Ace Spoddity
Member
Hey farmers, I wanted to start a thread on how to make some of the magic happen in your organic dirt grows, with worms. I started my worm farm last year and it took a while to get my population up to where it could handle the waste from a family of four. I started with one# of purchased worms and I have over 10# now. That is a very rough conservative guess. I don't care enough to tighten up the estimate. These are the easiest animals to raise. I started with a rubbermaid 18gal bin and drilled a bunch of small holes in the bottom and sides. Just drill a bunch of holes let's not complicate this too much. You might think the worms will escape but they don't like the dry air outside the bin. Don't buy a bin. Recycle something that will hold at least a gallon of material. Anything opaque will do. 5 gal bucket. water heater tray, old hempy bag, reusable grocery bag,etc. anything that will hold some dirt like substance without drying out too fast. I live in the dry so I have to keep moisture in. If you live in the humid, an open container like a water heater pan is good. Don't use metal or toxic wood like ceder or redwood.
The first pic is my rubbermaid, The second is a water heater pan.
Once you decide on your container and have a bunch of holes drilled in it, you need bedding. Take some newsprint or recycled printer paper or whatever paper you can get for free and run it through a shredder. If you don't have one, borrow one. Stomp down some dried leaves, dried corn husks, any high carbon material. They like it broken down pretty fine but if you don't your worms won't bitch about it. Newspapers are only ok to use because of the colored ink. They don't like it and you will be picking globs of inky paper out of your bin when you harvest. Cardboard works really well if you cut it into pieces and soak it first. Fill your container about 2/3 full of bedding and wet it down until it's all moist but not dripping wet. Now you are ready for worms. Buy them online or get them from a garden center that has them. I hate to admit this but I haven't found a place to get free worms yet. If you have a compost pile in your yard you might be able to get red wigglers from the bottom of the pile. This is important: Earthworms will not work. European nightcrawlers and red wigglers are compost worms. They cannot live in dirt, and earthworms can't live in your bin. I would suggest having a few overripe avocados handy for their first meal. They love them and when they swarm all over the pit they will come into close contact to breed. You want them to be lovin' it up so you get more worms. If your worms can't find each other easily they will not multiply as quickly as they could. Worms are hermies. They breed in the 69 position and then "lay" a cocoon.
This cocoon will darken and in about 20 days 2-4 worms will crawl out.
Harvesting your worm castings.
I dump some or all of the rubbermaid onto the water heater pan and scoop the worm dirt into a pile. Do this outside on a sunny day or inside under strong light. Worms hate light so they will move to the center of the pile.
In the first picture I dumped a bunch of the worm dirt out of the bin and picked out all of the big chunks of food and bedding. in the second picture you can barely see the white bucket that I threw the worm dirt in. If you give the pan a shake the worm dirt falls to the side of the pile and the worms keep moving to the middle of the pile until you have this:
This is about 1/2# of wigglers. Imagine 1/2# of hamburger meat.
The 3 gallon white pail is half full of prime worm dirt and cocoons. If you want you can use this as is or if you are trying to populate, you need to get the cocoons out. Borrow, don't buy, a window screen and put the worm dirt on the screen. Let it dry out for a few days in the dark and sift the dirt through the screen. Or you can let it sit for 20-30 days until those cocoons hatch. Either way works. I sift. For those concerned with yield the picture of the bin was taken after I dumped the worm dirt/worms/cocoons onto the tray.
Feed your worms any vegetable stuff that isn't moldy. Some favorites other than avocado are, squash,eggplant, yams,and fan leaves if there is no spray on them. Some things they don't like are broccoli, cabbage, iceberg lettuce,(too wet). Try stuff that isn't obviously toxic. If they don't like it they wont eat it. Never put dog,cat,or people shit in the bin. Other shit can go in but take it easy and put some carbons(leaves, dry grass, shredded paper, cardboard)in with it. I will put my chicken litter in when I clean out the coop since it has benign(alder,maple) wood shavings and chicken shit. Remember no cedar or redwood or any tropical hardwoods. I don't think Black Locust would be a good choice either.
I think that's all I have now. Let the questioning begin.
If you are in the Vail/Eagle valley and want some worms to get started let me know.
The first pic is my rubbermaid, The second is a water heater pan.
Once you decide on your container and have a bunch of holes drilled in it, you need bedding. Take some newsprint or recycled printer paper or whatever paper you can get for free and run it through a shredder. If you don't have one, borrow one. Stomp down some dried leaves, dried corn husks, any high carbon material. They like it broken down pretty fine but if you don't your worms won't bitch about it. Newspapers are only ok to use because of the colored ink. They don't like it and you will be picking globs of inky paper out of your bin when you harvest. Cardboard works really well if you cut it into pieces and soak it first. Fill your container about 2/3 full of bedding and wet it down until it's all moist but not dripping wet. Now you are ready for worms. Buy them online or get them from a garden center that has them. I hate to admit this but I haven't found a place to get free worms yet. If you have a compost pile in your yard you might be able to get red wigglers from the bottom of the pile. This is important: Earthworms will not work. European nightcrawlers and red wigglers are compost worms. They cannot live in dirt, and earthworms can't live in your bin. I would suggest having a few overripe avocados handy for their first meal. They love them and when they swarm all over the pit they will come into close contact to breed. You want them to be lovin' it up so you get more worms. If your worms can't find each other easily they will not multiply as quickly as they could. Worms are hermies. They breed in the 69 position and then "lay" a cocoon.
This cocoon will darken and in about 20 days 2-4 worms will crawl out.
Harvesting your worm castings.
I dump some or all of the rubbermaid onto the water heater pan and scoop the worm dirt into a pile. Do this outside on a sunny day or inside under strong light. Worms hate light so they will move to the center of the pile.
In the first picture I dumped a bunch of the worm dirt out of the bin and picked out all of the big chunks of food and bedding. in the second picture you can barely see the white bucket that I threw the worm dirt in. If you give the pan a shake the worm dirt falls to the side of the pile and the worms keep moving to the middle of the pile until you have this:
This is about 1/2# of wigglers. Imagine 1/2# of hamburger meat.
The 3 gallon white pail is half full of prime worm dirt and cocoons. If you want you can use this as is or if you are trying to populate, you need to get the cocoons out. Borrow, don't buy, a window screen and put the worm dirt on the screen. Let it dry out for a few days in the dark and sift the dirt through the screen. Or you can let it sit for 20-30 days until those cocoons hatch. Either way works. I sift. For those concerned with yield the picture of the bin was taken after I dumped the worm dirt/worms/cocoons onto the tray.
Feed your worms any vegetable stuff that isn't moldy. Some favorites other than avocado are, squash,eggplant, yams,and fan leaves if there is no spray on them. Some things they don't like are broccoli, cabbage, iceberg lettuce,(too wet). Try stuff that isn't obviously toxic. If they don't like it they wont eat it. Never put dog,cat,or people shit in the bin. Other shit can go in but take it easy and put some carbons(leaves, dry grass, shredded paper, cardboard)in with it. I will put my chicken litter in when I clean out the coop since it has benign(alder,maple) wood shavings and chicken shit. Remember no cedar or redwood or any tropical hardwoods. I don't think Black Locust would be a good choice either.
I think that's all I have now. Let the questioning begin.
If you are in the Vail/Eagle valley and want some worms to get started let me know.
I went to the bait shop and got some, I was told that there were about 12 in the box but when I got home I counted them and I've got 21. I'm quite positive that they are red wigglers (the 3 woms I had before weren't).
