Worm Castings or Regular Compost?

[happyhi]

Do worm casting make a better ACT than regular compost?

 

[jaykush]

it really depends on the quality of the compost not which type.

 

[barletta]

Other than looking at my castings through a micro scope, is there something (or a bunch of things) that will make homemade castings more microbially active? I keep them inside, ~65deg; and feed them mostly coffee grinds, banana peels and crushed eggshells.

 

[Senor_Bueno]

Hey barletta I bet your worm population is huge by now.

I know I f-ed up my worm farm once. Wifey and I were making lots of home made fruit juices and giving the pulp to the worms. To much acid killed them.
I think u are doing fine with what u got goin but learn from my mistake and keep an eye on PH. Microbes are also picking with PH

 

[jaykush]

barletta if you make homemade castings, i am more than sure they are biologically active and theres no worries. one thing i can say is just add diversity of materials, the more different materials you add, the more different nutrients those materials had, and then you get a diversity of micro organisms to break down those diverse materials. you get happy worms, quality castings and its a win win situation.

 

[ourcee]

so whats the fastest way to increase your worm population? I've got two bins and am looking at starting a whole bunch more. should I just toss a handful of started castings/worms into the new bins and just let them go for a couple months each?

 

[maryjohn]

Hey barletta I bet your worm population is huge by now.

I know I f-ed up my worm farm once. Wifey and I were making lots of home made fruit juices and giving the pulp to the worms. To much acid killed them.
I think u are doing fine with what u got goin but learn from my mistake and keep an eye on PH. Microbes are also picking with PH

that's odd. I've been feeding nothing but bokashi for over a month and they are having a party. The ph on this stuff is in the 3's I think. The only change since adding bokashi to my bins is I keep catching them in flagrante delicto.

 

[jaykush]

so whats the fastest way to increase your worm population?

patience....once the population gets big they multiply pretty fast from my experience. microbeman probably knows more on really large amounts.

I've got two bins and am looking at starting a whole bunch more. should I just toss a handful of started castings/worms into the new bins and just let them go for a couple months each?

i would personally wait until the first batch of castings is done. then I bait them in mesh bags with fresh food/bedding for a day or so they all go in and i split them there, half goes back into the same bin but with fresh bedding material, the other half goes into a new bin. when those are done you can split both into 4, then next into 8, and 16....you get my point, if you want to go that far, or you can just upgrade there living space to a bigger container.

 

[Senor_Bueno]

Maryjohn. can u fill me in on what bokashi is?

 

[Some1here]

Maryjohn. can u fill me in on what bokashi is?

Google is your friend

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source...aq=8&aqi=g6g-s1g3&oq=boka&fp=1c443ffcb5a5cce1

 

[barletta]

Thanks fer the info, all I started the worm bin sort of on accident, as I was getting to the end of a nice compost pile, and I realized how many worms were in the last ~30 gallons of compost. The pile was treated with lacto bactilli ~3mo before I got to the bottom. The worms do get the occasional grow scraps, but prolly 95% of the food they eat is coffee/bananas/eggshells and I throw a LIL screened compost (new pile has not been treated, but contains compost from the last pile, so????) in every month or so. Worms don't wanna eat the cabbage scraps for some reason?

Bueno - Fukk yeah! hundreds of worms in each bukkit. I split my big bukkit into 2 smaller ones, and stopped feeding the one. I topdressed today, actually. Coffee can of castings, ~6oz ea of biotone and Pguano

ourcee - Seems to me that coffee and kelp make for active/fat worms

 

[Microbeman]

Jay has a point that larger populations increase more rapidly. This is not just because every worm is a sex partner to every other worm but there also seems to be something which triggers them to reproduce faster when the population is dense (to a point). So I recommend letting them get quite populated before you split them. Other things that seem to encourage propagation are powdered egg shells (don't ask me why) and cardboard (some think they are stimulated by the glue; glue sniffing horny worms> giggle) BTW it is not the pH from fruit byproducts that harms worms but the citrus. Hi nitrates also has a negative impact. I fed my worms too much alfalfa once and they were melting and crawling out everywhere.

 

[jaykush]

ever since i added biochar powder to my bins reproduction seems faster. maybe its the high carbon content they like?

egg shells are a must, it helps to have your own chickens too, lots of eggs daily

 

[happyhi]

thanks for all the great feedback. How do you keep the fruit fly population down?

 

[jaykush]

don't overfeed your bins, specially fruit or sweet materials.

 

[beejium]

many early attempts to set up worm bins (not with growing in mind at the time)
i often times overfed and that caused 3 things to happen:
1. flys and random bugs start showing up
2. worms ran out the bedding. hell they were cutting them self in pieces to get past the lid and holes.
3. a terrible foul smelling green bin in the basement that contained spoiled dirt.

 

[maryjohn]

thanks for all the great feedback. How do you keep the fruit fly population down?

keep a little bin in the freezer, and freeze everything before adding to the bin. especially bananas.

 

[happyhi]

How do you know if you have too much food in the tray? i have a round stacking worm
bin that one of my friends at the garden store sold me who i like to support.
She got me 1k worms along with it. They filled the first tray with mostly castings, so per the instructions i placed the second tray on top and filled it with shredded paper, egg crate,apple and pear core,coffee grinds and egg shells. the worms are crawling up but i ended up with fruit flies so i covered everything with a thin layer of wet shredded newspaper, now i'm worried there is too much stuff in there, how do you tell.
thanks, peace/hh

 

[happyhi]

keep a little bin in the freezer, and freeze everything before adding to the bin. especially bananas.

great tip, thanks
hh

 

[beejium]

when it's too soggy to maintain the life you are after. it happens most when people aren't using trays, and just dumping on one corner. i guess i never thought or heard to use a feeding dish/tray, which would allow better control of the worm bedding. that being the case any extreme(talking about food) like freezing should reduce the "bad bug" population. as far as trays in which i have never used but will employ soon... you could always start with small amounts, just a little on the bottom of the tray at first and just watch to see when it's empty. after that point should be able adjust the food with no fear of spoiling the soil. also the top layer of the worm substrate can dry out a little and the worms will just follow the moisture.