The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Your 55 Gallon Worm Bin
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- Опубліковано 18 лис 2023
- 55 Gallon Worm Compost Bin- Look at the wormery
/ @plantobsessed
This bin was made from cutting a 55 gallon food grade barrel in half long ways and screwing the open ends together to make a 6 foot long bin.
To see the previous video click here • 55 Gallon Compost Worm...
The bin lives in the cellar of my 200-year-old house. In the winter the furnace dries it out, and in the wet season the moisture leaching through the bricks makes the basement very humid. The current set up was started near the first of the year 2021 after the wormpocolypse. A rat was in the basement and all the bins had to be moved to totes and buckets with lids on to protect them. When the rat was ended, I added 4 or more of the in-progress bins/ buckets with the compost mix of red, blue and European nightcrawlers in them to fill the big blue bin. I continued to add ground leaves and food. Currently the bin is undergoing a refresh. I am harvesting the castings as the top of the bin dries and adding new bedding and food. Keeping the moisture even in the bin is difficult in the wet summer. I flip or fluff the bin to keep the air in the bedding. Back to the wedge method starting now.
I am an Amazon affiliate. The items below are the Amazon affiliate links for the items I use in my wormery. I have read and recommend these books. The cost is the same to you, but the channel will get a small commission if purchases are made using the links.
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I grew cucumbers this year but was out of town for a month so hubby was in charge during peak harvest. There were more than he could eat so I told him to put extras in the freezer so I could make a cucumber drink when I got back. Well, the cucumbers he saved were too big and bitter. So, I pulverized them, drained them a bit and they are now worm food. They love them!
I bet they love them as much as pumpkin. Win win!! 🪱😃👍🏼
Lilly and Rosebud want momma to snuggle😂❤
Happy babies happy Ann!❤
Yep.
Yes!! Glad you uploaded today. I’ve been rewatching all your old videos to fall asleep to. I have severe anxiety and find your videos soothing. Thanks for the new content ❤
I'm so glad my videos have multi-purpose uses. I hope you get some good sleep.😁👍🏼🪱😴
That's what I do too!
@@VegVampire it’s the best lol. Keeps me from lying awake thinking about what happened in middle school 20 years ago. I’ll wake up to feed my baby and the videos will still be playing 🤣
I use it for sleep too. I learn so much.
Your videos are changing my vermicompost system for the better- my worms thank you! I started in a can-o- worms from a yard sale- never used for $25. My first try was total failure. My next attempt worked well enough that there are now two rubbermaid tubs, three 15 gal fabric planters-one 5gal fabric planter and I just restarted the can-o-worms. My hubby made goat feeders out of halved 55 gallon drums but the goats ended up using them as beds-It wasted a lot of hay. Thanks to you and Blue those feeders are being recycled into worm bins that stack vertically-so now the worm farm can expand without completely taking over our heated shop!
The worms like to take over my space too. Lol 🪱👍🏼😊
I remember all the food scraps you used to get from Cece!! That should be fun to see how they do with all those dry foods she gave you. Always entertaining to see you manage Blue and find massive worm balls!! I used to grow all kinds of stuff my family didn't eat...now I keep it to what they eat😂🤣😂So I guess that's how it affects me. Another excellent video Anne!!
Thank you. I'm trying to learn brassicas. We love them but I'm still working out the kinks to get them to grow here.👍🏼🪱😃
Ann, you are 100000% Right about that Lime, Onion, also Lemon, Orange, Tomato,
Pineapple etc., etc.
All the acidity foods they say to NEVER feed to worms. This MYTH has to GO!!
I'm happy you keep talking about it .
I have 9 Rubbermaid bins full of Red Wigglers. They love all that stuff to.
My grit is Powdered Oyster Shell and Egg Shells when I have any. I mixed in the blender.
I do sprinkle a bit more grit on those kinda foods. Don't ask me why ..🤷🤷♀ I just do 🤣😂
I raise my worms like I did with kids. This is what I made for you to eat.
You don't get anything else tell you finish what you have !!! 🤣😂🤣😉
Exactly. Eat your cardboard box I shredded and rotten food and like it. 😁👍🏼🪱
This year I learned I love winter squash... I hated it as a kid and grew a couple of varieties this year. Next year I'll have 6 at least. Also I grew Jerusalem Artichokes and I appreciate them as well. Doubling my garden space and planning on. Freezing or canning extra next year. Also I interplanted wild flowers with my vegetables and loved the cottage garden esthetic. It also meant that I had a lot less pests.
I have always loved acorn squash. I grew candy roasters this year. They are like a 2 foot by 8 inch torpedo shape. Lol they are a bit hard to store. I'll definitely do more butternut next year. I just got into adding wild flowers. I imagine next year will be a hot mess until I get the hang of it.🪱😊👍🏼
@@PlantObsessed yeah my garden looked lush but a bit chaotic but so productive.
I also suggest that you check the moisture with those dry grains because they can really suck up a ton of moisture.
I was thinking that too. I'm not sure the bedding was wet enough to mitigate the dry rice. Thank you for the reminder.👍🏼😊🪱
You harvest your castings quick. 🙂
I'm always learning to get better every time. 😊🪱👍🏼
We want Pug cuteness to go along with the sound effects! We should date the fruit pits so we know how long they take. I swear I have 3 year old cherry pits in a bin! I wonder if a wick system would keep your bin more moist in furnace season? Boat shops sell plugs for mariners to do emergency hull repairs. One of those might work. Aunt Cece just keeps giving and giving!
~ Sandra
I will have to check that out. I have a few people at work who have boats. No pugs in the dirt floor basement, they tend to eat anything on the ground. I'll look into the wick system. Thank you for the ideas 🪱😃👍🏼
I have a large tote for my worm farm I started this spring and trying to start the wedge method with. They are going though a gallon bag of frozen fruit and veg. in two weeks now.
Good worms!!👍🏼🪱😁
What the forbidden foods do is make your castings acidic, if you're putting in large amounts. I feed lots of tomatoes, if the PH is high i neutralize. Thanks for another great video.
Thank you 😊👍🏼🪱
Another great video,
also thank you for getting me into Vermicomposting.
I'm glad you find it useful. 🪱👍🏼😁
Good explanation of what it means when the worms are found balling up. It's a bit of a bummer when they're doing it in response to something they dislike... but it's fun when they're just busy enjoying the yummy foods that they have been fed :)
Yeah, the ANC were freaking out last month. We had a few little earthquakes in Illinois last week. I was afraid the worms would be all over. They didn't seem to mind.😃👍🏼🪱
I would imagine that a few tremors are relatively minor when compared to the disruptions we regularly cause when we're upturning our systems and handling the wormies :)
Blue works amazing! Question for you, I found a small gecko in my worm bin today, I have other small critters in there. Will the gecko eat red wigglers? If you have had any.
I'm too far north for geckos. I did have pet lizards when I was young. They did eat crickets and worms. 🪱👍🏼🤔
So beautiful land for planting
I can't remember what I did before worm castings. They are awesome. 👍🏼😃🪱
I have a 30 gallon tote , but I'm trying to figure out how many worms I can put in there during the winter. Help...😊
I bet it can hold two or three pounds. They won't like it forever. If I was going to start a bin that size I would go with 1 pound and let them multiply. Building up the microbes in the ecosystem is just as important as the worms. They won't eat as much until they grow. 👍🏼😃🪱
Love the puggy complaints 😍
I bet if people listen in ear bugs they can hear poodi clear as a bell. Lol 🐾👍🏼😃
I don’t know if this has been addressed here, but does anyone else use a Big Blue? What do you use for a stand to support it?
There are a few other viewers that have this set up. Other only use half the barrel long similar to my ENC. I have a 2 foot wide 3 foot tall brick wall on my basement that blue sits on. The support to keep him from rolling off is more bricks and the massive weight of the bin. The ENC have industrial garage shelves rated at 1, 500 pounds. I bought them at a big box store for about 80$ 👍🏼😊🪱
Aunt CeeCee I hope she is doing well
Yes she is 👍🏼🪱😃
I am happy for her tell her I asked after when you are next in touch
I do miss hearing her name
What size mesh screen are you using here in this video to sift the castings? There's so many on the amazon links, I dont know which one to get. These will just be going to a raised bed garden and seed starting.
If you go to my community tab there is a link to the 1/4 inch screen I use.😀🪱👍🏼
Can you tell me the best way to get shredded cardboard? Buy a shredder or get from somewhere? Thanks! New to this idea and considering starting soon.
This is my amazon link to the shredder i use Aurora 18 sheet shredder amzn.to/3uFTqGV
Pepper question. When was your first frost this year?
We had a killing frost mid October. 👍🏼🌶️😢
@@PlantObsessed about the same here, I'll start my hot peppers soon like you.
Sorry, but I totally disagree. I'm totally impatient, and if I could have one system, this would be it.
Once it's "churning," it produces the best, easiest to harvest castings, with the least amount of work of any system out there imo ;)
20 minutes per 5-10 lbs of castings = winning
Cheers 🌱👍👍👍👍👍
It's great now. For sure. 🪱👍🏼😁
What on earth are you talking about? 😂💙💙💙
I don't know I'm just babbling about my worm babies 🪱👍🏼😁
@@PlantObsessed 😄👌
Hi Ann! When you mentioned ‘curing the castings’ during the dry down what did you mean? Thanks! 🪱🪱
To me the curing means it dries down and becomes a stable homogeneous texture. 👍🏼🪱😃
@@PlantObsessed Got it! Thanks for the clarification ❤️🪱🪱
Heard the pugs missing out on the worm fun. The worms in blue always seem very happy no matter what food you feed to them. I recently purchased a food mill and used when processing the tomatoes. It worked great, I put everything that didn’t go through into my bokashi bucket. 😁🪱
I used to have a hand operated mill. Now I use the attachment for my KitchenAid. It's a game changer.😃🪱👍🏼
I use shredded paper from the office in my bigger bins it amazing how they push all the plastic parts to the top of the bins 🇳🇿🪱
It's funny how smart they are. 🪱👍🏼😃