An absolute superfood for worms is malted barley. Bought from any brew your own beer shop. Those cracked seeds are loaded with enzymes. Smash em up in a blender right before feeding it to the worms. I tried it and a few days later my worms were pole vaulting!! Overall vigor and reproduction went into overdrive.
@@GardensofNewEngland Not at all. I broadcast it thinly, just on the surface under whatever new food scraps I'm adding. I try not to pile up the barely.
There's a lot right about what is described in this video, but not necessarily for the assumed reasons. 1. That's very good that the enormous amount of food being fed the worms is stacked to one side of the bin and the other side is pure worm bedding and worms. But this isn't for the reason described in the video. It's interesting that the owner of this bin has enough experience to notice the heat that's generated when partially or uncomposed material is attacked by aerobic bacteria, heat is a byproduct of aerobic bacterial activity. But, it's the other by product of any aerobic organism including humans, that oxygen is being consumed and carbon dioxide is exhaled. This is the real danger of large amounts of food, that aerobic bacteria is consuming all the oxygen causing worms to suffocate if they have no way to find oxygen. By stacking the food, thw worms have their own side of the bin without food and plenty of oxygen so are happy. 2. The screen that's used might be useful starting a new bin but once worms have enough bedding or castings the screen isn't necessary. You can simply dig a hole on one side of the bin or a corner and bury your food scraps in the hole. 3. Adding additional food of any type (browns in the video) is like adding extra bedding. As long as it decomposes slowly, you won't have an aerobic bacteria and worm suffocation problem. But, if one of your objectives is to produce pure vermicompost, you'll have a lot of undecomposed leaves in your compost. 4. Bokashi is an anaerobic process as noted in the video. If you want to make the food more digestible to your worms, breaking down the food by any means including fermentation, blending, grinding, etc can be helpful but you should do that relative to what your worms can eat in a day or so. Best practice is to provide food that will decompose at different rates unless you want to tend to your worms daily. I feed my worms a variety of foods that will decompose up to several weeks and leave my worms alone for that long. Don't feed your worms all bokashi unless you want to feed your worms again in a few days... Or, the food may also go anaerobic which is bad. BTW - Because the Bokashi fermentation process is anaerobic, the process comes to a sudden halt when exposed to air, and then the dead anaerobic microbes in turn become food for aerobic bacteria and worms, whichever gets to them first. 5. You can manage the conditions of your worm bin however you wish, but keep in mind that worms are cold blooded which means they're more active in warmer temperatures. That's why I try to keep my bins as warm as possible but below 90 degrees F which is when worms will die. Keep n mind the termperature of your bin and the bedding is not usually going to be the same as ambient temperature. But if your bin gets cold (down to close to freezing), worms can generally survive cold temperatures and if they actually die their cocoons will almost certainly survive. If the bin temperature approaches any extreme, use a thermometer to know for sure. Glad to see a successful bin!
Tony. thank you!!! What a thorough explanation. You taught me about aerobic bacteria and the risk of having them finish all the available oxygen! Never heard of that and it makes perfect sense! One more reason to make sure airflow is good. Love how much you shared with us! Thank YOU!
do you need to be careful what you put in the Bokahsi if you are going to then put it in a worm farm? I've heard chilies and certain seeds can be quite toxic to worms. will these be OK after the Bokahsi process?
Mark, I compost everything! I do not separate onions or peppers or pineapple peels. Everything is processed. The key, I find, is limiting the area where you feed, making sure worms have plenty of room to roam free from direct contact with bokashi. Also, add plenty of eggshells.
Yeah, I would start with regular food scraps, maybe freezing them to kill off fly eggs, and eventually experiment with bokashi--if you have an indoor bin this is the way to go! As long as you add small amounts with lots of egg shells and the worms have plenty of areas without bokashi, you are fine. Carbon to nitrogen ratio or bedding to food ratio (70/30) is the key!
Do you put a lid on the bin and if so, is it solid or do you also drill holes into it for aeration? (And great video series btw! Love the divider idea and using bokashi)
Thank you Moses!! I do have a lid on top with small holes on them, but that's because that what I did years ago. I would not drill holes on my lids these days. You don't really need them if you have holes on the sides. If you take your worms outside, you would have to cover the bin to prevent rain from going through the top if you have holes on it.
@@GardensofNewEngland That's great to know! Most DIY's include holes on top but rarely do we get follow up videos to how it turns out. Good to know you don't need it!
I have, but ash wont be as good of a source of grit as egg shells. It however will take care of the acitity. Also, wood ash is very powerful alkaline so you need to be careful otherwise your vemicompost will not have a neutral ph.
Yeah, that would work, specially if you have large pieces of biochar, similar to wood chips. I add biochar to the wood chips too. It is a great filtration system on its own.
If the outside is humid, worms might want to venture out, specially if inside the bin the temperature is too hot due to food scraps heating up. I would try to make sure the inside of your bin is nice and cool and that worms have proper conditions, including a lot of carbon material as bedding--leaves or cardboard work well. Carbon ratio is 50 carbon per 1: food scraps. You might also have a species of worm that likes to move around. I hear some tropical species like to move around more than temperate climate worms, like red wrigglers. Another idea, is to encase your bin inside a second bin--if you are not already doing that. However, more often is the temperature. Try putting an ice pack inside and see if they continue to try to get out.
Iwona, are the wood chips in a container, like a catching system where they can go back into the main bin? My worms do go back and forth. It is a matter of comfort and food. Sometimes the main bin gets too hot or too acidic and they move into the wood chips. So long as the conditions are ok, they should go back in eventually. Some worm species tend to go deeper than others. The main thing is to keep temperature and acidity levels within normal range. Make sure the carbon material or bedding is a lot more abundant than food scraps. 50:1 is the ideal ratio but that can be pushed. Check out my video on How to Maximize Worm Population. I go into the different variables more in depth. ua-cam.com/video/rZKG1V75iVI/v-deo.html Also, create areas within the main bin where there are no food scraps so that they have cooler areas to hang around away from food. I hope that helps!
We save them. You do not need to add them all the time, just when you add a lot of food scraps. In a household of 3 we usually have quite a bit more than we need. You can ask relatives to save them for you too. Last year I added a bit of sand I collected at the beach to add different minerals and serve as grit for the worms instead of eggshells.
I have a can under my sink just for collecting eggshells. When it's full, I bake them in the oven. I do this because I also feed them back to my hens, and it prevents them from become egg eaters, but it also makes them more brittle. That makes it easy to crush the shells. I put them in a paper grocery sack, fold the bags closed and walk on the bag with shoes on.
It is an old video that needs updating! I am working on the next one. The inoculating is with King Stropharia Mushroom; but that part is not important. The key is managing acidity, the egg shells, and limiting the area where you are feeding.
Not at all! However, you want to collect leaves in the fall and store them somewhere dry. I would not just randomly collect leave litter. In a plastic garbage bags, leaves will dry and you can have very nice dry bedding material for the entire year.
Grace, Slugs are usually not a problem coexisting with worms. I personally have not had issues with them. I would suggest creating an island with some salt water. You put a wider bin with some salt water in the base, you put a block or some type of foundation for your top bin, and you make sure no part of the top bin touches with any adjacent surface. This should keep the slugs out. Also, you want an overhang cover, like a piece of wood or plastic lid to make sure your bottom tray does not overflow when it rains. However, this would be to keep the slugs out, you have to first deal with the ones inside your bin. For that, I would spread out the content on a tarp and hand pick them. You might need to do this a couple of times until you break their reproductive cycle. The good news is that the island will also keep ants and other crawlers out of your bins.
i only feed fish waste as i have a koi pond. worm loves fish waste more than anything else. i put coffee ground and fish waste apart, guess what! all worms went to fish waste first !!! and they grow significantly faster with fish waste
@@GardensofNewEngland i have a drum filter. so i can collect solid waste easily!! but i believe muck on the bottom of the fish pond works just same as solid waste collected by my drum filter. you know bottom mucks are essentially fish waste, algae, beneficial bacteria, all kinds of nematodes, and other micro organisms.
@@elsonsti Yeah, that what I was thinking! It is all microbial life which is the main thing worms eat! Pretty cool!! Thanks for sharing, it is my first time hearing about fish manure being used to feed worms. Thank you!!
Buddy this is one of the best videos I've seen about bokashi and worm composting. You got some game and thank you for sharing it
Thank you Gary!!! Glad you enjoyed it. I am thinking about doing an update. Let me know if you have any questions.
An absolute superfood for worms is malted barley. Bought from any brew your own beer shop. Those cracked seeds are loaded with enzymes. Smash em up in a blender right before feeding it to the worms. I tried it and a few days later my worms were pole vaulting!! Overall vigor and reproduction went into overdrive.
wow!!! Awesome! Does the grain heats up?
@@GardensofNewEngland
Not at all. I broadcast it thinly, just on the surface under whatever new food scraps I'm adding. I try not to pile up the barely.
@@robk5865 Thank you!!
There's a lot right about what is described in this video, but not necessarily for the assumed reasons.
1. That's very good that the enormous amount of food being fed the worms is stacked to one side of the bin and the other side is pure worm bedding and worms. But this isn't for the reason described in the video. It's interesting that the owner of this bin has enough experience to notice the heat that's generated when partially or uncomposed material is attacked by aerobic bacteria, heat is a byproduct of aerobic bacterial activity. But, it's the other by product of any aerobic organism including humans, that oxygen is being consumed and carbon dioxide is exhaled. This is the real danger of large amounts of food, that aerobic bacteria is consuming all the oxygen causing worms to suffocate if they have no way to find oxygen. By stacking the food, thw worms have their own side of the bin without food and plenty of oxygen so are happy.
2. The screen that's used might be useful starting a new bin but once worms have enough bedding or castings the screen isn't necessary. You can simply dig a hole on one side of the bin or a corner and bury your food scraps in the hole.
3. Adding additional food of any type (browns in the video) is like adding extra bedding. As long as it decomposes slowly, you won't have an aerobic bacteria and worm suffocation problem. But, if one of your objectives is to produce pure vermicompost, you'll have a lot of undecomposed leaves in your compost.
4. Bokashi is an anaerobic process as noted in the video. If you want to make the food more digestible to your worms, breaking down the food by any means including fermentation, blending, grinding, etc can be helpful but you should do that relative to what your worms can eat in a day or so. Best practice is to provide food that will decompose at different rates unless you want to tend to your worms daily. I feed my worms a variety of foods that will decompose up to several weeks and leave my worms alone for that long. Don't feed your worms all bokashi unless you want to feed your worms again in a few days... Or, the food may also go anaerobic which is bad. BTW - Because the Bokashi fermentation process is anaerobic, the process comes to a sudden halt when exposed to air, and then the dead anaerobic microbes in turn become food for aerobic bacteria and worms, whichever gets to them first.
5. You can manage the conditions of your worm bin however you wish, but keep in mind that worms are cold blooded which means they're more active in warmer temperatures. That's why I try to keep my bins as warm as possible but below 90 degrees F which is when worms will die. Keep n mind the termperature of your bin and the bedding is not usually going to be the same as ambient temperature. But if your bin gets cold (down to close to freezing), worms can generally survive cold temperatures and if they actually die their cocoons will almost certainly survive. If the bin temperature approaches any extreme, use a thermometer to know for sure.
Glad to see a successful bin!
Tony. thank you!!! What a thorough explanation. You taught me about aerobic bacteria and the risk of having them finish all the available oxygen! Never heard of that and it makes perfect sense! One more reason to make sure airflow is good. Love how much you shared with us! Thank YOU!
do you need to be careful what you put in the Bokahsi if you are going to then put it in a worm farm? I've heard chilies and certain seeds can be quite toxic to worms. will these be OK after the Bokahsi process?
Mark, I compost everything! I do not separate onions or peppers or pineapple peels. Everything is processed. The key, I find, is limiting the area where you feed, making sure worms have plenty of room to roam free from direct contact with bokashi. Also, add plenty of eggshells.
New guy your channel, great information! I'm a little bit scared to feed my worms that type of product. But it seems like your successful great job!
Yeah, I would start with regular food scraps, maybe freezing them to kill off fly eggs, and eventually experiment with bokashi--if you have an indoor bin this is the way to go! As long as you add small amounts with lots of egg shells and the worms have plenty of areas without bokashi, you are fine. Carbon to nitrogen ratio or bedding to food ratio (70/30) is the key!
I add citrus and onions right into my worm bins , after freezing them. My worms go right through it like everything else they get.
Yep! I have noticed the same thing. I think it is just a matter of not overwhelming the system with just one type of food.
Do you put a lid on the bin and if so, is it solid or do you also drill holes into it for aeration? (And great video series btw! Love the divider idea and using bokashi)
Thank you Moses!! I do have a lid on top with small holes on them, but that's because that what I did years ago. I would not drill holes on my lids these days. You don't really need them if you have holes on the sides. If you take your worms outside, you would have to cover the bin to prevent rain from going through the top if you have holes on it.
@@GardensofNewEngland That's great to know! Most DIY's include holes on top but rarely do we get follow up videos to how it turns out. Good to know you don't need it!
Can you use Woodash instead of eggshells?
I have, but ash wont be as good of a source of grit as egg shells. It however will take care of the acitity. Also, wood ash is very powerful alkaline so you need to be careful otherwise your vemicompost will not have a neutral ph.
Just looking at the inside of your attic, I guessing the house was built around 1900 and a complete re-roof in the eighties...
This is just an idea, but what if you used biochar instead of woodchips?
Yeah, that would work, specially if you have large pieces of biochar, similar to wood chips. I add biochar to the wood chips too. It is a great filtration system on its own.
Sir I set my worm bin like this.After close bin worms comes round and out at night.What can I do sir
If the outside is humid, worms might want to venture out, specially if inside the bin the temperature is too hot due to food scraps heating up. I would try to make sure the inside of your bin is nice and cool and that worms have proper conditions, including a lot of carbon material as bedding--leaves or cardboard work well. Carbon ratio is 50 carbon per 1: food scraps. You might also have a species of worm that likes to move around. I hear some tropical species like to move around more than temperate climate worms, like red wrigglers. Another idea, is to encase your bin inside a second bin--if you are not already doing that. However, more often is the temperature. Try putting an ice pack inside and see if they continue to try to get out.
My worms went on wood chips that are in garage and temperature is about 10 degree of Celsius. Why they went out ? Kindly asking for advice ?
Iwona, are the wood chips in a container, like a catching system where they can go back into the main bin? My worms do go back and forth. It is a matter of comfort and food. Sometimes the main bin gets too hot or too acidic and they move into the wood chips. So long as the conditions are ok, they should go back in eventually. Some worm species tend to go deeper than others. The main thing is to keep temperature and acidity levels within normal range. Make sure the carbon material or bedding is a lot more abundant than food scraps. 50:1 is the ideal ratio but that can be pushed. Check out my video on How to Maximize Worm Population. I go into the different variables more in depth. ua-cam.com/video/rZKG1V75iVI/v-deo.html
Also, create areas within the main bin where there are no food scraps so that they have cooler areas to hang around away from food.
I hope that helps!
How do you get so much egg shells?
We save them. You do not need to add them all the time, just when you add a lot of food scraps. In a household of 3 we usually have quite a bit more than we need. You can ask relatives to save them for you too. Last year I added a bit of sand I collected at the beach to add different minerals and serve as grit for the worms instead of eggshells.
I have a can under my sink just for collecting eggshells. When it's full, I bake them in the oven. I do this because I also feed them back to my hens, and it prevents them from become egg eaters, but it also makes them more brittle. That makes it easy to crush the shells. I put them in a paper grocery sack, fold the bags closed and walk on the bag with shoes on.
Eat lots of eggs?
I cannot understand what you are saying re what you inoculate the wood chips with. It sounds like "king of ... something".
It is an old video that needs updating! I am working on the next one. The inoculating is with King Stropharia Mushroom; but that part is not important. The key is managing acidity, the egg shells, and limiting the area where you are feeding.
Doesn't leaves introduce lots of bugs and pests to the bin?
Not at all! However, you want to collect leaves in the fall and store them somewhere dry. I would not just randomly collect leave litter. In a plastic garbage bags, leaves will dry and you can have very nice dry bedding material for the entire year.
@@GardensofNewEngland sounds good, are you in Ipswich?
@@ftnwo7829 I wish! I work in NY. Gardens are in RI and VT.
@@GardensofNewEngland the background looked identical but Vermont is even better..
My system gets slugs. What do you do about the slugs? Are they a problem to be together with the worms?
Grace,
Slugs are usually not a problem coexisting with worms. I personally have not had issues with them. I would suggest creating an island with some salt water. You put a wider bin with some salt water in the base, you put a block or some type of foundation for your top bin, and you make sure no part of the top bin touches with any adjacent surface. This should keep the slugs out. Also, you want an overhang cover, like a piece of wood or plastic lid to make sure your bottom tray does not overflow when it rains. However, this would be to keep the slugs out, you have to first deal with the ones inside your bin. For that, I would spread out the content on a tarp and hand pick them. You might need to do this a couple of times until you break their reproductive cycle. The good news is that the island will also keep ants and other crawlers out of your bins.
i only feed fish waste as i have a koi pond. worm loves fish waste more than anything else. i put coffee ground and fish waste apart, guess what! all worms went to fish waste first !!! and they grow significantly faster with fish waste
Koibud, very interesting, thanks for sharing! When you say fish waste, you meed the muck on the bottom of the fish pond?
@@GardensofNewEngland i have a drum filter. so i can collect solid waste easily!! but i believe muck on the bottom of the fish pond works just same as solid waste collected by my drum filter. you know bottom mucks are essentially fish waste, algae, beneficial bacteria, all kinds of nematodes, and other micro organisms.
@@elsonsti Yeah, that what I was thinking! It is all microbial life which is the main thing worms eat! Pretty cool!! Thanks for sharing, it is my first time hearing about fish manure being used to feed worms. Thank you!!