My worm farm

[hookahhead]

Hello all this is my first post here. I have been a long time member at shroomery, and only recently found this place. I posted this over there but would like to share it with everyone here as well. Sorry that the pictures are linked from another forum, it would be a lot to upload and replace over here.

First a little backstory...My second job is a prep cook at a franchise restaurant on weekends. This provides me a little bit of "fun" money. I won't name the restaurant, but I was honestly excited when I got hired because they present themselves as kinda hip/green whatever and seemed chill. After I got behind the curtain I realized it was just another greedy company using the word organic to sell their overpriced garbage. I began to notice that no one used the recycling bin that was provided. As a high volume pre packaged restaurant, they produce a huge amount of waste. After harassing the general manager on the issue for a few months, they finally started to increase awareness of the recycling bin. I think people decided that it was easier to recycle than listen to the ramblings about the importance of recycling / earth stewardship and the love for mother earth from the hippy in the back. This is a year later, and the recycling bin is still being used heavily While harping on everyone about recycling, I started to notice the food waste that my position produced. I wanted to figure a way to divert this from the landfill, but there is no way I can compost all of this food in an open compost. I live in a fairly nice neighborhood and my neighbors would be quick to call the cops on my rotting mess. Then I remembered reading about worms a few years earlier; that night I was home googling my way through worm forums. Just like any other hobby that starts this way, there are so many conflicting stories as to whats "best" for said organism. Not to mention all kinds of crazy ideas people have come up with. November, 2011 I placed an order for 2 lb of red wiggler composting worms ( Eisenia fetida). I keep them in an attached garage that probably stays 45-80 year round. They do not care for extreme temperatures <32f or >90f. I plan to show you what has worked for me.

These are my worm bins, as you can see I have 3 now. They might possibly be repurposed mono tubs The middle and the left handed one have screen over the vents, however I have found this unnecessary and did not do it for the third one. The lids have landscape cloth glued to the inside edge. I would probably put it on the outside if I make anymore.

There are several (15ish) 3/8 inch holes drilled around the underside of the bin. This allows leachate to drain out. This is NOT worm tea and will go anaerobic fairly quickly. It is excess water that has passed through the bin. In my opinion some leachate is good because it lets you know that your bin is damp enough. However if your bin is producing a decent bit, you are most likely adding to much water in some form. I dump this liquid on my grass as I am sure it does have some nutrients or benefit to it, but avoid using it on my garden / potted plants.

This is what the inside of the bin looks like. The brown paper at the top is just a paper bag. I only have it folded back to show underneath. Worms are photosensitive and this helps keep some light off them. It also helps hold in some moisture close to the surface, worms tend to hang out a little deeper if the top is dry. Remarkably true as all of the sites proclaim, there is little to no smell from a properly maintained bin.

The worms that I raise are often generically called red wiggler worms, or tiger worms due to the yellow banding on the tail. Scientifically they are Eisenia fetida. There are other types that are suitable such as Eisenia hortensis, Eudrillus eugeniae, Perionyx excavates and a few others. All live in similar conditions, but are better adapted to different areas. They are what are considered "leaf litter" feeders and are typically found in the top 12" of soil. Canadian night crawlers are not a correct type of worm to use. They are deep burrowers and do not like to be disturbed, not suited for a enclosed bin. Each bin has enough area to support a population of about 2 pounds of worms. A juvenile is on the left and an adult is on the right. Notice the band near the head on the adult? This is called the clitellum and is how worms mate. They lay facing different directions and line up their clitellum. A mucus forms around both bands and they each transfer sperm.

Both worms will then lay a cocoon, essentially a worm egg. They are lemon shaped and typically a light yellow when first laid, darkening to brown with age. Typically 3-5 worms emerge from each cocoon.

Other Organisms

You will encounter some creatures besides worms in your bin. You are setting up a smorgasbord of fine rotting food here, get friendly with some other decomposers. Some people freak out about these cohabitants, but honestly there is nothing you can do; they will show up eventually. I don't mind them at all, the way I see it is they too are breaking down the organic matter, and speeding up the process I imagine.

Random gnats and flies. These are the most annoying for me honestly, just because they like to fly into eyes, ears, or your nose. I place permethrin (an insecticide :sad:) around my garage windows, they tend to migrate to light after leaving the bin. I also have a fly strip that I occasionally change. This definitely doesn't stop them, but it does help control the population some

Mites will also be a guaranteed resident. They are very small and are the red "bumps" in the following pictures. There are 2 different varieties this reddish brown and white, I have both in my bin. The shear number in population that these guys can reach is astounding. Literally thousands of them. They tend to stay in the top inch or so of the bin, happily munching away.

Some other inhabitants that you will most likely encounter are springtails, potworms, and fungi.

Feeding
As I mentioned earlier I collect food from where I work, usually at least 10 gallon per weekend. This typically consists of tomatoes, onions, lettuce, pineapple, lemons, grapes, strawberries, cucumber, melons... well you get the idea. Things like pineapple and citrus are often advised against for worms due to their high acid content. About every other week I collect 5 gallon of coffee + filters (carbon source!) for a nice nitrogen boost. Meat and dairy should be avoided because they tend to turn rancid, which causes a very foul odor. I also collect about 100 egg shells per weekend. I rinse these in water that is first used to rinse off the vegetables. Once the yolks are rinsed out I bake them with whatever needs to go in the oven to dry them. I crush them by hand and add them to the collected scraps. The only other processing I do is dicing up the tops/rinds of pineapples. I have also found it beneficial to dice up grape stems, they take a while to break down and get clumped up with gunk if not. I get paid a meager wage, but the amount of worm food I can collect is a nice bonus.

I originally tried adding fresh food scraps straight to my bin. What all these worms sites forget to mention is that fruit/veggie scraps contain a very large amount of water. Once it starts breaking down the water is released, turning your bin into an anaerobic mucky mess. A little more reading lead to a solution... a compost tumbler. I built this one based on these plans Tumbler. This has worked marvelously for me. It accomplishes 2 things, it begins the rotting process softening the food waste which makes it easier for worms to dig in. It also releases a large amount of water in the form of leachate as well. This also gets dumped on the grass. This liquid is probably low on the ph scale due to the fairly acidic foods that I add. The egg shells are reported to help buffer the ph. The chemistry behind it is simple calcium carbonate reacts with acid resulting in calcium and CO2, but not sure how readily it plays out in real life. I usually give then tumbler a couple of turns every evening.

I feed my worms once a week and this is usually the only time I open my bin to mess with my worms. The blue bins slide nicely under my tumbler, which allows me to dump straight from the tumbler into the bin. As you can see there is very little plant matter left that is identifiable, but is no where close to being finished compost.

I then add the pre-compost to the top of my bin, spreading it across the entire surface at about 1-1.5 inches deep. This usually takes about 2.5 to 3 gallon.
before

After

Add a bit of torn cardboard as fresh bedding and replace the brown bag cover. Thats it, the worms will quickly move into the new food and begin doing their thing.

I collect "cardboard" to use as bedding and a carbon source in my tumbler. While corrugated cardboard is readily available, we also recycle that and I feel that getting more life out of the paper pulp before it becomes worm poop is a good call. So what I collect is egg crate, drink carriers, and the piece that separates apples in the box. I tear this into smaller pieces. I collect a good many of these as well and can fill a 5 gallon bucket once shredded. This part is tedious but a little :pipesmoke: and a good show helps make the process a little easier. Also the promise of ice-cream often works on children who eagerly tear it to shreds. Of course you could use some type of machine, but lets use less fossil fuels and more child labor!

Once I have fed my worms, it is time to add the collected food scraps and the rest of the cardboard to the tumbler. As you can see there is still a decent bit of material left in it (10 to 15 gallon) this will help inoculate the fresher scraps and provide continuous compost.

While my boss is cool with my hobby, she has made it apparent that I can only collect on the weekends. During the weak the bureaucratic fat cats (corporate and state auditors) tend to dislike anything like this.

Harvest
I harvest the castings about every three months. I typically stop feeding a bin for 2-3 weeks before harvesting. This helps ensure that most of the matter is processed, and it also allows the bin to dry out a little bit. The material in the bin is now mostly nice dark worm castings.

I use a trommel for this. The screen is simply a 5 gallon bucket cut in half, with some 1/4" hardware cloth riveted to the two ends. I cut the notch that previously held the handle out to ensure smooth rotation. The wheels at the front fit right into these groves. The bottom part was built from a wooden pallet and a kid's stroller that was being thrown out. A few pieces of cardboard helps to keeps flying castings directed towards the catch bin.

The material from the bin is loaded into the higher end of the trammel. I like to crumble it a little before adding it. As the screen is spun, the material moves towards the opposite end and falls into a separate bin. A friend spinning the screen while I load makes this go fairly quickly.

After running the entire bin through the trommel I ended up with about a 1/2 bin of material with a large number of worms. This can be split between 2 bins to expand your herd. I do not need another bin at this time though. It could also run though again in a week if I didn't feed the worms again. There is still a good bit of castings mixed in, but is in larger clumps due to moisture or bits of unprocessed material.

Finally the dark crumbly goodness. This contains a fair number of worms. I like to remove them at this point and add them to the 1/2 bin of larger material. Worms are are photosensitive and do their best to avoid light. By now most of them have worked their way deeper into the pile. I then scoop this a handful at a time doing a quick search for stray worms. By taking advantage of their light sensitivity, I clean the top inch or so of the pile, pulling from a different spot for each handful. By the time I get back to the beginning the worms have dug deeper. Since the castings are screened, they are very light and crumbly. It's easier than it sounds to quickly separate most of the worms. You could rescreen this material with a hand screen faster, but it would still miss many of the smaller worms. Plus I like playing in the dirt sometimes :shrug:, it allows me to examine the material and see what didn't break down very well.

This yeilded a very full 5 gallon bucket of castings. I could use my black gold right away, but I like to let it age a bit. Unfortunately, worm cocoons are very small, and fall through with the castings. I allow the bucket to sit for about a month and then sort it again for worms. If you wait to long, the worms will grow up and lay more cocoons. These juveniles, the few worms I inevitably missed, mites, fungi and microorganisms will quickly break down any remaining food.

I hope you enjoyed, thanks for looking!

Edited April 30, 2014 by hookahhead

[Alice]

Nice first post!

Welcome

[IndianDreaming]

Great post! *IndianDreaming heads off to get buckets and worms (mumbling about new hobbies and shaking head)*

[whitewind]

Fantastic post mate, really loved your story about hassling the management too, I love it when that works. That's a really comprehensive rundown on the wormfarms too, I think I might print this story off and give it to the body corporate of the apartments where I live, they are really fussy about what you can and can't do but there is plenty space for a worm farm for food scraps. I really miss my chooks.. do you think worms make as good a pet?

[hookahhead]

I am happy about the interest that this has generated. I love my squirm (worm herd), in a year time I have probably processed at least 300 lbs of food scraps through them. I started with 2 lb of worms, if they have enough space they will double in population about every three months. So theoretically, you can split a bin at harvest time into 2 new bins and continue this exponentially until you have sufficient numbers to meet your needs. In a setup like this, the bins can hold roughly 2 lbs, so I have around 6 lbs total. I have traded off a lb of worms, and split another bin to get a mate started. So the castings are not the only value of the system. I think they make good "pets" they are pretty low maintenance, they can go several weeks if you forget to feed them (which I don't think many of you here would do if your intention is to process a waste stream). They take up little area, make no noise, and are relatively odor free. They can also be incorporated into other sustainable systems as supplemental feed to chickens or tilapia. They also do a fine job at processing horse, cow, rabbit, or goat manures. However, dog and cat feces are advised against.

[whitewind]

Citrus peel isn't great, so I've heard, I strongly suspect a little notice board for info wouldn't go amiss at a communal farm, lest an over-enthusiastic neighbour decides to chuck anything "compostable" in there like grass clippings. Our local council is great at getting rid of green waste (leaves, branches and grass clippings), but food scraps seem to have them foxed. It would be nice to develop worm farming and composting to an industrial scale so that we could have another bin again, this one for food scraps, which could be dealt with offsite instead of going into landfill. Worm castings and juice are great for the soil, though, and anyone who recycles their own waste like this should get a reduction in rates.

Final step: recycling plastics! There was a frightening episode of catalyst (ABC Australia) highlighting the huge quantity of plastics in the ocean, it's killing seabirds off Lord Howe Island which is a protected zone but still prone to air and sea pollution. It's also in our food chain, the discussion about toxins in ocean fish was really disturbing.

[BentoSpawn]

Welcome !

I too do some vermicomposting i have had issues in the past with hot composting attracting snakes into the back yard, so i decided to try some vermicomposting instead. So far its been a pretty strait forward experience and is going sucessfully for the few weeks that i have been doing it (my bin is still in its infancy).

However i am using a different system to yourself, instead i am stacking 4 crates, 3 with holes drilled in them and the bottom with no holes to catch water runoff. The second tub slowly gets filled, then i move onto filling the third, then the forth. By the time the top tub is full the second box from the bottom should be fully vermicomposted, this second box will have only a few worms (as they will mirgrate to higher tube where there is availible fresh food) and will be ready for harvesting. This second box will be emptied, the few worms that are left taken out, then the box now becomes the top layer box, and is slowly filled with excess household green waste again. So the top 3 boxes slowly get cycled around and harvested - this makes life easier come sorting time as the worms will be doing a lot of your work for you.

This is the tutorial i followed to make this system:

Edited September 16, 2012 by BentoSpawn

[Jox]

Welcolm hookahhead,

This is a great topic, worm's are so beneficial.

Just wonder if anyone knows how to farm these

Edited September 11, 2012 by Jox

[waterboy 2.0]

^ hessian sack on the ground , kept moist (not wet) and small amounts of organic matter, not layed out like for composting worms.

Looks like an aussie nightcrawler, an earthworm not a compost worm, but the above will help keep in the area. Its how I keep myself

in good fishin worms, also tiger worms no good for this purpose - but great compsting worms.

Can also be culture in deeper beds made of large building blocks, but its hard to keep them contained in the beds as they "roam"

[Jox]

The photo of that worm does not do it justice, it was dead & only a small one.

It is a Giant earthworm, Digaster longmani, They can get to 2meters long!

I only see them after a lot of rain (weeks), the ground gets so wet they come to the surface so they don't drown.

[BentoSpawn]

Yeah theres a differnce between a composting worm than your back yard variety. A composting worm can eat alot more proportionally to its body size. They also enjoy dwelling just under the surface and not as deep as other worm varietys.

A box of composting worms will set you back about $37 for a box of a thousand, these will multiply to more earthworms than you will know what to do with

The major resriction on the amount if worms you can breed will be limited to how much surface area of composting you have and the amount of food your able to throw at them.

Edited September 11, 2012 by BentoSpawn

[whitewind]

Are they edible?

[IndianDreaming]

'How to eat fried worms' was a book I was quite fond of as a kid I'm pretty sure you can eat worms, but you'll want to cook them to get rid of the germs on them...

[qualia]

excellent, thanks. i saw the utube vid of the guy with the crates and see the reject shop has them for $6 a piece, cheaper than the $45 he says. ima get started,

can anyone say where to get the worms (esp in malbourne)?

[gerbil]

eltham worms.

[BentoSpawn]

Mites are a symptom of the PH in your system, so thus are not a guaranteed resident (in large number anyway)

"pH. Worms can survive in a pH range of 5 to 9 (Edwards, 1998). Most experts feel that

the worms prefer a pH of 7 or slightly higher. Nova Scotia researchers found that the

range of 7.5 to 8.0 was optimum (GEORG, 2004). In general, the pH of worm beds

tends to drop over time. If the food sources are alkaline, the effect is a moderating one,

tending to neutral or slightly alkaline. If the food source or bedding is acidic (coffee

grounds, peat moss) than the pH of the beds can drop well below 7. This can be a

problem in terms of the development of pests such as mites. The pH can be adjusted

upwards by adding calcium carbonate. In the rare case where they need to be adjusted

downwards, acidic bedding such as peat moss can be introduced into the mix. "

This quote comes from this awesome manual which is a must read if your really keen on having a highly productive worm bin - http://www.organicagcentre.ca/DOCs/Vermiculture_FarmersManual_gm.pdf

[hookahhead]

Thanks for the information, I have not come across that yet. A few people have mentioned the stacked bins. These are often touted as an easier solution because of worms natural tendency to move upwards towards food. I have found these systems don't quite work as advertised. The bottom bin typically becomes a wet mucky mess. Also while the worms do move up towards the food, there are many that are still happy to inhabit the various levels of the system. There is a system called a flow through, which is by far the best design. I hope to be slapping one of these together soon and will take a photo log of the process to share when I do. Love you all

[Sallubrious]

I've tried the stacked bin type, but it has never worked properly for me either. I use bathtubs which have their own set of problems but I get a lot more compost out of them than any stacked bin setup I've seen.

My mother uses a Worm Swag and it pumps out more compost than my bathtub setup, it is one of the easiest systems to manage and harvest that I've ever seen. In the US they have one called The Worm Inn. Both these systems are based on the flow through principle.

The digestive table is another home made flow through design for the DIY type.

[BentoSpawn]

Good info guys Thanks. I have heard about the flow through design and it comes highly recommended, sadly i only read about this after making my stacking bin system.

I think ill keep running my current system and see how it turns out for me and sometime down the track when i have more worms than i know what to do with ill try also running a flow though system along side the stacking bin system.

Look forward to hearing about your experiments and results hookahhead keep us posted !

[hookahhead]

I have been worm composting a little over a year now, and made a previous post about my worm farm here.

However after doing further reading I am lead to believe that a flow through design worm bin provides a few benefits over the bin method. I received a free 96 gallon tote to turn into a worm bin. The rods going across the bottom are pvc and have deck screws drilled into them. The idea is to be able to turn the rods and spin the castings into the bottom of the bin where they should be easy to collect. I have a hinged cover with landscaping cloth covering it to allow airflow. I plan to add magnets to keep the cover shut tightly. The worms will travel to the top of the bin after a few months and the bottom will be nothing but finished castings. This design is said to allow better airflow to help avoid the sogginess that is common with the plastic bins.

I harvested all three bins this week using the method described in my previous post. I yielded about 15 gallon of worm castings total. The unfinished material is great starting material and was loaded with worms for the new tote. I covered the bottom with several layers of news paper and then added the contents of the first bin into the larger tote.

Added the second.

Added the third bin. Unfortunately, the picture of the tote with just the bin contents didn't turn out. I had to use my crappy camera phone because I couldn't find my real one. I then added a significant amount of shredded cardboard to the top.

I am not even able to take a guess at the amount of worms I added. It would be similar to guessing jelly beans in a jar. However I have picked worms out for trade before and know that I can typically get a pound of worms from 5 gallon of material. I probably moved 35-45 gallon worth of material into the large tote. Which gives me approximately 7-8 pounds of worms which seems about right. Each handful was loaded with tons of worms. This setup will hopefully eliminate some of the work involved harvesting the castings.

Edited April 30, 2014 by hookahhead

[CβL]

Really amazing work there man - so many possible excuses, but you didn't take any of them. Well done for that, and the end result!

I just started composting about 5-6 weeks ago, in a shaded area that gets 2-3 hours of sun a day. I turned the pile today, and I found very few worms - so the information on the worms preferred pH was useful.

[hookahhead]

Rise from the dead, my long and forgotten thread....

I'm working on getting the pictures uploaded here finally!

[briliant_botanist]

Absolutely amazing first post man! you have inspired me to head down a similar path to my own wormery lol!

[Darklight]

Wow- I hadn't seen this thread- nice one OP and thanks for the compost tumbler design, I'mma use that

Have had major probs with above ground worm farms being in the wrong spot and cooking it's denizens with sudden temp changes so I gave it a miss for a few years

I don't produce much kitchen waste and have a compost bin that tends to attract possums and other veggie garden enemies. So I got one of these while I'm in the learning phase:

http://www.edencreekworms.com.au/products.html#wormtower

Yes it's a food grade pipe with a lid and holes in it, but there's like two hundred holes so it's still cheaper to buy it than DIY

Has been great learning opportunity to get me used to vermiculture- adding food to it every week has been an easy way to keep the worms breeding in the garden bed area, they move in and out depending on the weather and food. You can scrape the worm castings out every few months.

Apparently they are designed to be moved around, but I won't bother. Has been easier for me to keep it where it is and move the worms and the castings as required. I'd like another six, but they aren't a priority so I won't be going there for a while

It isn't big enough for all my food scraps, and some stuff shouldn't go in there so I'm eyeing off that tumbler design for sure

Best thing about the unit for me is temps are self regulating below ground, and the unit is really easy care

Garden soil in that bed area has gone from meh to pretty damn good within 6 months

[Optimystic]

yeah nice thread ... i've been worm farming since July 9 but already it seems like forever...

I ended up with a mix of Eisenia Fetidae and Perionyx Excavatus (Blue Worms) they are usually stretched out longer and move quite fast... and can be quite jumpy when first putting in a bin.. the first day I had hundreds of them crawling on the lid.. if i hadn't put it on they would have got away but since then I use a light and they stay put and no reason to use the lid anymore I think its better for them to get air anyways... alot of ppl complain about them but I recommend them for warmer climates.. the reds look lazy and slow down when its warm but they just keep on munching.. the drawback for the blue worms is they can't handle cool temps ... anything below 45F/7.2 C, i've read will zap them

i started with 3,000 worms approx and well it maybe too much for the bin but they sure have been eating alot ... I use alot of castings and they can be pricey so I figured why not? a little work up front but pretty much low maintenance and they make up for it by taking care of the scraps.. they love rotting tomatoes and mushy pumpkin , tea bags whatever .. epsecially sweet things and I top wth alot of leaves and then newspaper on top and so I don't have to spritz with water all that much

I didn't even think about baking eggshells! lol the first round I was literally peeling the crap out of the eggs and when I got done I was thinken SCREW THIS ... so I started lightly rubbing out the internal egg skin stuff and then just sun baking but probably most effiicent to just toss them on a cookie sheet in the oven... I just keep a bunch of finely powdered shells around and throw in a sprinkle here and there or mix it with some of the frozen scrap goo that I feed'em... they always go for the freshly rotting stuff first tho especially fruits... i've even been throwing in a shit ton of pereskiopsis leaves in there from when I do grafts... finally a good use for them and they help a little with moisture... (someday im gonna try making a pereskiopsis recipe with the leaves lol)

anyways worm farming is HIGHLY recommended for anyone who eats and who has alot of plants... theres at least one farmer with some guinness records who says the key is compost tea... he doesn't say worm tea specifically but thats what its best for eh

 

Edited August 31, 2014 by Spine Collector