What do you feed your worms anywhyz?

No real update, more a bump...
Starting to get worm juice out of the bottom. got about a cup and throw it in my tea that I was starting. The tea had a full head the next morning!!! Tonight the ladies get a sample. I read that you can pour water through the bin to get a tea, has anybody tried this. Sounds like you'd just be leaching the castings to me.

Yeah i was thinking the same thing as leaching. If you think about it you are leaching it and will end up with weaker castings in the end inmo.

I don't know remember how they were doing it for sure, seemed like maybe just pouring a cup or two for a starter. Just seemed wrong to me, so I didn't pay too much too it. But I guess if your bin is big you wouldn't leach too much, maybe. But ya, gotta' be weaker castings in the end.

I never knew how much "worm juice" a bin gives off. My outside bin is piped right to my pecan trees, MAN they are eating good from what I can tell. My inside five gallon bin is making allmost 1/3-cup a day, and it's just started "cooking".

Anybody, How can I store this "juice"? Would it keep, like in the fridge, or can I just bottle it and put it on the shelve. I don't plan on keeping it for anymore then a week at a time.

I used to collect all the dead and dieing flowers during Spring, Summer and Fall not only from my garden but from the local greenhouses too. Usually they are all too willing to let you clean up the massive mess from 200+ Hibiscus in bloom and so on. This makes for excellent PK geared juice. The idea of sepperate bins worked well for me. I plan on doing it again and keeping it this time. Good vermi thread too - reminded me of a few more things I need to get done by Spring.

J.

Good call Pyrex...

My Magnolia tree makes a huge mess. I've been putting them flowers to the curb because of being just so much (like 3-4 trashbags in full swing, every week). Been wanting to cut it down 'cus of the work it makes. Might just have too use some in the bins.

Hi ‘wormies’,... hey Jackson I think you're spot on with the leaching claim,...

as for the liquid ew juices collected from the bin, the company that I got a few of my ideas from, bottles all of about 2 million litres a year . But not before they dilute it with spring water and then sell it in various sized containers ranging from 1/2 to 1000 litre bottles, drums and pallacons.

I pour mine into (2 litre) fruit juice bottles and keep them in a cupboard away from UV light. I think that is the golden rule here,... keep the stuff away from sunlight. I'll have to give them a call to find out what the life expectancy is.
They do ship the stuff all around the world so you would think it to last awhile. I’ve seen it stacked on pallets, inside a shed for months at a time waiting for transit.



Bulk Liquid Vermicast

ADVANTAGES
1 – NASAA Certified 100% Organic
2 – Superior soil conditioner, and plant growth stimulant
3 – An excellent biological foliar spray to enhance leaf life
4 – Promotes the release of “locked up” minerals including phosphate
5 - Aids in the recovery of nematode - damaged plants
6 – Can be used on anything
7 – Suitable for all soil types



Typical Analysis
Total Nitrogen (N) .06%
Potassium (K) .04%
Phosphorus (P) .0001%
Calcium .01%
Sodium .05%
Zinc .0005%
Iron .0001%
Magnesium .003%
pH Neutral



My small bottles fail drastically in significance to these bulk containers!

Energy drinks... For the ladies

Energy drinks... For the ladies

So Smurf You think 50/50 diluted would work? I'll be using it as I go in my tea. But for that matter how much undiluted should I use per gallon?

When I added about 1/4 cup per the ph in my tea went right to 7.0-7.1 usually it's 6.4-6.5 after 48 hours, 7.2 after 72 hours. So I took a reading of the juice it's self, 7.4 is what it said. Good and bad, no room to add ash but maybe there's enough P/K in the juice already from using ash in the bin.

I know, I know, who cares about PH in organics. Well I do, aleast untill I get a good tea recipe going. I think this one I'm using now is almost there, one or two more goes with a little less ACV and no "Fruit worm" juice so it'll only have to brew 48 hours, and it'll be good for veggin'.

But isn't most of this just another thread starter, I'll stop ramblin' now...

Peace... Love... Always

J_S

one thing is for sure, the stuff reeks!!!

I innoculated my soil mix with the stuff.....whhhoooeee!

G’day Jackson, I’m with you on trying to maintain a respectable pH. I understand there are plenty of IC members that don’t bother because they have it down pat, or have been feeding the same nutes/teas year after year with good results so therefore don’t need to check the pH of their liquid solutions. That said, in theory, if every thing is done properly, the ew castings (& liquid) should end up neutral pH, especially as worms don’t like an acidic environment.

I’m a bit of a stickler myself, plus I like to vary my plants’ diet as much as I can, just to learn what my limitations are, not to mention all the mistakes along the way. I enjoy the trial and error stage of a grow,.... well, not so much the errors, but I think you know what I mean. It’s just another learning curve for me.

The only thing I would suggest is to check the EC value of your liquid ew castings, as I’ve found mine to be extremely high. The commercial product (above) measures at about 0.3 EC, and that is the neat stuff straight from the drum, which they recommend diluting it at a further 40 – 60:1.

The liquid castings I collected last Nov. registered off my meter. When mixed @ 4:1 with rain water (pH 6.8 -7.0) it measured way over 3.6 EC, and then diluted a further 24 parts to drop the EC to a respectable level of 1.1EC (pH7.1 @ total 28:1 dilution), which is still nearly 4 times higher than the commercial product.

The liquid castings I collected this month (Feb) only required a total dilution rate of 20:1 to get the same results, so I would definitely suggest checking the EC values of each batch.

The only difference between the two liquid castings (IMHO) was the amount of greens (N) that I fed them in the Nov. batch, as it was twice as much as the latter, with everything else being the same.

Damm,..... I’m wrecked at the moment so I hope this makes sense to you!..... and you think you were rambling

Have a lovely weekend wormies
smurf

Sqeezin's

Sqeezin's

Well about forty-eight day into my "fruit skins" bin. All seems to be doing great. I would say it's half done, aleast. Covering with a few layers of news print has helped keep them critters happy and more active on the top. No signs of bad air flow, just like smurf said. They're diet of fruit skins only seems to suit them just fine. I haven't had no trouble with moisture or anything. The worms LOVE Apple skins, I will see worms so full of them they look all white like a grub or something. So mainly all I've been giving them are Apple, Potato skins with some dried seaweed. I tried some citrus skins to no avail, they just don't like them, unlike what I've read. If the bin was bigger or a outside open range style, the micros would take care of them I'm sure. With this small bin I don't want any "hot" spots because of maybe over heating the whole bin.

Ya, smurf ended up with two gallon of juice at 500ppm (.1EC, my meter anyways) with a little left over for my pecan trees. I must of gave the ladies a big ol' shot the first time. I put like 2/3 cup of "undeluted juice" into a three gallon batch of tea, had a full head twelve hours later. No signs of a burn though, they have had a water only feed since and got a tea sunday night. This time I only added two TBS per gallon of the deluted stuff, didn't foam up as fast but smelled super duper after fourty-eight. Forgot to check the ppm of the tea, never though about it before. I guess it might be a good idea, I could be over/under feeding without even knowing. I'll have to look around for some numbers, but starting with the next feed I'm going with 750ppm (1.5EC) untill I know better...

The juices have slowed down, maybe I just gave them too much food when I had too leave for that trip. I thought there for a few days that I would make so much that I wouldn't need any castings. I am going to try a floral spray, with the run off, for sure, waste not what not ya know...


I've only had to add the ashes that one time so far. The treat mix seems to be keeping the PH in check 7.2 and holding.

Just today collected 2 litres of worm farm juice, it had been dripping for a while, a layer of mold on the top which I just spooned off.

In fear of any strange contamination before use, I capped the jug and put it in the freezer, in hopes it would kill any contaminants in the juice if frozen, comments on this please I'm not sure if this will do good or bad.

I mostly did it because of the amount of bugs flying around this bin, and the juice, larvae in the stuff etc.

=bbc=
I was hoping someone would chime in here. Here's my opinion, Freezing may not kill off bug eggs or contaminants. If I could I think I would cook the juice instead. Using the side burner on my outdoor grill, in a old pot, heat to 160F and hold for aleast 15 minutes. Man it's gonna stink if you try this and I don't know if it would be worth it. Just thinking about the smell it'll make is making me wanna "ralph".

Someone I hope knows more about this then me. 'Cus I would end up just chuckin' it, I think, before cooking it.

The Japanese flash freeze their raw fish for sushi to make sure their is no nasty bacteria.

I don't think freezing will kill off the bugs, just makes them dormant and they kick off again when they warm up - but then again, there shouldn't really be any obnoxious stuff in there so long as you don't feed meat or stuff that would attract pathogen carrying insects - I imagine that freezing would kill off beneficial fungus and bacteria as well. If your worm bin stinks it is usually a sign that the mix is too wet/too rich/too much waste at once - i try and fluff it up and mix in hay or newspaper to get it a bit more aerobic if that happens and add some lime and grit to the mix to help them eat quicker. In terms of leaching - I find they make loads more juice in warmer weather as the bedding "sweats" and drains out more; I tried adding water to increase the amount but they hated it.

The way I see it if you cook it then you will sterilise it and you want as many microrganisms in there as you can get as they are the ones that are going to release the nutrients from the worm castings and soil amendments

jolene

You can allways make more good micros after killing off all the bad stuff. Lots of bad things can be in that juice if it wasn't getting any O because of the mold film. Some mold can be quite evil, I read about it making folks sick, just breathing the spores. I still say throw it out, way away from the house, at that...

A great food for worms is a bag of CornMeal! Very good for them as well as for you!

The wife killed the bin while I was out of town and haven't restarted because of moving.

Bringing all the wormer's back out - lets go to the Worming 101 sticky

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=1628961#post1628961