Vermicomposting, worm bin, composting with worms community and forums
Bob's Discussions
Composted cow manure. Black Kow
6 Replies
Started this discussion. Last reply by Drew lewis Apr 14.
What is 'enough' oxygen/air?
Replied Dec. 23, 2008
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My pleasure.
If you need a more thorough calculator try this one.
http://www.klickitatcounty.org/SolidWaste/fileshtml/organics/compostCalc.htm
If you live in the UK and you are reading this thread make sure you understand the law on home vermicomposting;
You are allowed to have a home compost bin and worm bins but you may only process your OWN waste. You may not process neighbouring was...
Cardboard is a mix. The layers of paper are held together with paste. The paste is an extremely miner part of the mix. But enough to boost the growth of microbial activity.
Check out cardboard with this C:N ratio calculator.
http://www.milkwood.n...
Nitrogen is good to offset the carbon/nitrogen ratio. I thought cardboard was high in carbon. Please someone chime in here.
Candin
so you round up the manure from the barn/field then what do you do with it before you put it in the bed ?
So how did you know when the worms were finished processing ?
I had some extra Black Kow composted manure (yellow bag) left over from when I was setting my garden up about a month ago, so I added a handful to one corner of my new worm bin and my worms absolutely loved it!
Comment Wall (16 comments)
- At 12:11am on March 6, 2009,
Bob said…
- Used a very long ribbon of fly paper, and it was extremely effective after being in there about 3 days. Seems to get at least 90% of them.
- At 2:39am on December 25, 2008,
Bob said…
- I sprayed RAID Flying Insect spray made with pyrithin and 2 other active chemicals. I spray the bin with the lid mostly on, and then seal it 100% and shake the bin back and forth, to agitate the bedding and encourage the gnats to flee into the poison, then don't open it for at least 12-18 hours, and do it outside if you can, the fumes will give you a headache if opened indoors.
This 3rd time i did it, i put on a large amount of fresh bedding first, and when i lifted the new leaves back today, they have composted much of the leaves that were the top layer before.
- At 11:33am on December 8, 2008,
Bob said…
- I just found this:
"Powdered limestone will create carbon dioxide in your bins and suffocate your worms if the bins are not well ventilated. Use sparingly only if absolutely necessary and stir your bin every few days following adding."
Argh!
- At 12:54am on December 7, 2008,
Bob said…
- Well, I was worried so I added a layer of fresh dead and dried leaves on top and eventually the same thing happened, however, when I checked the bin today, the edges of the bin had turned the leaves black and there were worms there eating away. Buying a pound of worms made a HUGE difference in composting speed! Now I am wondering if I should keep adding fresh dry bedding to the top, or let them eat all of it and not have the fungus anymore. I think I will let them consume all the leaves to stop the fungus of clouding spores in my room, I think it is making my throat feel like i have a ping pong ball stuck in it, but i have no problems breathing, so it is very weird.
- At 12:19pm on October 30, 2008,
Bob said…
- Oh No! I started a new worm bin finally, with the peat moss, garden lime, plenty of sand, partially decomposted banana peels, and put fresh dead dried vine ivy and grape vine leaves in, put a black plastic trash bag on top, put a lid on and weighted it down, a few days later, I open the bin and see green and white spots EVERYWHERE!
I moved it around a bit and examined it, to make sure, and sure enough, its green mold (white and green). I was stupid, like MOST people, and said "well, maybe I can do something" so i tried mixing them up and after a few mixing motions, a saw a HUGE cloud of mold and spores erupt. I held my breath, left the plastic bag off, stepped back, put the lid back on, sprayed Ozium in my room and opened my window.
I will not return the plastic bag, I think that's what made it do this.
I have a headache now, but i am breathing funny because of being paranoid of getting sick or having a burning nose from the spores/mold.
If you have any suggestions, please let me know.
- At 3:35am on July 4, 2008,
Bob said…
- By the way, the name for the peat is "Majestic Earth" in all capital letters. UPC number 0 67017 86040 9
Lime "Soil DoctorRx" UPC number I think is: 074278690204 (I will check later and change comment if it is incorrect)
- At 3:31am on July 4, 2008,
Bob said…
- I just bought some sphagnum peat moss and garden lime. I know not to use the concrete lime and to soak the peat for 24 hours first. it was $4.50 (tax included) for 40 lbs of pelleted-powdered limestone. If i bought 40 lbs of calcium pills, it would not cost me $4.50, no, much more, therefore, buy lime from a garden center, I only found it at Wal-Mart, not Lowes, not Home Depot, and not Target.
The peat moss was cheapest at Lowes, 40 dry quarts (44 L) for $6.03 (tax included) they also had a little 8 quart bag for around $3.50, so that cost 5 times more per quart for the small bag.
These are both in huge bulk packages, but for $10.53 I have enough that I shouldn't have to buy it for quite a long time.
Home Depot had a large bag of sphagnum peat moss, but it had fertilizer in it.
I am only listing this information about specific stores in my area, because I spent 3 hours running around to stores and searching for it, so I want to hopefully save someone time. At least they can try those sources FIRST, and if their store doesn't have them, they can try other stores, but at least their odds are higher for the first attempt at either. :)
- At 3:18am on July 4, 2008,
Bob said…
- http://one-change.com/blog/2006/04/indoor-compost-bin/
Check out that page :)
"The printing ink is not toxic for the worms. Here in Seattle most of the newspapers are printed using soy-based ink. Even if your newspapers aren’t printed using soy-based ink it is still fine to use them. It is even OK to use the color ink portions. The only thing you want to make sure and avoid is adding the coated, shiny paper. "
"The problem with shredded ‘junk’ mail is that it’s usually the shiny, colored stuff which you want to avoid."
:) that makes it a LOT easier and expands resources a LOT. I guess if you could collect enough newspapers you could take out the black and white pages only, but that is still a lot more work, because you have to remove the weird feeling paper and the glossy paper first.
- At 12:10pm on June 26, 2008,
Steven Chow said… - Good to see you back on the site. I was worried that you might have had to get rid of your worm bin... and therefore weren't able to vermicompost anymore....
- At 11:52am on June 26, 2008,
Bob said…
- I just bought ~30 more individual worms from my bait shop for $4 even and added them to near the bottom of my bin in the center and didn't break them up, so they can venture out on their own and I added a fresh banana peel. I didn't want to eat a banana, but I wanted to feed my worms, so I ate one anyway.
- At 9:33am on June 1, 2008,
Bob said…
- absolutely. I bought a new video camera, but it is far worse in many ways (quality is horrible). However, I have a good Digital Camera, so I can take pictures with no problem. I will do that. I can also use the images and my microphone and explain the pictures in a video format for youtube.
- At 9:45am on May 28, 2008,
Steven Chow said…
- Any chance you can post some photos of your setup would be great to see what it looks like with lights and all.
- At 9:37am on May 28, 2008,
Bob said…
- wow, that is a great idea, only on the part i don't want them around, the rim where they escape. Yeah because the Christmas light thing isn't the best, but its working (i have to reposition them every time i open it).
- At 9:14am on May 28, 2008,
Steven Chow said…
- Hey.. have you ever thought about using el-wire (i.e. electro luminescent wire) on your worm bins before. Seems like it might be similar to your LEDs but maybe more convenient to install.. perhaps even possible to install them right around the top rim of a worm bin.
- At 9:29pm on May 22, 2008,
Bob said…
- I am going to try to keep composting if I can.
- At 7:51am on May 17, 2008,
Steven Chow said…
- That is a real bummer.
Profile Information
- When did you start composting with worms?
- November 1, 2007
- How were you introduced to vermicomposting?
- independant online research from being curious about what I came across.
- What do your worms like to eat?
- black and white non-toxic soy-ink newspaper. You can get tons for free. I recommend newspaper and banana peels and calcium and sand. Also peat moss and grape vine leaves (although they grow green/white mold if they stay damp. Cardboard is pretty resistant to growing things. Leaves (like grape vine leaves) may be 100% natural, but they easily grow molds and bacteria and such, which can irratate humans lungs and throat.
- What kinds of worms do you have?
- redworms from carolsearthwares.com and a few from a local bait shop on the corner of US1 and Garden St. in Titusville Florida.
- What worm bins do you use?
- 20 gallon rubbermaid with no holes and polyfill glued around the rim to allow some airflow while making it hard for worms to escape (however one keeps tangeling up in it, but easy to remove)
- How many pounds of garbage do your worms recycle each week?
- Very little because I do not know how much, I had most of them escape. Now I have a lot of worms, and they eat WAY more than I expected!
- My Vermicomposters.com Map Entry URL:
- http://vermicomposters.com/wormbin?id=8
- About Me:
- Hopefully I can get some help on making my unit more efficient and contribute to this site to help it grow.
I badly want to end up with composting at least 50 lbs of red worms so that I can crank out the compost and also start selling the excess worms and compost. I think for the compost, I will use a filter and run it through water and make a tea, that way, I don't end up giving people worms/cocoons and causing the environmental problem I was warned about (because their not local to the US).
I tried using a string of LED pale blue Christmas lights which are very weak, however they scare the worms and keep them deeper. I have plenty of layers of bedding to filter out 100% of the weak LEDs. However, I recently removed the lights.
I recommend checking out Christy Ruffner's videos.
I never want to give up on vermicomposting. I want to get it all perfect and expand as big as I possibly can. The way I see it, it is impossible to have too much worm compost. I can throw it over my entire yard to improve the quality of the soil and if I had soooooo much that my lawn soil level started to become too high (yeah right) and all my free area was filled with potted plants and all my friends and family members had the same issue, I could start dumping the worm compost in unused lots to improve their soil. Any time you make worm compost, you are improving earth. I could even put a sign out that says "free worm compost" if I had to because of the amount I produced, or start a company and sell it.
My videos, now available to watch on this website :)
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