DIY Flow Through bins: a collection of links

[Andrew]

I'm certain there are more, so please let me know which ones I missed. I can add new ones later. I've listed them from smallest to largest. Let me know if the specs are wrong...some are unpublished. Most are listed as total capacity including the harvesting chamber.
Josh's bucket (5 gal.)
Ben's 5 gal. Nested FT
Sue's 6 gal. FT
Pat James' mini-FT with harvesting rods (~7 gal.)
Garden Citizen's Transparent FT (~12 gal.)
Peter Barnard's FTs (12, 25 & 60 gal.) and Peter's schematic
Susan's small trash can (13 gal.?)
Steven's mini FT (13 gal.)
Nic's converted storage bin (18 gal.)
Andrew's modular bin (18-36 gal.)
Amy Youngs' worm bin bag (~30 gal.)
Craig's FT (~30 gal.)

Sharon's FT (~30 gal.)

Bones' square bin (32 gal.)
Lisa's roughneck bin (32 gal.?)
Darni's converted recycle bin
Aniston's wooden bin (~35 gal?)
Darni's wooden bin
Larry's (garbage guru) "mini" FT
geaux_worms's Walmart bin (45 gal.)
Stephen McGuire's garbage can FT (45 gal.)

Larry Strezo's cedar FT with heating tubes (~46 gal.)

Z-Mark's sub-$50 FT (46 gal.)

Richard's 50 gal. Worm Palace FT

Eve's hi-tech heated reactor (55 gal.)
Catherine's converted composter
Gardenweb bin (splitsec002's 55 gal.)
Greg's wood bin (?)
Steve Lambert's FT barrel (58 gal.)
Rebecca Wilson's first FT (~58 gal.)
Don Dillon's first FT (~60 gal.)
Pat James' Wooden FT with harvesting rods (~60 gal.) [photos on pg. 3]
Jason's blue bin (~65 gal./240 Litres)
Don's 65 gal. tough barrel
Brett's mini OSCR-type FT (~90 gal.)
Sue's 96 gal. grey monster
Mark from Kansas' OSCR (200 gal.)
Larry's (garbage guru) 4' x 8' OSCR
Joe's 250 gal. VB96
pyropunk's railroad tie FT (250 gal.)
Mark Shaw's OSCR-like bins (big & really big)

[Kristie]

This is a really great list. thanks for compiling it.

[Garden Citizen]

This is fantastic! Thank you!

[Bart J. Meijer]

Hi Andrew,

You are slowly making me wonder.

I did take a good look at a load of them links.
At my first experience with this type of vermi composting I saw a bra like thing and directly had enough of it.
Now, looking at your links, it almost seems to look like the best way.
so is it the best way?

As I said, you are slowly making me wonder.
Thanks for that

Cheers Bart

[Andrew]

Kristie & GC: You're welcome. Be sure to post details if you ever make a flow through. I look forward to adding more examples to the list.

Bart: The flow through system seemed "best" for me in my particular situation. Although harvesting in theory will be easier, I personally can't attest to that yet...maybe in another month. I just started thinking of compiling lists of some of the other DIY wormery systems (stackable, trays, windrows & in-ground trenches) along with the pros & cons of each system. The last 2 are usually larger scale, so I'll just comment on flow through vs stackable vs trays right now.

I started with a stackable system. Like others, I found moisture control to be an issue. Harvesting was also more of a multi-step process. That said, there are fairly simple ways to adjust for these drawbacks.

I've never tried a tray system, but I noticed that a number of the commercial worm farmers use this system. They are compact, easy to move and easy to harvest worms for shipment. If I were to attempt a small worm farm, I would fill rows of shelving units lit with LED string lights with dozens of these trays.

Since I do want to harvest vermicompost for use in the garden, the flow through was the best choice for me. So far there have been no issues with excessive moisture and if everything goes well, I should be able to harvest worm & cocoon-free VC. But only briefly since I plan to transfer most of the contents in FT 1.0 to the larger FT 2.0.

[Garden Citizen]

What do you use your vermicompost for?

[Andrew]

Most recently I used small amounts to germinate seeds (milkweed, arugula, broccoli). In the past I've added VC to pretty much anything growing in the garden. Until a few months ago I did not know about cocoons, so I'm guessing there is a "wild" population of red wigglers in parts of the garden that have enough decaying matter for the worms to live off. A worm trap is on my back burner for "one of these days".

[Garden Citizen]

AH yes, I've been thinking about getting a soil blocker for doing that with my seeds. I don't know that I'd bother with a worm trap - I'd probably be easier to just "worm call" them. I doubt that the EF's would be really hard to pick out from the earth worms. You'd cover a wider area too.

[Andrew]

GC, tell me more about this "worm call".

[Garden Citizen]

It's quite brilliant. There are several ways to do it. Basically you put something metal into the ground several inches such as a pitch fork and then you can twang the handle of the pitchfork. Or you could put a pipe into the ground about a foot deep or so and then rub something like a brick, piece or wood, ax head, etc across the stake.

You can do it any number of ways. The basis of it is to put something in the ground and to then cause it to vibrate. The worms don't like to be in vibrating ground so they'll immediately start coming up to the surface. Then you just grab them up!

It think it's also called snoring and fiddling. You can probably google these terms and find lots of different methods that rely on the basic premise of vibration to bring up the worms.

[Eve]

Works best when the ground is wet, like after a big rain.

[Andrew]

Ahhh...ok, I did read about this. Let's see if I can remember to give it a try next time it rains. I'm just curious what kind of worms are in my garden soil.

[Len]

If anyone watches "Dirty Jobs" with Mike Rowe, he did some "worm grunting" down in Florida a couple weeks ago. Lisa had mentioned it on another thread a couple of days before the episode. Like most of his jobs, it was... interesting.