Earthworm castings

beebud

beebud

Well-Known Member
Never bought ewc before so not sure how it stacks against my home brew ewc. It's basically chicken poo and table scraps that feed the worms.
The bud looks good so far. Haven't added a thing until last week. Put 1 1/2 tbsp of Gaia green bloom to each plant.
Think I could have went with nothing but seen a little yellowing on one plant so they got a feeding.
Original mix was Roots Organic soil with bottom half a mix of Roots and ewc (about 50/50).
 

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McShnutz

McShnutz

Well-Known Member
Homemade castings all the way!
I've used store bought casting in the past and they were mediocre at best. Had a massive fungus gnats invasion I'd assume from the castings that were store bought.
Since I built my own farms, I have complete control over input material and all my casting have BTi and probiotics in them as I spray all the food scraps. I haven't seen a fungus outbreak for quite a long time now.
My microbial loop is vast, healthy and complete. I don't spray my plants for any form of IPM anymore. SAR is very high and I attribute that directly from my castings.
 
Nizza

Nizza

Well-Known Member
McShnutz said:
Homemade castings all the way!
I've used store bought casting in the past and they were mediocre at best. Had a massive fungus gnats invasion I'd assume from the castings that were store bought.
Since I built my own farms, I have complete control over input material and all my casting have BTi and probiotics in them as I spray all the food scraps. I haven't seen a fungus outbreak for quite a long time now.
My microbial loop is vast, healthy and complete. I don't spray my plants for any form of IPM anymore. SAR is very high and I attribute that directly from my castings.
Click to expand...
could you go into detail your regime of feeding your worms?

I've got the wormbin 360, and I don't know if I'm using it correctly but my worms all seem happy. Little to no juice coming out of the bottom but everything is being composted at the bottom bin and ive been rotating them down. Each bin I start with some re-used coco coir about 1/3 -1/2 full, a little stone dust and perlite mixed in. I then add stuff like aloe vera extract powder, coconut water extract, cornmeal feed with added micro's, and food scraps like avacado's, bananas, lettuce, strawberries, watermelon, coffee grounds(lots) , egg shells, pasta, bread, and I try to compensate the wet additives with an equal amount of shredded newspaper/cardboard

Once the bin at the bottom looks like soil, i throw it into this 5 gallon bucket I have. So far I have one 5 gallon bucket and I plan on screening it and adding anything that doesnt go thru the screen back into the top bin.

My main goal is to waste less of the food I eat and benefit this year outside with the worm castings that are produced. I also just picked up some Diastic Barley Malt powder to add in there as well. I am only scratching the surface with understanding how to harvest worm castings and am a try-it-then-learn type of person so I am just doing what I can to keep them happy. Everything I've read about EWC is a you get what you put in type thing. I'm pretty damn excited to see the results!

I think I got a spider mite infestation on my plants due to my worm bin. Is there things you do that make sure things like spider mites arent brooding in your worm bin?
 
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McShnutz

McShnutz

Well-Known Member
Nizza said:
could you go into detail your regime of feeding your worms?

I've got the wormbin 360, and I don't know if I'm using it correctly but my worms all seem happy. Little to no juice coming out of the bottom but everything is being composted at the bottom bin and ive been rotating them down. Each bin I start with some re-used coco coir about 1/3 -1/2 full, a little stone dust and perlite mixed in. I then add stuff like aloe vera extract powder, coconut water extract, cornmeal feed with added micro's, and food scraps like avacado's, bananas, lettuce, strawberries, watermelon, coffee grounds(lots) , egg shells, pasta, bread, and I try to compensate the wet additives with an equal amount of shredded newspaper/cardboard

Once the bin at the bottom looks like soil, i throw it into this 5 gallon bucket I have. So far I have one 5 gallon bucket and I plan on screening it and adding anything that doesnt go thru the screen back into the top bin.

My main goal is to waste less of the food I eat and benefit this year outside with the worm castings that are produced. I also just picked up some Diastic Barley Malt powder to add in there as well. I am only scratching the surface with understanding how to harvest worm castings and am a try-it-then-learn type of person so I am just doing what I can to keep them happy. Everything I've read about EWC is a you get what you put in type thing. I'm pretty damn excited to see the results!

I think I got a spider mite infestation on my plants due to my worm bin. Is there things you do that make sure things like spider mites arent brooding in your worm bin?
Click to expand...
As far as the input material, your doing everything right. I feed 99% of everything you mentioned your worms get. Instead of malted barley powder, I give the steeped grains in milled form. I brew beer so I always have a shit ton of it. What the worms don't get, the compost tumblers will. And the Aloe I grow and the worm will get some gel but mostly it's the rind after fileting. I don't think they like the Aloe as much as I hoped.
Avocado they go absolutely crazy for.

I don't get alot of lechate tho and I feel like that because I too also use coco pith as bedding. I like to use straw and Timothy hay too but it has to be very finely Chopped. I fill half of a 55 gallon steel drum and use the gas powered weed Wacker.

The regimen for feeding tho, that depends on how fast the food is being eaten. The more worms you have the faster food disappears. But like I said before, the worms definitely have their preferences and some food scrapes take longer than others to break down and get gooey so the CAN eat it.

One way around that variable is to "pre chew" all those scraps. LoL, not literally.
Bokashi composter is what I mean. All my fresh kitchen scraps and leftovers from the refrigerator that are no longer good to eat all go into the bokashi bucket. It doesn't actually turn into compost but rather a soft, semi broken down form that's fermented. It still retains all of its nutritive values despite the mass amount of lechate. I save that lechate and use it in my outdoor gardens, lawn or run it down the drains in the house. It does a great job at eliminating gunk inside the drain pipes and helps deodorize too.
But the worms seem to like it quite alot and it disappears quickly.

The spider mites thing tho, that's concerning. I have never had spider mites in my farms, but I do have a high population of orbatid mite. They are beneficial helpers and don't hurt the worms in any way, however I do have to keep their populations in check. They seem to prefer certain foods that are acidic and bokashi is very acidic straight out of the composter. Once it's added to the farms it will fuzz over with fungi extremely fast and become more alkaline, that's when the worms go for it. But I've also noticed a particular predatory mite, Hypoaspis Miles which a soil born/ dwelling mite.

I've never purchased beneficial mites in any form, they just show up. I have purchased beneficial nematodes and a modified organism called
Bacillus Thuringiensis Israelensis. I'll mix them into a spray bottle and use that to mist the surface of the bedding. It really helps to eliminate any future generations of fungus gnats. I still have the adults that I can't really do anything about, but they're never going to get far, the mites get them and any eggs that have been laid the BTi will kill in larval stage.

It's my understanding that spider mites go specifically for living plants, not decomposing organic material. I have heard of worm farms being attacked by spider mites but to the best of my knowledge, it's not common. The key to any healthy productive system is to have your desired organisms overpopulate and dominate, this way it's that much harder for the undesired to even take hold.
 
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