Worm Man's Worm Farm

Archive for the ‘Vermicomposting and Worm Business’ Category

I receive emails every week asking about different types of poop and which is best for castings which will be used in a vegetable garden.

The best poop for worm composting are horse manure, cow manure, and rabbit manure.  If you have access to the manure listed above then you are in luck.   The manure should be mixed 50/50 with peat moss.  Horse and cow manure should be moistened and allowed to heat first so that it does not heat in the worm bed.  Moistening it and allowing it to sit for a week should do it.  Then mix 50/50 with peat and let it sit again for a couple of days to ensure the peat does not activate heating in the worm bed.

Rabbit manure can be used fresh from the bunny.  Just make sure it hasn’t been soaking in urine first. If so, then wash out with water first before top feeding your worm bed.

Dog poop, cat poop and human poop should not be used. The poop listed can contain pathogens which are harmful to people.  If you later use the castings on vegetables you may be poisoning yourself and your family.  Dog, cat and Human poop also may contain heavy metals which will build up in the soil  after continuous composting.

Chicken manure can be composting and used as worm food but only after being watered and left to cook.  Cooking chicken manure means allowing it to age and degrade so that the acids wash out.

Chicken manure can be composted well if you use Black Solider Fly Larva.  If you decide to compost with Black Soldier Fly Larvae you can use the chicken manure fresh.  This is the only time fresh chicken poop should be used.
We take the chicken poop and mix it with straw and peat and wet down the pile. We stir the pile every three days and keep it moist.  When the straw snaps when bent then the mixture is ready for the worms.

Horse and Cow poop can be used after a short period of aging unless the animals have recently been wormed or given antibiotics. Do not use manure from treated animals for a week after treating the animal.  If you use the manure you risk passing the drugs to your worms which could kill them.

Worms turn poop into gold for gardeners.

That’s the poop on poop. Any questions?  LOL!

I get many questions about how often to water worm beds during throughout the year.

1. If you have a bed that has good drainage then I suggest watering daily if it isn’t raining
2. If it is cold and the ground is frozen I would only water weekly when the ground is not frozen. If you fed and watered your bed prior to the first freeze then leave the worms alone. They are fine.

3. Worm bins are a different story. Plastic bins or bins with poor drainage should not be watered until until they dry out a bit. If the bedding is damp but not wet and you can’t squeeze out a couple drops out of the worm bedding then it is time to water your worms.

If you are using big beds and want to grow commercially then watering daily is important for optimal growth.

It is getting warm outside and it is breeding season for flies. It is always breeding season for flies but it is super-breeding season for flies right now. Every type of nasty fly and gnat is attracted to your compost pile.

This is one of the worst parts of composting with worms. The flies lay eggs in the food you placed in the compost bin or bed and more flies are born.

A very simple remedy is to bury the food. Place the scraps a couple of inches beneath the bedding and use a new location each time you add more scraps. The flies can’t burrow and need to touch the food to lay eggs in it. This will mean more food for your worms and many fewer flies.

Over the past several weeks we’ve experienced a deep freeze like we have not experienced in 20 years.  It has been very cold and this is threatening our worm beds.  We’ve taken some emergency measures that have brought us through the deep freeze so far. I just wanted to share it with all of you because you may be experiencing the same thing.

We have many outdoor worm beds that are approximately 100 feet long each.  We dig the beds so that we have a portion of the bed beneath the freeze line her in New Jersey.  We do this so that the worms can retreat during a deep freeze, ball up together and stay warm until the beds thaw.  We usually spray the beds with water prior to the first freeze. We do that to allow the top layer to freeze forming a hard cover of ice which allows the bed beneath the ice to remain protected.  It will take very cold weather to freeze the layer beneath the ice shield.  We’ll we received that very cold weather and I began to fear for the worm cocoon, baby worms and breeders.

I decided to heat the beds naturally. We did this by doing something we would never do during warm weather. We allowed our green manures to mix and heat in the worm beds. I took bales of straw and soaked them until they were mushy. It took two days.  I also gathered up all of the horse and rabbit manure we could get. We ued the fresh stuff.

We usually mix the manure and straw together, wet it down and heat and then only use the mixture after it is through the heating process. We do this to protect the worms.  For our warming project we dug trenches down the center of the worm beds and put a layer of straw down (don’t use hay or you may have hay growing in your worm beds when the weather warms), we put a layer of manure down and then a layer of shredded newspaper and mealworm frass from our mealworm beds.  This is a powder from the bran we use to fed our mealworms. It is rich in nitrogen and heats when wet quickly.  We created three levels by alternating the ingredients listed.  Then we watered the beds with water brought to the beds in buckets because the hoses froze.

We covered the beds with landscaping fabric and secured it.  Two days later we had temps of 80 degrees in the center of our beds and the worms were swarming like they do in spring.  We’ve added manure and straw weekly to extend the heating.  a month has gone by now and the center of the bed is still reading 60 degrees. The outer edges are cold and frozen in spots but the center remains warm and healthy.  The weather is supposed to warm into the 30′s and 40′s this week which is normal for this time of the year so we will scale back on the heating measures and we will watch the weather closely.

The good news is that the worms look great and untouched by the killer cold snap here.  The bad news is that we have to keep a close eye now. We had eggs hatch and we have a swarm of babies that we usually only get during spring and in our indoor beds.  If a freeze catches us unaware the baby worms may be killed.  We will have to continue warming the beds through spring now.  I had thought to use soil warming cables but decided to try a natural method instead.

I’ll let you know how this effects our spring harvest which is a majorly important part of our business. 

How do you keep your beds warm?  Any ideas?

I’ve compiled a list of facts based upon questions that I receive from people that stop in.

1.  How long until baby red worms become breeders?

Baby worms mature in about 4 to 6 weeks and live for about a year.   This means that you will have mature breeders about 6 weeks after your red worms hatch from the capsule.  You can see how this would exponentially grow your worm population.  The time frame and life expectancy is based upon a proper environment.

2. How many worms can come from 1000 worms?

We’ve heard all kinds of estimates about how many worms will come from 1000 worm and we get questions all the time from people worried that their worm population will explode and spill out of their compost bins.  This will never happen unless you want it to.  The carrying capacity of the bin will dictate the amount of worms your bin will sustain.  More food and space will mean more worms.  If you take 1000  red worms and move the breeders to a new bin every month it is possible to end up with roughly 1 million worms in about 2 years.  This is an estimate based on the very best worm husbandry procedures.    In a normally maintained bin with food added weekly you will never grow 1000 worms exponentially unless you move the breeders to fresh bins every month and care for the bins containing the babies.

3.  Can I use regular dirt from outside for my worm bin?

You cannot use regular dirt from outside for your red worm composting bin.  Red worms require a good bedding made from shredded paper, cardboard , peat moss or coconut fiber.  The food should be manure of food scraps.  The best bedding is a mixture of all of the items listed.  The bedding must be light weight and not compacted so that the worms can move around.  The bedding must also be able to have air flow so that anaerobic activity does not take over the bed.  Common dirt will not allow for any of this and your worms will soon die.  This is why red worms are not good for lawns and gardens on their own but their castings are fantastic.  A handful of dirt in the worm bin will help your red worms digest the food you provide so a little dirt won’t hurt.

That’s it for now.

Have some fun facts or questions?  Post them here or send them to me and I’ll add them here.  Thanks!

Ken

Protect New Worm Beds From Moles.

Moles are a problem with outdoor worm beds.

Image via Wikipedia

A worm bed that is not protected will eventually fall prey to moles who tunnel around the worm bed eating worms.  Mole proofing your worm bed prior to filling it with bedding and worms will be much easier than trying to deal with moles after they are feasting on your worms.  This is a list of things that you can do to mole proof your worm bed prior to filling it with bedding and worms.  A future post will deal with eradicating moles from worm beds after the fact.

• Moles go under and not over worm bed walls. They will burrow beneath the walls of the worm bed and enter where they will tunnel and eat.
• You will know that you have moles if you see tunnels and paths.  If you cover the bed the moles will tunnel between the cover and then bedding leaving a path.

Here are some inexpensive proactive things that will save headaches later.

1. Use professional landscaping fabric on the bottoms of the bed.  Bring it up around the walls and nail or tack it on the outside of the bed so the moles can’t tunnel in. They will not get through professional landscaping fabric.
2. Place a bed of gravel on the ground where your bed will be and then place landscaping fabric or hardware cloth over the stones.  You will never have a mole problem if you use stones and then a second barrier of landscaping fabric or hardware cloth.
3. Place the bed wall on a solid floor of concrete.  The moles cannot penetrate a solid surface like concrete.  Plywood and tar can also be used.  Concrete is best and it’s easy to clean. If you are serious about worm farming then this is your best bet.