kratos015
Well-Known Member
Got my Biochar and bags of Earthworm Castings in also. Hate to purchase these castings, but they're a hell of a lot better than nothing! Back when I lived in California, I lived down the street from a local worm farm. Used to be able to fill up as many Home Depot buckets as I wanted at $10/bucket with freshly harvested castings. Since I'm in another state now, living in the middle of nowhere, I had to purchase them via Amazon. They certainly aren't the best, but they'll work in a pinch.
I started my worm bins 3 months ago in hopes of having some fresh homemade castings for my soil by the time I'm ready to start mixing it all up. I'm averaging about 10 gallons of castings/vermicompost for every 30 gallon worm bin. Got myself 2 30 gallon bins and started with 3200 worms in total, this was months ago so I couldn't even tell you how many worms there are now
Here's some photos of what I've harvested so far.
My first casting harvest, I sat in my living room for the entire day screening my worm bins to get this. Love the consistency of screening them, but man was it tedious! So my last harvest I didn't screen them as thoroughly.
I have a ton of newspaper scraps in the vermicompost still, I managed to remove most of them, but didn't feel it necessary to sit there for hours screening little bits of newspaper that will just end up decomposing anyway
Still have this bin to harvest, just a matter of finding the time to get it done.
Now I know a lot of people have strong opinions on not using newspaper as a bedding for various reasons, but I've got my reasons for continuing their usage.
For one, the only way I can buy peat moss is when I'm near a Lowes/Home Depot, the closest ones being 90-100 miles away. In fact, the only reason I even have the 4 bales of Peat that I do now is because the city I got my medical card in just so happened to have a Home Depot, so I made sure to pick up as much as my little car could fit
My worm bins have a small layer of shredded newspaper on the bottom, the worms seem to love chilling there when they aren't eating so I've kept going with the newspaper. I put another thin layer of peat on top of the newspaper as well, let the worms have the option of where they want to live. On top of the layer of peat is where they get their food, every so often I'll go outside and grab some finished compost from my piles and dump it straight into the worm bin. The worms seem to be loving my compost so far, they go crazy for it every time I dump some in the bins!
My compost pile isn't any thing too extravagant. Just a pile of peat with some kitchen scraps, cow manure, and weeds I've pulled from my yard. I've amended it with the staples of CC's mix; crab/neem/kelp meals, gypsum, oyster shell flour, basalt, glacial rock dust, and a little bit of Grower's Recharge.
The main reason I continue to use newspaper in my bins is because of the new compost pile I'll be starting. I have a ridiculously sized pile of weeds from my yard, and I haven't even pulled half of the weeds there are to pull! I'm going to have WAY too many weeds for the compost pile that I currently use, so I'm going to start a new one. Plus, with how quickly weeds decompose you want to be cautious about how much you throw in your pile so as to not throw the C:N ratios out of whack.
That's where the newspaper comes in. This new compost pile will just be layers of newspaper from my worm bin and weeds from my yard, all piled on to some cardboard. Newspaper takes quite a while to decompose, so using that in conjunction with my piles of weeds will compliment it quite nicely. Especially since the newspaper has already been worked by the worms, completely saturated/moist from all of the hard work my little worms have been doing.
My wife has been poking fun at me for finally being excited to pull weeds for once! Haha! It's pretty awesome to know that the best quality dirt/soil comes from scraps and trash and the humble little earthworm.
I started my worm bins 3 months ago in hopes of having some fresh homemade castings for my soil by the time I'm ready to start mixing it all up. I'm averaging about 10 gallons of castings/vermicompost for every 30 gallon worm bin. Got myself 2 30 gallon bins and started with 3200 worms in total, this was months ago so I couldn't even tell you how many worms there are now
Here's some photos of what I've harvested so far.
My first casting harvest, I sat in my living room for the entire day screening my worm bins to get this. Love the consistency of screening them, but man was it tedious! So my last harvest I didn't screen them as thoroughly.
I have a ton of newspaper scraps in the vermicompost still, I managed to remove most of them, but didn't feel it necessary to sit there for hours screening little bits of newspaper that will just end up decomposing anyway
Still have this bin to harvest, just a matter of finding the time to get it done.
Now I know a lot of people have strong opinions on not using newspaper as a bedding for various reasons, but I've got my reasons for continuing their usage.
For one, the only way I can buy peat moss is when I'm near a Lowes/Home Depot, the closest ones being 90-100 miles away. In fact, the only reason I even have the 4 bales of Peat that I do now is because the city I got my medical card in just so happened to have a Home Depot, so I made sure to pick up as much as my little car could fit
My worm bins have a small layer of shredded newspaper on the bottom, the worms seem to love chilling there when they aren't eating so I've kept going with the newspaper. I put another thin layer of peat on top of the newspaper as well, let the worms have the option of where they want to live. On top of the layer of peat is where they get their food, every so often I'll go outside and grab some finished compost from my piles and dump it straight into the worm bin. The worms seem to be loving my compost so far, they go crazy for it every time I dump some in the bins!
My compost pile isn't any thing too extravagant. Just a pile of peat with some kitchen scraps, cow manure, and weeds I've pulled from my yard. I've amended it with the staples of CC's mix; crab/neem/kelp meals, gypsum, oyster shell flour, basalt, glacial rock dust, and a little bit of Grower's Recharge.
The main reason I continue to use newspaper in my bins is because of the new compost pile I'll be starting. I have a ridiculously sized pile of weeds from my yard, and I haven't even pulled half of the weeds there are to pull! I'm going to have WAY too many weeds for the compost pile that I currently use, so I'm going to start a new one. Plus, with how quickly weeds decompose you want to be cautious about how much you throw in your pile so as to not throw the C:N ratios out of whack.
That's where the newspaper comes in. This new compost pile will just be layers of newspaper from my worm bin and weeds from my yard, all piled on to some cardboard. Newspaper takes quite a while to decompose, so using that in conjunction with my piles of weeds will compliment it quite nicely. Especially since the newspaper has already been worked by the worms, completely saturated/moist from all of the hard work my little worms have been doing.
My wife has been poking fun at me for finally being excited to pull weeds for once! Haha! It's pretty awesome to know that the best quality dirt/soil comes from scraps and trash and the humble little earthworm.