lets talk worms! Bins, castings, techniques etc

MustangStudFarm

Well-Known Member
Nice thread! Funny how when you all said you were from Ok now when i read your notes i hear southern accents. Lots of interesting stuff especially for a city boy like me. i don't want to interrupt the thread so don't consider this an interruption, but i've all but given up on worms because i keep killing them.

Maybe i should modify the bin and try a very small batch of worms. I tried adjusting heat, less water, more water, nothing worked. they commit suicide starting from day 1 but continue to do so weeks later. I want to use used indoor soil and also do it inside the house/basement. Home made bins. I add aeration and newspaper but is it wrong to use too much soil? And I hope to seal things somehow so they cannot escape. one thing they do is drop through the drain holes and then climb up the sides and out the tiny space between the bins, dropping to their death on the floor. so i sure know they don't like it in there but of course any basement bin is going to be less preferable than the wonderful worm farm they came from. So my answer would be to firmly imprison them and not to let them escape. i spent way too much time picking them out of the lower bin and putting them back in the upper one. eventually they escape or i guess they die.

maybe i should try smaller bins that don't flex. what about clear bins? since they are light phobic wouldn't they then stay away from the clear walls of the bins? also i could see what's going on inside thru clear bins. shit i may just try this clear bin thing. and i think indoor bin is more picky than outdoor :(
Have you added any kind of rock dust, because I suspect a Ph issue. You can tell if you have low Ph if you have potworms in your bin, they look like baby reds but they look more clear. They might not show up in indoor bins, I'm not too familiar with indoor. If you don't have any oyster shell flour, you can use egg shells. After you use the eggs, you can bake them and it makes it easier to crush. I was using a mortar and pestle. If you have money to spend I would use azomite, greensand, and basalt. A lot of people swear by glacial rock dust, but it's a different color every time that I see it. Last time that I got GRD it looked exactly like basalt, black. The times that I got it before it was green or tan. I'm suggesting these rock dusts because they contain more minerals than the other rock dusts and they will work as a soil conditioner improving soil structure... Adding cardboard as a top dressing helps too, it will give your worms someplace to run to w/o having to leave the bin. Plus, they breed like crazy in cardboard.

Enchytraeids(potworms) sure sign that the Ph is too low.
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raggyb

Well-Known Member
Have you added any kind of rock dust, because I suspect a Ph issue. You can tell if you have low Ph if you have potworms in your bin, they look like baby reds but they look more clear. They might not show up in indoor bins, I'm not too familiar with indoor. If you don't have any oyster shell flour, you can use egg shells. After you use the eggs, you can bake them and it makes it easier to crush. I was using a mortar and pestle. If you have money to spend I would use azomite, greensand, and basalt. A lot of people swear by glacial rock dust, but it's a different color every time that I see it. Last time that I got GRD it looked exactly like basalt, black. The times that I got it before it was green or tan. I'm suggesting these rock dusts because they contain more minerals than the other rock dusts and they will work as a soil conditioner improving soil structure... Adding cardboard as a top dressing helps too, it will give your worms someplace to run to w/o having to leave the bin. Plus, they breed like crazy in cardboard.

Enchytraeids(potworms) sure sign that the Ph is too low.
View attachment 4695016
thanks. i didn't see those pot worms. I thought I was adding pretty good stuff. I added egg shells that I grilled in dry pan and crushed and ground. i added greensand sometimes. tried shredded paper on top and sometimes carboard to cover. do you mean shredded cardboard? i added lots of nice veggie scraps, strawberries, beet shreds from juicer. no onion no garlic no citris. idk why but they just weren't happy. maybe it was too much soil but i don't get that. worms live in soil. many instructions say just start with mostly paper but i didn't do that. i put a light above to scare them down but it didn't work. maybe i'll try clear bins? no drain holes so they can't crawl out? put them in a cooler place that gets down to 50 in winter? but i don't want to attract mice that maybe would eat worms.
 

Deadhead13

Well-Known Member
I got my 2nd bin made but didn’t find a single worm in the wild. I’ve got the bedding in and will buy some wigglers next week from the local bait shop.
 

GreenestBasterd

Well-Known Member
I use a small 3 bin method and two tower style worm farms that are done over a year.

Mainly fed yard clippings, kitchen scraps, chicken manure and anything else they’d eat and about every 2 weeks a handful of kelp, neem, barley and rock dusts.( occasionally some manure if I see it for sale on the side of the road). I also add the slurry from the compost tea brewer bag.

Each summer I have a good 3/4 to a full bin of it use and two full trays from the towers.

I don’t produce huge amounts but the quality is way better than anything I have managed to buy.
 

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