I have been studying worm farming for a year, and always wanted to try it, well, I bought my first bin (54 ltrs), 1000 worms, and 1000 worm eggs, achieving good results. The bin is a little bit more than moist in the bottom, however, the worms seem to gather in it and seem to be okay. Your video is probably one of the best, if not the best that I have seen for my situation. I will build one similar to what you have but using an old cast iron tub. Your knowledge and willingness to answer questions are at the highest of standards. I have learned a lot from your answers to those who wish to learn. Thank You, I am now more determined to move forward in worm farming. Steve (from the land down under)
Thank you VERY much for posting this video. I learned more from it than 20 others combined. Very much appreciated and great job showing the whole thing!
Finally, I see someone who knows the difference between worm castings and a weird sorta youtube definition of castings. Castings are uniform, tiny and amazing.... like tiny grains of rice. When I harvest castings the top layer or undigested material is used as a base layer for next job. Too often I hear of 'worm bedding' and some weird lasagna mix for worms. I am pro having worms being about to move but the basis of worms is animal manure, well aged. Start there and they will certainly eat all sorts. Worms are not termites, they can survive on cellulose but to thrive they need a protein/roughage source. The end result is an amazing plant food/soil mendicant or conditioner. This video is worth keeping... Cheers...
good videos Josh..I just started a worm 360 bin with african nightcrawlers gotten from a local guy down here in southwest florida..preciate your work..I've gotten some good tips from you..wish me luck.. Bud
Hi. Great video. Good system for harvesting your worm castings. What do you do with the worm leachate? I'm a beginner so please excuse me if this is a simple question.
Love your videos. I have started my first worm farm in a grey, rubbermaid tote. I used coco coir for bedding & the worm compost they came in. I top dressed with cardboard & paper sack (no glue areas). I feed your dry worm chow & kitchen scraps. I live in South Alabama. As it starts to warm up this Spring I'm wondering if I should water my worm bed to keep it from drying out. Right now its in my screened in back porch but should I move to my kitchen? Concerned about drying out & over heating. Thanks in advance for any guidance.
Tami Ziglar as long as it is in a shaded area it should be fine heat wise. You can move it inside if u have the space though. They like the mid 70s range the best. As far as watering just keep a eye on the bedding and keep it like a damp sponge. Depending on how moist the food is and how often you feed you might have to water a little.
do you not put in the paper bedding first, like you did in your rubber bin video? do you only put the paper bedding on top after layering w/ food, coffee grounds, eggshell grit?
Have you ever done a vertical migration? I am new at this, and this is what I first learned. I'm using a plastic tote like yours, when I get ready to harvest, I will sit another tote with fresh bedding and food on top, and hope they will migrate up to the fresh food and bedding. your thoughts would be appreciated.
You talk about harvesting the castings - but what about the new worms that are being produced,how many pounds are produced and do you thin them out and if so how do you sort out the worms?
William Colvin I never sort out worms because it requires a lot of time. I use a 1/4 inch screen and just put any cocoons and small worms they go through it into the garden. The remaining worms will be enough to stock the bin. If you don’t screen out the smaller worms and cocoons the population in the bin will get to high and the worms will start to struggle. If I was to start a new bin I would just put the screenings into a new container and add fresh bedding instead of putting it in the garden. The cocoons will hatch over time and populate the new bin.
I'm new to vermicomposting. Dunno if I missed something here, but all you're feeding them is 3-4" of horse manure? And then laying bedding on top? Or do you also put your food scraps on top of the horse manure? I ask because I don't think I generate enough worm food waste to get the amount of vermicompost I would want for gardening. Thanks.
Your videos are very good ... I'm from Brazil and I would like to know why the amount of worms in your wormhole is great ... and if you do some maxhete to increase? If you have any errors, I used a translator
It's nothing like having your own compost soil cause the soil I buy is nasty I been making my own compost for a year every now and then I buy soil but I'm good I just clean my worm bin yesterday got the small one to do in a few days or maybe weeks cause the weather off and on..
Hi Josh. Thanks for sharing your setup and tips. Why do you screen the horse manure before adding it to the bed? PS Is that an Arkansas Hillbilly accent 😉
Barb Longair screening the manure makes it easier for the worms to travel through it. It also gets the big chucks of manure out and makes screening the castings easier in the end. It is a eastern Kentucky hillbilly accent. 😛
New Negritude the baby worms will thrive in your garden as long as you practice organic gardening habits like mulching and using compost and other organic amendments.
Tre Outdoors I would recommend changing the bedding at lease once a year. Worms like to migrate into new food material and leave their casting behind. If I was raising worms just for bait I would do the horizontal bed method. That gives the new cocoons time to hatch and all the worms time to migrate to the new side so you don't loss any worms during the clean out process. It also disturbs them the lease so they can continue breeding. If they stay in the same material to long they will stop breading and you won't have a steady supply of new worms to use. If you are not interested in using the casting I'm sure a local gardener would take them or you could possibly sell them online if that would interest you. Sorry for the late reply.
Hi - I have two questions: How deep is the inside of the horizontal bin? I know you mentioned it is 2' x 4', but I was wondering how deep it is. Also, when you start a new bin, from what I understand from your video, you would put 3-4" of aged manure ( I would use alpaca), then continue as if you were feeding them? So after the manure layer, would you put the powdered food, then food scraps, then coffee grounds, then a little more manure, powdered food, more food scraps, coffee, then cover? And would you mix cardboard in with any of it when first starting a bin, or would you just add the ripped cardboard on top and let it go down into it slowly and just keep adding a few handfuls when you feed?
Hey Lisa. If I remember correctly the horizontal bed is 16 inches deep. You are correct on the feeding process. I have recently change my feed layering a little do to fruit fly problems. Now I put down dry food then all the food waste and coffee grounds then cover it with more manure (this makes it harder for the fruit flies to get to the food waste that they want to lay eggs in) then I put down more dry food and cover it with cardboard. I would just top with cardboard and let it work in slowly they actually go through it quite fast.
Got it, thank you, and so noted on the change of feeding layers order. I also forgot to ask, when starting a brand new bin that no worm has ever lived in, I would do just half the bin to start, do that particular order of layers that you talked about, and add no extra moisture, is that correct? Do the food scraps add enough moisture to the whole set-up, even when starting brand new (assuming, of course, that the scraps are relatively juicy)? I really appreciate your help.
Lisa C when starting a new bed I would put about 3 to 4 inches of damp manure (well aged and screened) in the bottom then start the food layering process from there. Form my experience the food waste provides enough moister as long as the bed isn't in a very dry location and it stays covered with a good layer of dry material to act as a mulch. The best way to describe the right moister content is to keep it like a damp sponge. Not very dry but not dripping wet. I normally dig down into the bedding a couple inch and check the dampness ever so often. But with regular feedings of food waste it usually keeps the perfect moister levels without having to add any water or dry material. If you think about it most food waste from the kitchen like lettuce, melons, bananas and so on are high moister content.
Thank you very much for the clarification. You have been such a great help, and the amount of worms you have and the fact that they stay in their bins shows that you clearly figured things out very well for them. You have VERY happy worms! Happiness is a nice thing for them, plus it helps them make quality castings to make happy plants! Thank you again for all of your help!
Josh, I would like your thoughts on this. The guy I bought my African nightcrawlers from says this, and I quote "Do not mix food with bedding, This will cause protein poisoning and kill your worms." btw, my worm farm is doing okay so far..been about 3 months now.
James Yale that is the first I have heard of protein poisoning from mixing food and bedding. My thoughts are that the bedding and food are gonna mix eventually no matter what u do. I don't have any experience with euros but I have layered my food and bedding together for years and have never had any trouble. From my understanding the euros and reds are very similar in their behavior so I would say the mixing of food and bedding will cause no harm.
I saw you mentioned your vertical worm bin in response to someone's comment. Did you make that yourself also? And can you maybe do a video on that as well? Maybe how it's made, and just all around how it works? I am trying to decide between vertical or horizontal worm bins and am having trouble figuring out which would work better for us. Thank you!
Lisa C as far as my favorite goes I would have to say the horizontal bins are the easiest to maintain and harvest. I will make a video on the vertical bin in the future. We have just moved into a different house and I have had to postpone my worm composting for the time being. I am going to continue making video once we get settled in.
TheBushdoctor68 I do not have any type of drainage system in my bins besides the rocks in the bottom of my horizontal migration bin. I keep a eye on my feedings and try to keep the beds from becoming to wet.
Thank you for the quick reply. I'm working with a combined compost/worm bin outside, so any excess water just drains into the ground, but I noticed that every single commercial worm bin has a drainage system to 'drain the worm juices', and frankly I have always wondered about this. Your setup kind of confirms that most, if not all of the moisture originates from the compost ingredients, not so much from the worms themselves.
TheBushdoctor68 your welcome. Most food scrapes are high moisture. Most commercial worm farms feed mass quantities of food on a schedule and water their beds to insure they are moist all the way through so they usually have more moisture run off. It really doesn't hurt in a commercial or home system but that is just nutrients that your finished castings will not have in the end. The run off usually ends up anaerobic and doesn't have the beneficial bacteria that we are looking for with the worm composting. so it isn't as good as compost tea that has been purposefully made to us for our plants.
TheBushdoctor68 your compost/worm bin sounds like a good idea. I usually inoculant my outdoor compost bins with worms after they have went through their hot stage and are at the temperature that the worms like.
Yes, I can imagine that keeping the worm tea inside the bin has its benefits bacteria wise. Good point indeed. It's true, my bin can get really hot when I turn it, but there's a second bin right next to it where the worms can get away from the heat. That does help, but because the eggs can't get out of the way, my colony doesn't grow as fast as it should. Dutch winters can be tough on them as well so it would be good for me to have a second, more protected colony like yours..
I have a question regarding your vertical migration bin. Do you remove the top layer of dry bedding before adding a new top tray? What is your procedure for adding a new tray? Thank you.
John Graham yes I do. I remove the dry bedding and fill it to the top with aged manure or compost before adding the next tray. After adding the next tray I feed one half of it like normal and add the dry bedding back in that tray. It is almost full now so i will be building and adding the last tray soon. I hope to make a video on the overall set up of that bed when the time comes.
Hey Josh, Thanks for the new video. You harvested the bed at a level of 8". Is the bed level important? i.e. Does the bin run into problems if it gets too high? Thanks again!
John Graham Hey John, that is a great question! As long as the bedding doesn't get to wet and go anaerobic in the bottom u can let it get as deep as u would like. It's depth at harvest all depends on how much u have been feeding them and how much bedding u add. My horizontal migration bed usually is about twice the depth I started with by the time I harvest it. My vertical migration bin or stackable bin on the other hand will be roughly 18 inches deep before the bottom tray is removed and harvested. So basically as long as it has adequate aeration and the right moister level it can be as deep as u want. No matter the depth though the worms will only work in the top 3 to 4 inches of material so it is best to start with a 3 to 4 inch layer of bedding and build from there.
Charles Oxendine i can get all the manure I want off of a friend. While getting it for my garden I noticed loads of worms in the good aged manure toward the bottom of his pile. I figured if that is what they like in nature that is what I want to use. I have experimented with paper and coco coir but they both don't seems natural to me and the worms seem to like the manure better.
To be honest I don't have a clue. I orders reds when I first started but received reds, Indian blues and several other ones I don't know. Haha. Seems like mostly reds now because the environment I give them is more favorable for red wigglers.
Mark M all u have to do is let it age. Most of the time if u are getting it from a big pile it is already aged. If it is fresh just pile it up and let it compost down. It will smell like good soil and not manure. After that just screen it through a compost screen like the one I showed in this video.
jessica augustine it will be fine with some ash mixed in. I actually add wood ash to my outdoor compost bins. The ash acts like lime or the calcium in egg shells. It is alkaline and raises and buffers the ph. In the horse manure it will actually help to neutralize the urine that is mixed in. Just make sure the manure bedding and ash are aged well together and u won't have any problems.
Parasuniversal.com unfortunately I don't have any videos on making my beds. I actually decided not to make a third layer because of how heavy the trays are when full. If I had 3 layers the top 2 would have to be removed together in order to harvest the bottom. One tray full of damp castings weighs around 50 pounds so 2 would be to much for one person to handle easily on their own. Instead I just feed the bed till the top layer is almost full then I harvest the bottom and put that empty tray on top to continue the process.
sergio lojkasek in these bins I used mostly horse manure but I have also used aged goat manure as well. You can use all sorts of manures like chicken, horse, goat, rabbit and so on. It all needs to be aged before using in a worm bin though.
When ever "manure" is mentioned, it is ALWAYS 'animal shit', as Bob mentioned ANY farm animal shit can be used when aged properly, chicken shit especially as it can 'burn' young sapling's if used when too fresh
I have been composting for over 10 years from kitchen scraps, cardboard and newspapers. Once I added fresh chicken manure and all the worms were killed by ammonia. Since then I don't use manure. When you say aged manure, how long takes to become aged for chicken and horse manure?
Thank you for your excellent, down to earth, videos. Quite beneficial to us old retired folk just getting into composting with worms.
I have been studying worm farming for a year, and always wanted to try it, well, I bought my first bin (54 ltrs), 1000 worms, and 1000 worm eggs, achieving good results. The bin is a little bit more than moist in the bottom, however, the worms seem to gather in it and seem to be okay.
Your video is probably one of the best, if not the best that I have seen for my situation. I will build one similar to what you have but using an old cast iron tub.
Your knowledge and willingness to answer questions are at the highest of standards. I have learned a lot from your answers to those who wish to learn.
Thank You, I am now more determined to move forward in worm farming.
Steve
(from the land down under)
Thank you VERY much for posting this video. I learned more from it than 20 others combined. Very much appreciated and great job showing the whole thing!
Lisa C you are very welcome!
Man you are brilliant
Best I have seen so far on RUclips
Love from Australia
I agree
another Aussie from the land down under
Thank you so much for your this video. It was full of great information I haven't seen elsewhere. Love your accent too:)
Thanks for your video. I was going to build a flow through bin but this one is the best. Easy to build, easy to harvest, easy to maintain.
I don't have a garage or a shed so I use bins in my spare bedroom but use the horizontal migration method and it works great.
Finally, I see someone who knows the difference between worm castings and a weird sorta youtube definition of castings. Castings are uniform, tiny and amazing.... like tiny grains of rice. When I harvest castings the top layer or undigested material is used as a base layer for next job. Too often I hear of 'worm bedding' and some weird lasagna mix for worms. I am pro having worms being about to move but the basis of worms is animal manure, well aged. Start there and they will certainly eat all sorts. Worms are not termites, they can survive on cellulose but to thrive they need a protein/roughage source. The end result is an amazing plant food/soil mendicant or conditioner. This video is worth keeping... Cheers...
Thanks for sharing your methods...much appreciated!
good videos Josh..I just started a worm 360 bin with african nightcrawlers gotten from a local guy down here in southwest florida..preciate your work..I've gotten some good tips from you..wish me luck..
Bud
James Yale I'm glad I could help u! Best of luck man!
Hey great series of videos you have put together here, thanks ever so much, I will be using loads of your tips and techniques.
Lovely! Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Sue Ridder you’re welcome! I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Great information. I have been thinking about doing worms. Still on the fence about it. Best wishes Bob.
More updates!! Great videos so far!
Awesome video, I already subscribed. Keep up the good work!
Look forward to more
Awesome Bed!! Thanks for Sharing!
Hi. Great video. Good system for harvesting your worm castings. What do you do with the worm leachate? I'm a beginner so please excuse me if this is a simple question.
Your videos are a great help, thank you!
Love your videos. I have started my first worm farm in a grey, rubbermaid tote. I used coco coir for bedding & the worm compost they came in. I top dressed with cardboard & paper sack (no glue areas). I feed your dry worm chow & kitchen scraps. I live in South Alabama. As it starts to warm up this Spring I'm wondering if I should water my worm bed to keep it from drying out. Right now its in my screened in back porch but should I move to my kitchen? Concerned about drying out & over heating. Thanks in advance for any guidance.
Tami Ziglar as long as it is in a shaded area it should be fine heat wise. You can move it inside if u have the space though. They like the mid 70s range the best. As far as watering just keep a eye on the bedding and keep it like a damp sponge. Depending on how moist the food is and how often you feed you might have to water a little.
DownToTheRoots - thanks! I'll double check dampness of bedding. Appreciate the info!
I love your idea brother
do you not put in the paper bedding first, like you did in your rubber bin video? do you only put the paper bedding on top after layering w/ food, coffee grounds, eggshell grit?
Great idea, way to go!
Have you ever done a vertical migration? I am new at this, and this is what I first learned. I'm using a plastic tote like yours, when I get ready to harvest, I will sit another tote with fresh bedding and food on top, and hope they will migrate up to the fresh food and bedding. your thoughts would be appreciated.
@10:21 of course we wanted to watch you, in a speed up time lapse .
You talk about harvesting the castings - but what about the new worms that are being produced,how many pounds are produced and do you thin them out and if so how do you sort out the worms?
William Colvin I never sort out worms because it requires a lot of time. I use a 1/4 inch screen and just put any cocoons and small worms they go through it into the garden. The remaining worms will be enough to stock the bin. If you don’t screen out the smaller worms and cocoons the population in the bin will get to high and the worms will start to struggle. If I was to start a new bin I would just put the screenings into a new container and add fresh bedding instead of putting it in the garden. The cocoons will hatch over time and populate the new bin.
Great video
I know this video is old but with 1/4 inch you can't catch cocoon, so they are inside the casting.
You guys making some good scratch from this? Texas? Bama? Arkansas?
I'm new to vermicomposting. Dunno if I missed something here, but all you're feeding them is 3-4" of horse manure? And then laying bedding on top? Or do you also put your food scraps on top of the horse manure?
I ask because I don't think I generate enough worm food waste to get the amount of vermicompost I would want for gardening. Thanks.
Your videos are very good ... I'm from Brazil and I would like to know why the amount of worms in your wormhole is great ... and if you do some maxhete to increase? If you have any errors, I used a translator
It's nothing like having your own compost soil cause the soil I buy is nasty I been making my own compost for a year every now and then I buy soil but I'm good I just clean my worm bin yesterday got the small one to do in a few days or maybe weeks cause the weather off and on..
About how many worms do you have now? Thanks for the video.
Hi Josh. Thanks for sharing your setup and tips. Why do you screen the horse manure before adding it to the bed? PS Is that an Arkansas Hillbilly accent 😉
Barb Longair screening the manure makes it easier for the worms to travel through it. It also gets the big chucks of manure out and makes screening the castings easier in the end. It is a eastern Kentucky hillbilly accent. 😛
If you do happen to harvest cocoons with the castings, will the baby worms be OK in the garden where I apply the vermicomposting?
New Negritude the baby worms will thrive in your garden as long as you practice organic gardening habits like mulching and using compost and other organic amendments.
If I was raising and breeding worms just for worms & not the castings would I still have to change the dirt & bedding. If so how often ?
Tre Outdoors I would recommend changing the bedding at lease once a year. Worms like to migrate into new food material and leave their casting behind. If I was raising worms just for bait I would do the horizontal bed method. That gives the new cocoons time to hatch and all the worms time to migrate to the new side so you don't loss any worms during the clean out process. It also disturbs them the lease so they can continue breeding. If they stay in the same material to long they will stop breading and you won't have a steady supply of new worms to use. If you are not interested in using the casting I'm sure a local gardener would take them or you could possibly sell them online if that would interest you. Sorry for the late reply.
Hi - I have two questions: How deep is the inside of the horizontal bin? I know you mentioned it is 2' x 4', but I was wondering how deep it is. Also, when you start a new bin, from what I understand from your video, you would put 3-4" of aged manure ( I would use alpaca), then continue as if you were feeding them? So after the manure layer, would you put the powdered food, then food scraps, then coffee grounds, then a little more manure, powdered food, more food scraps, coffee, then cover? And would you mix cardboard in with any of it when first starting a bin, or would you just add the ripped cardboard on top and let it go down into it slowly and just keep adding a few handfuls when you feed?
Hey Lisa. If I remember correctly the horizontal bed is 16 inches deep. You are correct on the feeding process. I have recently change my feed layering a little do to fruit fly problems. Now I put down dry food then all the food waste and coffee grounds then cover it with more manure (this makes it harder for the fruit flies to get to the food waste that they want to lay eggs in) then I put down more dry food and cover it with cardboard. I would just top with cardboard and let it work in slowly they actually go through it quite fast.
Got it, thank you, and so noted on the change of feeding layers order. I also forgot to ask, when starting a brand new bin that no worm has ever lived in, I would do just half the bin to start, do that particular order of layers that you talked about, and add no extra moisture, is that correct? Do the food scraps add enough moisture to the whole set-up, even when starting brand new (assuming, of course, that the scraps are relatively juicy)?
I really appreciate your help.
Lisa C when starting a new bed I would put about 3 to 4 inches of damp manure (well aged and screened) in the bottom then start the food layering process from there. Form my experience the food waste provides enough moister as long as the bed isn't in a very dry location and it stays covered with a good layer of dry material to act as a mulch. The best way to describe the right moister content is to keep it like a damp sponge. Not very dry but not dripping wet. I normally dig down into the bedding a couple inch and check the dampness ever so often. But with regular feedings of food waste it usually keeps the perfect moister levels without having to add any water or dry material. If you think about it most food waste from the kitchen like lettuce, melons, bananas and so on are high moister content.
Thank you very much for the clarification. You have been such a great help, and the amount of worms you have and the fact that they stay in their bins shows that you clearly figured things out very well for them. You have VERY happy worms! Happiness is a nice thing for them, plus it helps them make quality castings to make happy plants!
Thank you again for all of your help!
Good work...but do you know the ph level of your composted worm castings?
All of the micro organisms will naturally buffer the pH . That's one of the benefits of the organic approach to gardening 🤓
They look pretty healthy to me.
Josh, I would like your thoughts on this. The guy I bought my African nightcrawlers from says this, and I quote "Do not mix food with bedding, This will cause protein poisoning and kill your worms."
btw, my worm farm is doing okay so far..been about 3 months now.
James Yale that is the first I have heard of protein poisoning from mixing food and bedding. My thoughts are that the bedding and food are gonna mix eventually no matter what u do. I don't have any experience with euros but I have layered my food and bedding together for years and have never had any trouble. From my understanding the euros and reds are very similar in their behavior so I would say the mixing of food and bedding will cause no harm.
I saw you mentioned your vertical worm bin in response to someone's comment. Did you make that yourself also? And can you maybe do a video on that as well? Maybe how it's made, and just all around how it works? I am trying to decide between vertical or horizontal worm bins and am having trouble figuring out which would work better for us. Thank you!
Lisa C as far as my favorite goes I would have to say the horizontal bins are the easiest to maintain and harvest. I will make a video on the vertical bin in the future. We have just moved into a different house and I have had to postpone my worm composting for the time being. I am going to continue making video once we get settled in.
Thank you for the additional information regarding vermicomposting systems. Good luck in your new home!
Nice video! I was wondering if you have any drainage installed in those bins?
TheBushdoctor68 I do not have any type of drainage system in my bins besides the rocks in the bottom of my horizontal migration bin. I keep a eye on my feedings and try to keep the beds from becoming to wet.
Thank you for the quick reply.
I'm working with a combined compost/worm bin outside, so any excess water just drains into the ground, but I noticed that every single commercial worm bin has a drainage system to 'drain the worm juices', and frankly I have always wondered about this. Your setup kind of confirms that most, if not all of the moisture originates from the compost ingredients, not so much from the worms themselves.
TheBushdoctor68 your welcome. Most food scrapes are high moisture. Most commercial worm farms feed mass quantities of food on a schedule and water their beds to insure they are moist all the way through so they usually have more moisture run off. It really doesn't hurt in a commercial or home system but that is just nutrients that your finished castings will not have in the end. The run off usually ends up anaerobic and doesn't have the beneficial bacteria that we are looking for with the worm composting. so it isn't as good as compost tea that has been purposefully made to us for our plants.
TheBushdoctor68 your compost/worm bin sounds like a good idea. I usually inoculant my outdoor compost bins with worms after they have went through their hot stage and are at the temperature that the worms like.
Yes, I can imagine that keeping the worm tea inside the bin has its benefits bacteria wise. Good point indeed. It's true, my bin can get really hot when I turn it, but there's a second bin right next to it where the worms can get away from the heat. That does help, but because the eggs can't get out of the way, my colony doesn't grow as fast as it should. Dutch winters can be tough on them as well so it would be good for me to have a second, more protected colony like yours..
I have a question regarding your vertical migration bin. Do you remove the top layer of dry bedding before adding a new top tray? What is your procedure for adding a new tray? Thank you.
John Graham yes I do. I remove the dry bedding and fill it to the top with aged manure or compost before adding the next tray. After adding the next tray I feed one half of it like normal and add the dry bedding back in that tray. It is almost full now so i will be building and adding the last tray soon. I hope to make a video on the overall set up of that bed when the time comes.
Hey Josh, Thanks for the new video. You harvested the bed at a level of 8". Is the bed level important? i.e. Does the bin run into problems if it gets too high? Thanks again!
John Graham Hey John, that is a great question! As long as the bedding doesn't get to wet and go anaerobic in the bottom u can let it get as deep as u would like. It's depth at harvest all depends on how much u have been feeding them and how much bedding u add. My horizontal migration bed usually is about twice the depth I started with by the time I harvest it. My vertical migration bin or stackable bin on the other hand will be roughly 18 inches deep before the bottom tray is removed and harvested. So basically as long as it has adequate aeration and the right moister level it can be as deep as u want. No matter the depth though the worms will only work in the top 3 to 4 inches of material so it is best to start with a 3 to 4 inch layer of bedding and build from there.
What are your winter time temperatures?
I'm in zone 5, can you keep this going year round, despite the freezing temperatures?
I live in IN as well and just start my bin couple weeks ago. I think of a way to warm them up in winter.
Can I make to grow worms for fishing?
You are the first person I have seen that used manure. Everything else says news paper, dead leaves and cardboard. What made you decide on manure?
Charles Oxendine i can get all the manure I want off of a friend. While getting it for my garden I noticed loads of worms in the good aged manure toward the bottom of his pile. I figured if that is what they like in nature that is what I want to use. I have experimented with paper and coco coir but they both don't seems natural to me and the worms seem to like the manure better.
Thanks for the quick reply. What kind of worms are you farming?
To be honest I don't have a clue. I orders reds when I first started but received reds, Indian blues and several other ones I don't know. Haha. Seems like mostly reds now because the environment I give them is more favorable for red wigglers.
Have you heard of black soldier fly larva farms?
Charles Oxendine yeah I have heard of black soldier flies. I didn't have any experience with them though.
It is easy for me to get horse manure but what do you have to do with it before it can be fed to the worms??
Mark M all u have to do is let it age. Most of the time if u are getting it from a big pile it is already aged. If it is fresh just pile it up and let it compost down. It will smell like good soil and not manure. After that just screen it through a compost screen like the one I showed in this video.
DownToTheRoots what if my aged manure had mixed with some ash? burned leaves? will it be okay for worms??
jessica augustine it will be fine with some ash mixed in. I actually add wood ash to my outdoor compost bins. The ash acts like lime or the calcium in egg shells. It is alkaline and raises and buffers the ph. In the horse manure it will actually help to neutralize the urine that is mixed in. Just make sure the manure bedding and ash are aged well together and u won't have any problems.
How old is the horse manure
Is there a link to how you make the next level for worms?
Parasuniversal.com unfortunately I don't have any videos on making my beds. I actually decided not to make a third layer because of how heavy the trays are when full. If I had 3 layers the top 2 would have to be removed together in order to harvest the bottom. One tray full of damp castings weighs around 50 pounds so 2 would be to much for one person to handle easily on their own. Instead I just feed the bed till the top layer is almost full then I harvest the bottom and put that empty tray on top to continue the process.
You only feed your worms horse manure???
Can I use chicken poop instead of horse manure?
Thank you, you’re a great explainer
What part of bama are you from?
Wade Wilson we are from eastern Kentucky.
@@robinettefamilyfarm3510 gotcha. Could have sworn that was an Alabama accent.
Wade Wilson I have got that several times. Haha
Do you sell starter worms ?
Michael Ripperger I do not at the moment. When I add a few more beds soon I will hopefully be able too.
HI !!, when you say "MANURE" you mean horse poop ?
sergio lojkasek in these bins I used mostly horse manure but I have also used aged goat manure as well. You can use all sorts of manures like chicken, horse, goat, rabbit and so on. It all needs to be aged before using in a worm bin though.
When ever "manure" is mentioned, it is ALWAYS 'animal shit', as Bob mentioned ANY farm animal shit can be used when aged properly, chicken shit especially as it can 'burn' young sapling's if used when too fresh
I have been composting for over 10 years from kitchen scraps, cardboard and newspapers. Once I added fresh chicken manure and all the worms were killed by ammonia. Since then I don't use manure. When you say aged manure, how long takes to become aged for chicken and horse manure?
Great video, very informative thanks a lot.
michael todd thank you so much! I'm glad you liked it!
Kool
what language is this
Ra I English/Hillbilly. Haha
Deeeeep south
Do u sell worms for starters?