favorite food to feed your worm bin?

My red wigglers will be here on tuesday. My bin has been made almost a week ago with leaves I collected in the spring, newspaper, cardboard and my own finished compost. Are many of you organic farmers on RIU feeding your amendments into your bin and just growing with your own VC? Also was curious if anyone gives their worms an SST or just sprouted and blended popcorn?

very lightly putting amendments in there. tablespoon here and there. the worms like anything that gets broken down quickly! anything with higher sugar content that feeds microorganism populations and speeds up decomp is a plus. scraps from the juicer get devoured quickly by organisms, and then the worms. they also LOVE avocado... i don't really know why... but they are always swarming the avocado scraps i put in there, and others report this affinity for avocado as well.

don't understand what the purpose of giving them an SST would be....

Are you only feeding your plants your VC or are you adding amendments to your pots also

VC is not enough to get plants through with a water only garden. amended soils are a must!

Ahhh ... never tried before but i thought there waa aome gardeners out there just re amending VC and letting hee rip again.

Thai_Lights said:

Ahhh ... never tried before but i thought there waa aome gardeners out there just re amending VC and letting hee rip again.

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maybe there are... but the results will not be as great as amending with slow release fertilizers

Once you amend and recycle soil several times you might be able to get away with that if the mix is already fairly rich in NPK and active with microlife. You can topdress with EWC and layer in some fast available N (like chicken manure) to sustain them longer term if needed but even a heavily amended mix cannot sustain plants for multiple grow cycles unless the soil is first very active with microbial life.
I do add a few dry amendments to my worm bin; most go to the soil directly. Worms get fed mostly fruits, veggies, eggshells, coffee grounds, and dried cannabis leaves but sometimes I add:
greensand
Crushed oyster shell flour
Corn meal
Perlite
Coco coir
Spent mushroom substrate

Thanks fellas.

Richard Drysift said:

Once you amend and recycle soil several times you might be able to get away with that if the mix is already fairly rich in NPK and active with microlife. You can topdress with EWC and layer in some fast available N (like chicken manure) to sustain them longer term if needed but even a heavily amended mix cannot sustain plants for multiple grow cycles unless the soil is first very active with microbial life.
I do add a few dry amendments to my worm bin; most go to the soil directly. Worms get fed mostly fruits, veggies, eggshells, coffee grounds, and dried cannabis leaves but sometimes I add:
greensand
Crushed oyster shell flour
Corn meal
Perlite
Coco coir
Spent mushroom substrate

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mushroom substrate you say?!?! are you growing edibles or medicinals? I'm in the mycology club at my university! we have access to the lab and materials and just started some cultivation projects.

Only grow the magical kind. I do a mono tub grow every year. The sub starts to get kind of nasty after 4-5 flushes so once it starts drying out I toss it in the worm bin; it is usually turning blue with trichoderma contams by then...

Richard Drysift said:

Only grow the magical kind. I do a mono tub grow every year. The sub starts to get kind of nasty after 4-5 flushes so once it starts drying out I toss it in the worm bin; it is usually turning blue with trichoderma contams by then...

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that's awesome dude. i hear worms love mushrooms/mycelium... do the devour your substrate rather quickly? i assume you crumble it for them...

Richard Drysift said:

Once you amend and recycle soil several times you might be able to get away with that if the mix is already fairly rich in NPK and active with microlife. You can topdress with EWC and layer in some fast available N (like chicken manure) to sustain them longer term if needed but even a heavily amended mix cannot sustain plants for multiple grow cycles unless the soil is first very active with microbial life.
I do add a few dry amendments to my worm bin; most go to the soil directly. Worms get fed mostly fruits, veggies, eggshells, coffee grounds, and dried cannabis leaves but sometimes I add:
greensand
Crushed oyster shell flour
Corn meal
Perlite
Coco coir
Spent mushroom substrate

Click to expand...

Why are your canna leaves dried before adding to your worm bin? Thank you

elkamino said:

Why are your canna leaves dried before adding to your worm bin? Thank you

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FWIW, I find that fresh leaves take a long time to start breaking down. I keep a piece of panda film over the surface of my bin, those damn fresh leaves last for a week before they even start looking like they've been off the plant more than 5 minutes lol

elkamino said:

Why are your canna leaves dried before adding to your worm bin? Thank you

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So they crumple up easily. Plus the less moisture added into the bin the better. They would consume them wet but I prefer to let them dry out to a crisp before adding to the worm bin. Everything else I feed them is so moist (ie coffee grounds) so I like to add in some nice dry materials like cannabis leaf or paper to give them dry spots to lay on. I also break up recycled egg cartons and shredded junk mail sometimes for the same reason. Worms like to lay on them to dry out & breathe; they love airflow and whatever you can add to create small spaces where tiny air pockets form will make worms happy.

ShLUbY said:

that's awesome dude. i hear worms love mushrooms/mycelium... do the devour your substrate rather quickly? i assume you crumble it for them...

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Yes it breaks down rather quickly & I just crumble it in. I have broken subs up directly into recycling soil before and it disappeared in a few short weeks...

Besides plant trim (leaves, stems, branches, rootballs) I like using dark leafy greens. Kale is a good one. The worms don’t take to it right away but once they do it’s awesome.

The most important thing I do for my worm bin is freeze and purée all the food before giving it to the worms.

I just got my worm farm set up a couple weeks ago. The best is if you can freeze then let it thaw. Heres a batch of homemade coleslaw that I forgot in my truck that the worms are going nuts over!!

Freezing is the best thing to do; helps quickly break down the cell walls. I let it thaw overnight before adding to the worm bin. Keep a bag in the freezer for veg/fruit scraps and coffee grounds. They eat almost anything so you can pretty much tailor their diet to whatever you have on hand.
When it is apple season around here we end up with a ton of fruits nobody eats so the worms get a feast. Fresh hard apples would normally take weeks to decompose and take up a ton of space. By freezing & thawing you can process a lot of solid fruits/veggies ;they break up to a pulp with a shovel. And by then pumpkin season is in full swing lol.
The liquid worm leacheate that oozes from the bottom spigot is like the best stuff ever especially after an apple/pumpkin worm feast. I add it to AACTs or simply dilute it with rainwater; plants love it. "Worm piss" is all that sustains my houseplants and cacti.

Just got my worms today. They came from a city 8 hours away on the bus with freezing temps.... they arent very lively but i see a few moving around... hopefully they make it.

Thai_Lights said:

Just got my worms today. They came from a city 8 hours away on the bus with freezing temps.... they arent very lively but i see a few moving around... hopefully they make it.

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i'm sure there are directions with your worms, but incase there aren't, don't separate them! leave them in the clump if they are all huddled up, they're doing it for warmth. they'll spread out once they acclimate to their new home . good luck!