ordered the hungry bin from New Zealand and am quite happy with it.
However if I lived in your warm climate, I wouldn’t bother with a worm farm either. I collected my red wrigglers from horse manure we bought locally. I will store the bin in our heated garage over our cold winter.
Your information in this video is so important to the success of a good garden. Thanks for
I live in the city, I have no garden, yet I love his channel! His information and and clips of what he’s talking about is great!
Greetings from Finland from a fellow gardener! We are getting ready for the winter and snow. Most of the crop is already harvested and processed and it's time to get planning next seasons setup. Have a good season and may the garden-gods be on your side, mate!
I love your videos and your friendly, laid-back style to teaching us all about gardening. Thanks, mate!
I'm a huge worm additive advocate. They are a magnificent addition for so many reasons.
When we started composting at home several years ago, we bought about 3k worms to add to the bin, our raised beds, and our flower gardens. The ground, initially, was hard packed, and almost unusable. After a few months, we noticed a marked improvement in the soil.
Now, after about 3 years, I can easily dig down deep enough to grow long carrots (or, rather, the carrots can), big potatoes, horseradish, and just about anything else.
In addition, with composting (kind of a hybrid system using worms and time) nothing in our kitchen goes to waste. Egg shells, veggie scraps, dryer lint, coffee grounds, news papers....you name it.
man, you nailed it. There are a lot of things you ' could ' do for your garden, but at some point you just have to figure out which things you want to do and which can be replaced just by purchases.
Love when I open my email and see a video from you. I'm smiling before I even open it. I'm addicted to your videos. I wish I could find a nice man with a good sense of humor and loves gardening and nature as much as I do. Nina's a lucky lady... And your a lucky man. She's beautiful and has a great personality also. To bad she's camera shy. Would love to see both of you out there, and sharing her knowledge also... Cheers.
Thank you Pamela! Hopefully, we can entice more blokes into gardening and expand that eligible pool to choose from. Personally, I think gardening is a better hobby than working on noisy motorbikes or cars - but that's just me lol... Cheers :)
@@Selfsufficientme imagine riding a noisy motorbike around the garden...
I think you frightened the crap out of that red-bellied black snake. He's probably glad you didn't bite him or something. :)
I have been doing the same process in my garden...direct bury compost. The worm population and size of the worms has increased significantly. After about two plus years of doing a method similar to yours my 24'x16' garden with crappy Colorado hard as a rock soil has turned into about 6-10" deep dark soft nutrient rich soil. Works great and really not too effort on my part.
I live in Ohio on a wooded lot, My property almost connects to a state park and the raccoon population is high and they are a menace. There's no way I could have an open compost like him, they would totally destroy it. I tried having a small container garden on my second story deck and they still managed to get up and destroy it. I wish I could afford to have some raised garden beds with a fence all around it and fencing of some sort over the top. I'm sick of racoons!!!
That's a poisonous snake. Though not highly toxic. Enough to give you pain and misery.
Dwl.
Lucky for the snake his only garden food experiment is over lol
Great to hear about your direct bury success Phillip! Cheers :)
“Little bit of excitement”
What a coincidence, just purchased 2 packs of worm eggs
Now all you needs a big pile of poop
Lisa, where did you find them?
Dixsigns Dairy Goats in Australia we have large hardware stores, perhaps like Lowes?
@@Malfunct1onM1ke you can feed them with scrap
I have 2 worm farms and 3 compost bins built from pallets, plus a compost tumbler..., I love my worm farms because I transfer some worms into the pallet compost bins and it breaks down the pallet full of garden waste in a quarter of the time. I also use about 25% worm castings into my seed planting mix (75%) and have had a huge improvement in germination and seedling health.
Hi Mark. You don't need to look after a worm farm as the worms look after them self. For example, You could get get a bathtub off of Gumtree for free or something similar. I use two 100 liter plastic garden waste bins that have no bottom but has a lid.
All I do is fill it with Horse Manure as halfway as "The Bedding" and slowly fill with some dry leaves and some kitchen scraps. I store them in an area that receives no direct sunlight and water it every now and then to keep the microbes happy and the area well moist and i have so many worms that I could expand the system 10x and in 12 months expand that system 10x again.
I spend 5 minutes a week on the worms and can harvest around two or 3 of your tumblers in black gold every 12 months and my scale is tiny.
I'm not an expert but worms don't need much at all. They give maximum output for minimal input.
In saying that. Worms will come naturally into the Garden system as you showed us as long as the soil biology is protect with a mulch that the worms will enjoy consuming. The first garden best i made was like this and it was amazing how many worms where under my straw mulch after just 4 months and i didn't add any.
I do it a little differently but I agree that worms are almost no work.
It can really depend on the people you live with, for me just managing basic kitchen-waste compost is a challenge because I live with incompetent lazy drunks that can't wrap their pea brains around a simple two bin rotation, constantly mixing new waste in randomly so I never have finished product to use in pots because its always contaminated with new rotten stank. When I had worms they all eventually died in their own waste because the new pile kept getting mixed into the old pile. Like mentally deficient children in adult bodies.
They pay their share of the rent though so I must tolerate it until I can financially free myself.
@@mytech6779 I know that feeling mate, I can't even keep the kitchen clean because my housemates don't wash their own cutlery. I once bought and use my own cutlery instead of using the shared one so that I don't need to wash the others... the result? Fly and whatnot infestation in the kitchen... and they use plastic bag to eat and drink ew..
I'm a lazy dude that hate cleaning as much as the next guy but that was too much. Thankfully I got better financially and moved out and now share house with someone who slightly better than them.
I hope you can get off of them sooner than later.
@@fabulousimcatbulous690 Well they don't get too disgusting in the kitchen, I suppose that could be worse.
So happy I came across your channel. Because of you I'm extending my garden across my whole back yard now!. Thanks so much, and great work!
All that cow dung reminds me of Clive Palmer the giant cain toad.
That's not very nice... LOL :)
Yes it works ! Set up few spots for feeding worms in the garden and they will just travel through your garden beds looking for food and distributing their castings along the way . This method works!
What a tremendous channel. Love from Finland!
Thank you! It's like little workers going night and day to make the garden happier.
Hello Mr.Mark..I am from India and you inspire me a lot ☺️
G'day Vyshnavi! Thank you :)
I used a compost tumbler with horse manure and grass clippings in a raised bed garden layered with lucerne hay for a no-dig garden, tomatoes were by the bucket full just off 2 plants 👍😊🦘🇦🇺
I am an urban gardener, I don't have the luxury of big piece of land to grow my food. I used composting worms in my containers and it works pretty fine. Thus, it is good concept
G'day Mark. I'm Doing the back to Eden gardening. And the amount of worm that live under my woodchips is insane. My chooks love them alot. Lol. But in my raised beds I put a 20L bucket with the bottom removed and some holes cut in the sides with a lid on. I put veggies scraps in with the worms I find in my woodchips. Works a treat. Yes I agree. Worm farm are time consuming. Great video.
Hey Mark!. Love your content and your attitude. Im planning on starting my self sufficient garden soon. Your videos have been very helpful for me as your climate is similar to ours over here in Central Florida, US.
If you like Mark, you'd probably like David the Good as well. And much of his advice is specifically tailored to Floridian gardening. 👍
@@archenema6792 Ill check it out thanks.
if you want to grow garlic in such climates you need to check out "vernalization", just leaving this here for you
@@KettenViper1 Garlic is so hard to grow here but its like the best thing ever. Idk i was just thinking i should buy cloves because its easy and cheap but do you think growing garlic is worth it here?
@@PyroManiacbwl "God demands the firstripen fruit" go get the fattest clove you can find, put them seperated into small containes w/ soil, can be anything, should even do well w/ a lid on it if you watch it (im in northern climate, just sharing the bread), put them in the frigde, leave them there 3 weeks. If you do it now, youll be ready for "traditional" coolclimate transplanting. Wether in pots or in soil, make sure it is free draining, no standing water where the clove goes, beans and peas are hindered in their growth when near grarlic. (source "Carrots loveTomatoes" Louise Riotte, great book, recommend it) Harvest is first indicated by the foliage turning brown, arround 33% (50%max), last indicated by the outer skin rotting away in the soil (source YT: Charles Dowding, a nothern climate gardener). If you see the plant form a "flower" bulb on the tip of it, i personally recommend to cut it of and eat it raw in salad or fried w/ butter :) it is a indication that harvest is near. If you however let it grow it will form a second bulb, focusing less on the "main" bulb in the ground, the cloves from that are also a blessing. To cure garlic simply tie some bulbs together at the necks and hang em well ventillated and dry for two weeks. For next season: start from the top again.
Incase it is of moral concern: A blessing of a man called "Justin Rhodes" (a RUclipsr) ould say: JUST PLANT
-whats the worst that could happen? having fun?
[Additional sources: "The Gardening Channel with James Prigioni", "Nature's always right", "MIGardener" and because God is a blessing unto his people and goes even before me: "Pete Kanaris GreenDreamsFL" with his blessing of a friend "Jim Covaleski"(not on Yt)]
God bless you and your doings
Great tip thanks Mark. Sifting castings from my worm bins became a tiresome chore, that I decided to empty the contents of the bins straight into the garden. Now that I know I can purchase the eggs I won’t feel guilty about retiring from worm farming.
I'm getting a load of cow manure this month, can't wait to try this!
@snuggmoney The manure got really hot and I had to wait a few months before it was safe to add the worms. It has since turned into some nice compost. I also have two other compost piles where I'm making regular compost. I just topped off a bed for a Fall Planting today.
I don't know which is more mindblowing this vid or the fact that someone sells worm eggs.
What a great tip! It was $8 at the bait shop for about 50 worms or 1000 worm eggs for $30!! Thanks man!
Man... you’re really awesome. I really admire your hard work and I’m so grateful for RUclips existing so I can watch all your teachings and updates. Thank you for being so positive and uplifting in every video. Aloha Aussie.
Haha local garden centre, every Aussie knows which "warehouse" that is...
You really need to be on GARDENING AUSTRALIA. The whole country should be watching you !
Oh wow that snake at the end, nope! I love the idea of living in that weather but I will stick to Canada and live vicariously through your videos
Your soil is beautiful!!! Your garden speaks for itself! Keep doing exactly what you’re doing cause it’s working!!!
10:01 Just another day in Aussieland ;)
Enjoyed it !
I have realised just how lucky we are here in the UK with its damp weather. Our gardens are always full of these little wriggles and when I open my compost heap, they are everywhere! As are the birds!
“It gets hot her in summer, and even winter.”
Me: *sweats sympathetically in Texan* 🥵
*laughs in Florida*
@The Senate bruh you wouldn't last a day in a humid southern winter. Take that temp stick and throw it in the trash heat without water aint nothin. I was in Afghanistan in 120° heat and it doesnt hold a candle to the south
@@anthonyraines5951 "heat without water aint nothin" pretty much sums it up
@The Senate im callin BS I've been around too and a 95°+ day with 85% or higher humidity makes your oven feel like a cool breeze
The Senate it’s really weird how my post about sympathizing with bearing a hot climate was read as some claim to being in the hottest state? Like what? 🧐 . Not to mention it doesn’t make sense to compare states with widely varying climates like TX and AZ, but I digress.
As someone with chronic pain, and difficulty doing a lot of the stuff I'd like to do, having things that generate something useful in a passive way (passive for me) is always going to be a priority, so yeah this is a great way of doing it!
I'm with you there. As a horticultural person who now has joint pains all over I fully agree let's get simple and let the worms do their job
I operate a charity that builds beautiful raised bed gardens for free. We place a special emphasis on construction layouts that reduce maintenance requirements, and allow those with mobility issues to enjoy the benefits of healthy natural food. If you live anywhere in the eastern US between Pittsburgh and Florida, we may be able to help you. 💚
@@archenema6792 That's very nice of you to do that. Thanks for your thoughtful endeavours.
@@shirleyk623 I hope to start a YT channel about our efforts in the next year. I would have liked to have done so already this year, but momentous macro-social events have prevented this. So please stay tuned. 🙂
@@archenema6792 I wish you good luck in the future of you starting a y-tube channel! I will be looking forward to watching it. I too suffer from chronic pain and my best days are in the garden growing food and raising worms. It allows me (for awhile) to forget about the pain while getting exercise that helps with my problems. Until then stay safe and well
😆😆😆😆😆
Everytime you show worms and they're so energetic it freaks me out a little, LOL, our worms (upstate New York) aren't that energetic. They move in slow motion.
Same thing I thought too! CT worms are big and slow lol
Hope they are not the jumping worms I have heard of that push out native worms
Here in SE Georgia my worms are fast and wiggly...the bait red worms from the store are fat and slow compared to these in my yard. Crazy! Like mine are "muscle" worms
Been watching for a long while and never thought I could give advice back! For worm composting like you showed, or even in your beds, eggshells speed things up drastically! Bake them first along with whatever you are baking anyways, grind them up fine in a coffee grinder or mortar and pestle and spread the grit over your worm beds/compost/etc. Worms use grit to break down and digest material, so providing good grit also with calcium can produce higher yields from the worms in shorter periods of time! There are time lapse videos with proof all over the net and it makes a huge difference. I know you go through a lot of eggs there, so hey had to chime in!
That's interesting. Thanks! I didn't know it made such a huge difference.
I once added cat litter (used) to my compost bin ,after that the worm population exploded, just an observation.
Should avoid any cat waste in your garden or compost they carry some crazy parasite diseases, even apparently healthy cats and kittens. I like cats, I have a cat, but that is the one thing that never goes in my compost or garden.
On the other hand if you can find plain unused unscented bentonite(clay) cat litter (usually the cheap stuff in a large bag) that can be a good addition to very sandy soil in small amounts well distributed adding both water and nutrient holding. If not mixed well or with a bit too much it will form a water barrier paste as it swells quite a large amount, Bentonite is actually used in a solid layer to plug leaks in basements and pond bottoms, as well as for making well-drilling mud.
@The Senate Do you not know how fields are fertilised, or something?
Otherwise, it's composted rather than used directly. Cat shit applied straight tends to leave dead patches in grass.
Skorpy Nekomimi cat shit is still not considered safe to use on plants intended for human consumption, and it spoils the whole batch
@@thomasa5619 That's why they're throwing it into the compost first, to be broken down.
Skorpy Nekomimi well unless you use hot compost rules, which would kill the worms before it kills the potential cat disease, they aren’t breaking down the dangerous component in any useful timeframe.
If I'm looking for a gardening video to watch and learn, I always enjoy your videos. Thank you!
Hey Mark great video / info yet again. I like you, don’t have a worm farm as such, but practice Hugelkulture and just top dress every year , and would have literally millions of worms through my vege garden beds . Feed em and they thrive. Thanks . Ps you can keep ya winter snakes there’s enough over summer.
I highly recommend to everyone to have a camera ready when uncover you compost heaps/piles as it is a great way to spot wildlife in your area. I still have old pictures I need to upload to inaturalist thanks to the life that visited my old compost pile. A great video as always. Green thumb up!
Little extra zing there at the end! Gorgeous snake, healthy worms, what more could you want?
I use the same stuff. Straight into the compost bin with the cheapest bag of “soil” (basically ground up wood chips) I can get and some food scraps/handful or three of hay. I then dig into it a month later, took a handful of worms and spread them individually round the garden. Now I’m finding them in veggie pots.
Mark, here in the southern USA, we call cow piles cow pies😄😄😄
I listened to an interview with Rob Lowe yesterday. He was talking about a movie where he convinced the director to have a cow tipping scene. He said the director had never heard of that ... never ... heard ... of .... that. It’s weird the things you assume are ubiquitous. To that point I assumed Mark had said “pies”. Southern Mississippi checking in.
That reminds me. A little bird fell out of the nest. He started chirping for help. A cow comes along and drops a cow pie on him. He keeps chirping. Now along comes a wolf hears the little bird picks him up by the scruff of his neck cleans the cow pie off and gulp! What's the moral? Life gives you crap doesn't mean it for bad, and if someone comes along and cleans you up well, it might not be for good. GULP!
Thank you for your wonderful uploads. I've been an organic gardener for 50-60 years and treat the soil/environment/worm population with the same dignity/respect that you do I have a rich worm population of worms.....some about the size of rattlesnakes (not quite, but I do sometimes check their tails for rattles!). I bought my place from a guy that fished constantly so he threw his worms out on the lawn when he had extras. I don't know if the various kinds of worms crossbreed but looking at some of them convinces me that they do.
So Maximis did get back to his farm.
eskimoassasin6 😂😂
Was wondering for a sec... then the penny dropped.. Ohhh.. The "Spaniard".
@@kingloser4198 he's like Russell Crowe if he wasn't trying to fight everyone
Got back to his farm and even started a youtube channel
LOL...
I had no idea you could buy worms like that, thanks for the tip.
We Indians here use lot of cow dung manure by even use earth worms infused with waste vegetables etc.. To make manure
Cow god's poop
@@Mechanical_Star May be you don't have knowledge of what's use of nature and natural remedies your bloody most medication is made from animal content heart attack medicine cancer check details okay donkey's sick mind's
@@debyaka that's a dumb and sooo unnecessary comment. Grow up!
@@debyaka Probably in his bedroom or maybe the dining hall in some homes. Or maybe he wrote the comment in the bathroom on his phone, you know, the ones with screens and all?
I'm curious though, Why do you ask? How does the location of his computer interest you?
Oh just in case you're interested in knowing where I got my computer, it was from a computer shop. You know, shops that sell computers? It was right next to a vegetable shop, I bought some of those too.
BTW, Where'd you train your ignorance? Takes a lot of hard training to be this ignorant you know 😂
??? Actual Indian from India? Or native from america? Doesn't matter just curious about where the gardening habit is from. (Also I'm autistic and get confused on words and I'm native from america and always confused on how others say that.)
A man who handles fresh cow poop with his bare hands would never lie about worms. Your use of the word "plop" made me burst out laughing. Lovely videos, informative and fun. Cheers from the US!
“Wormy magic” that right there is T-shirt material.
Thanks Mark. I built a worm farm back in March when isolating in northern NSW. I already had one from the hardware store but it was too small and always overflowing with kitchen scraps. I used an old bathtub on a stand I made with a tap on the plug hole. Works great and heaps of room. I'm looking at harvesting the castings and some worms for new and old garden beds in the next week or so. Cheers again.
Where we are on the Mornington Peninsula, there isn't anywhere I can easily find to get raw cow or chicken manure. Tho there are places that have horse manure, which I grab if I see. Thinking in the next few weeks might build a dual covered bin and just order in aged compost and manure from the local garden centres, might not be perfect, but you use what you can use. Our winter beds (5 sq metres) we put in when we went into the first lockdown are not far away from most of them coming out so want to refresh them and give them a new coat of sugar cane mulch (3rd time in what 5 months lol worms are busy.
We just finished added 8 more sq metres of raised beds, they are mulched but waiting for mid-Sept for planting, and are 75% of the way to preparing the front yard for 7 fruit trees.
I do have a question in terms of the beds, clearly, aged stuff is the best I can do, but should I remove the mulch dump it into the compost bin, then add the compost, manure and then more mulch, or would it be best just to dump the compost manure and new mulch and just sandwich the old stuff underneath?
Down our way there is a grass fed beef farmer in Dandenong. Near the grave yard off Thompson road. In Somerville there are quite a few organic chicken farms as well. You can also source heaps of horse poop but I would recommend piling and tarping it to get it hot enough to invalidate the weed seeds first. Also a lot of manure gets bought up because Debco is manufactured on tyabb
@@eMavern_Emporium that has to be the only beef farmer that there is around here lol. I knew of the ones near Somerville, but most I asked said trailer and I kinda need it at least bagged to carry it. There is an egg farm on Potts Rd I was going to ask once lockdown is over.
Also I have never had problems with horse and seeds in the poop. Never had anything show up more than normal.
@@matthewfarrell317 I had rotten luck with horse poop so I thought I'd chuck that caution out there. That's the chook farm I was thinking on Potts road. I'm pretty bad with street names. I'm going to set up a small scale compost pile (two 1x1 bays) and use what's in the garden but to start off when lock down is over I'll suss out burdettes mix they are reasonably priced especially for delivery
@@eMavern_Emporium Caution noted, I get my horse from Potts Rd ironically, grab a bag or two when a house leaves in out. Never had much seeds in that one.
I have the compost bin, but my plan was to make a covered double bay, to have my finished compost and any extra compost stored for later use and a manure bay to store it. So I can try and get it bulk.
Didn't know Burdetts did compost will look into it. Been using Daisy's for their veggie mix (which is amazing).
G'day Matthew, sometimes if the mulch hasn't broken down and is relatively fresh I will remove it to add compost and other soil improvers then just put it straight back. Sandwiching it will still be fine but if that's easier for you. Cheers :)
I have plastic boxes on the eastern side of the house, no problem with heat. Lots of worms put a cubic meter on the lemon tree which gives us four lemons for 45 weeks of the year.
This title is like clickbait for 8-year-olds. I clicked...
I do this by getting a few buckets from the local cow farms. This year I used a mix of composted cow manure and compost mixed with what soil was already there to plant the smaller Nantes carrots. These never get huge like grocery store carrots but they are so much sweeter and don’t have a chemical after taste.
use fresh cow dung to prepare "Amrit Jal", you can use them after 2/3 days
Thank you for this tip. I was able to look for it and purchase a pack of eggs from my local bunnings today. The boxes of worms were totally gone!
the local garden center? come on mate I recognise that yellow price tag, the big green shed isn't a local garden center ;)
It has a garden section. Lol and where else can you grab a snag?
LOL...
@@justinwilliams1333 not for now :(
"Wormy magic". I need to find a way to use that in conversation, because it's the most awesome phrase I have heard all year.
Q: What's brown and sounds like a bell?
A: DUNG!
😒(sorry for the dad joke)
😂
LOL...
@@omitimo77 I'm adding this to my personal collection
This guy has everything even a tank!!! Great video!
Can't beat the worm juice from worm farms. My plants just explode with growth and produce as a result. A great resource from a worm farm which takes very little care. My compost and garden is already chock full of worms so don't see the point in adding them here whereas with the worm farm I can use the juice in a more targeted way. It's worth having having the farm just for the juice if nothing else.
I do something similar, buying worms occasionally and adding them to my compost bins. This helps break down the compost and the worms are transferred into the garden when using the decomposed compost.
After you catch your breath old man tell me how dangerous was the snake ....? scale from 1-10? MY GUESS IS A SOLID 8. earned your views today brother.
new subject for a video....HOW TO GROW A TON OF SNAKES IN YOUR GARDEN....SPIDERS....CENTIPEDES,
-6
I think red bellies *can* kill people but it’s incredibly rare for them to actually do so.
They also eat other snakes, like the dangerous ones.
Mark also lives near civilisation so even if he got a good bite he should be fine.
So like a 4/10. Not pleasant but alive
As long has he doesn’t accidentally step on it, it’s more afraid of the overhead giant. Compost being nice as warm can on rare occasion become a nesting site for snakes. 🐍
Google Search...
This species is not aggressive and will usually retreat before attacking, although when it is threatened it will raise its body from the ground flatten its neck, hiss and perform a series of strikes. There have been no recorded human deaths as a result of a Red-bellied Black Snake bite to date in Australia.
@@Keachybean yes i have done the research as well ...still cant take any chances down under ....8 out of 10 snakes can kill ya .....more than a few spiders and other insects can ruin your day quickly.
gardening is a tricky task i reckon ....lol always wanted to visit ....someday maybe .....surf with the sharks ?
Love your help vids and especially this one. I dont have a large property like you, in fact my property is more related to a postage stamp. I do worm farming inside using "worm factory" trays. Been using it for yrs and it supplies not only me but my sis and bro with a 5 gal bucket of "black gold" to add to their plants and tomato plants each yr. Even in my postage stamp yard I grow a few tomatoes trying for size , so far my largest tom. is 2 lb 10oz. trying to get the magical 3 lb growing domingo. Last yr I did weigh in a 2.37 lb brandywine , they normally are in the 1.5 lb range. Also in my small yard I also grow enough plants that hummingbirds can use , planting especially for them and other pollenators.
Normal Earthworms are just as good as red wigglers and tiger worms, I have many worm farms with millions of Earthworms! Dont be tricked into buying expensive red wrigglers and tiger worms!
You know, I'm new to worm farming. I have one bed with earthworms and one with red wigglers. It seems the earth worms are more interested in eating bedding than veggies. The wigglers seem the opposite and jump all over veggies. Have you noticed anything like this?
@@hizzlemobizzle I just have earthworms mate, no other worm species are in my vegetable beds ... I love Earthworms and they are FREE! God created them for a reason and they do a beautiful job and eat everything, even cardboard, paper and much more and dont touch the veggies!
@@WildWarriorBill So you are saying the earthworms don't like the veggies? prefer a carbon diet? This is what I am wondering.
Thanks for the response.
@@hizzlemobizzle red wigglers(aka manure worms) naturally live in piles of organic matter and are more tolerant of being disturbed by digging, nightcrawlers live in burrows down deep and come up to eat at night, red worms multiply fast in the warm season and make much faster work of manure heaps. I was glad I bought a pack. (one small pack is all it takes for a home operation ...if you don't kill them) I see the nightcrawlers move into my mature cold compost.
@@mytech6779 Great. Thank you for the response:-)
As an avid freshwater fisherman and gardener I feel a worm farm is a must. I made ours out of an old cast iron bed and a plywood cover. Every time I go fishing, I take a dozen night crawlers with me. When I get home, all leftover crawlers are “planted” in the garden.
Works out perfectly and saves cash too as night crawlers are $3.15 a dozen if ya buy them.
lets get into it - I'd rather not, lol
Ok Mark, now we're going out to our garden to get some of our worms for our planter veggies - we have perennial peanut ground cover and often find big worms when we weed. You have great ideas and we appreciate all that you teach us...and yes, our t-shirts arrived, so we'll be styin' in the garden as we dig for worms. And, as Floridians, it might be a while but if we ever get off of our property and once we re-engage with other people, we'll proudly wear the t-shirts and let everyone know how we became such successful Covid-farmers!
These are #cocoons with multiple hatchlings inside - not EGGS!!!
Even the people who put them in the bag say that. But they label them eggs for people who don’t know better
@@thomasa5619 here in Germany labelling is handled more precisely.
Kati Pohl haha welcome to Australia
@@thomasa5619 thank you Thomas and have a nice weekend. We are in summer, have to do lots of watering and vermicomposting is doing great in my garden.
@@katipohl2431 Except for when it isn't. A mate of mine here in Germany contacted a company selling a "WurzelAktivator" ("root activator") to ask what the active ingredients were as it wasn't made clear on the packaging. The response he got back is that they're prevented, by law, from labelling what the ingredients are, which is absolutely fucking ridiculous. They can sell it to Hobbygärtner, but are prevented from telling them what it is!???? Dumbest shit I've ever heard! Here's a quote from the email.
"Produkte, die Pflanzenhormone, wie Auxine (Indol-3-essigsäure, 4-(Indol-3-yl)buttersäure und 1-Naphthylessigsäure gehören zu den Auxinen) und weitere Hormone enthalten, müssen in Deutschland und in der EU behördlich als Pflanzenschutzmittel zugelassenen werden. Diese Pflanzenschutzmittel sind in Deutschland und in der EU nicht für Hobbygärtner erhältlich.
Im [Produkt] sind Vorstufen dieser Pflanzenhormone enthalten. Wir dürfen diese allerdings nicht deklarieren, da sie sonst als Pflanzenschutzmittel zugelassen werden müssten.
Insofern dürfen wir also aus juristischen Gründen keinen genauen Inhalt deklarieren."
Some lively worms you have there! I'm a cattle farmer, so I have unlimited supplies of this brown gold. The planters I've made this year I've filled (not dressed) with a two year old mixture of manure & hay. It looks close to what you have there, though not quite as many worms. I've been toying with the idea of adding worms to speed up the breakdown process but I didn't know you can buy the eggs. I'd use the link you gave, but I'm on the other side of the world! Cheers!
You've got more worms then my dog
I brought a whole lot of worms for my big container Gardens and just put them into the potting mix and i really noticed a difference a few months later
Hello..I'm not gay but I love ur video
oh your gay! lol
It's ok to admit that you find Mark sexy. He is Australian after all.
@@summcunt5421 lol
I really appreciated your response to the snake. That was great! I moved to a steep hillside area of Appalachians with no snake experience so learning snake reactive behavior is important.
BEWARE source of cattle food
Beware the Grazon.
Aminopyralid contamination is a real problem.
I put my potted veggies directly in horse manure that came out of a worm bed. It's great stuff and my plants look great
Thank you, I don't comment on any videos, I have watched a few of yours and I sacribe. You are very clear no B.S. You keep me interested in watching the whole video which is rare for me. Thank you keep up the great work, good luck with it all.
I HAVE GREAT RESPECT FOR YOUR SPEED AND NIMBLE MOVEMENT BIG FELLA ...LOL GLAD YOU DIDNT TAKE A HIT!
I remember fishing rainbow trout with my grandfather in Wisconsin. He called the manure piles cow pies.
Yep. Well Done. I grow worms in beds under my rabbit cages. The pure/screened 'castings' sell for 15 USD a lb here. Plus the semi finished compost is ALL I ever need to add to my raised beds. I also set it up so that any excess moisture gets collected for 'worm tea' for foliar feeding. Full circle. As far as I'M concerned, Worms are my most important 'livestock'.
Treating your raised beds as work bins is an interesting approach.
Wow almost 1M subscribers!!! Fantastic work my friend!
There’s a channel I think it’s called dirtpatchheaven she uses large raised garden beds as giant compost piles that generate heat allowing earlier growth in winter by providing bottom heat, very interesting concept “hot beds”
Thinking of adding them to my wicking beds. To encourage soil life & inprove soil structure. To me eggs are a better option. Not as tender as hatched worms, can choose when you want to add them, instead of "I have to do it TODAY".
Like so many others, I didn't know worm eggs could be purchased. I purchase a few live red worms at a pet store that were intended as lizard food. Gave them a good home in a tote filled with moistened half-composted yard waste. They got busy and now we have a surfeit of them. Some neighbors have chickens, and the worms happen to be wiggly and 11% protein...
Thanks for the giggle at the end. I've been hopping like that a bit around my garden in Florida this season. Really appreciate all your vids. Thank you.
This enthusiasm for worms is infectious X'D
My dad was a farmer, I regret that i didn't learn a lot from him before he passed away 11 years ago.. but here I'm correcting my mistake. Thanks brother much love from UAE.. ps: it'll be amazing if you can give an advice to a different climate gardening.