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catherine daly
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I started worm composting about ten years ago, and very soon, because I was separating out ALL food waste instead of just traditional compostables, I actually started buying and cooking less. WHen you see what you waste every week, it makes you th...
"I guess I'm feeling the need for some basic ability to turn compost to keep the aeration good,"
Instead of turning the spent grain- could you build something like a flow through but without worms and rely on heating to dray air through. I did a ...
As far as I know, you only get 'spore producing' mould if you let the bin dry out enough for the mould to be driven to reproduce sexually- that's what we traditionally call 'mould' and is what people tend to be sensitive to. If the bin is kept moi...
I have to say the most efficient 'herding' method I've ever found (I use it for hatching babies) is good old fashioned horse poop. It's usually part composted when I get it, but reasonably fresh would do as well. I put the finished vermicompost (w...
If you have a bin with drainage holes, but put some dry bedding to catch the liquid, you can neglect just as easily. The bedding absorbs the liquid, but provides a large surface area for oxygen so it doesn't go smelly. I wouldn't use newspaper for...
I put dried wood chip (from compressed fuel logs - probably mainly pine/ spruce/ larch) into the sump of my can-o-worms and under my flow through to absorb excess liquid. When the chips are thoroughly saturated (they expand alot and allow some air...
It's just one of nature's many moulds! Bury it gently in some damp shredded bedding and I bet it will be gone in a few days!
I made this bin in a couple of hours by adapting a shop bought compost bin kit- no good at making my own!!
You can just about see that I have a grate, supported by wood, and I had planned to make some kind of scraper to remove compost from the bot...
5- 10000 lb per week is a huge project to start off with and coudl be very expensive for a non-profit or voluntary group. If it were me I'd break it down a bit and start small. Say build a 1m x1m square bin, about two or three foot deep. You can g...
In general, if a tumbler is turned regularly (like daily or every couple of days which is needed for initial heating phase)- the worms will move out. Not only will the heat drive them away (or kill them)- their instinct tells them that this is gro...
I've been at it in one way or another since 1999!!
Bought a huge big composter with gravel drainage at the bottom, and a door just above that to harvest from. It took years to get to a level worth harvesting, although I did scrape some vermicompos...
The other advantage of holes in the bottom of your bin is that when water drains out, air can comes in to replace it in the spaces between the pieces of bedding and this makes the worms happy and speeds up the composting process. Even if there is ...
If you put some bedding material- sawdust, compressed wood pellets/ shredded cardboard on your tray, your leachate will be much easier to handle, won't go stagnant (assuming you allow air circulation) and be ready inoculated when you add it to you...
How much waste would each of these boxes consume per week? I've been lookign at gettign a wholesale supply of a reasonably priced worm bin but I can't get hold of any. I might have to go into home construction.
(My green fingers might just end up ...
Profile Information
- When did you start composting with worms?
- April 1, 1999
- How were you introduced to vermicomposting?
- gardening magazine
- What do your worms like to eat?
- whatever's thrown at them!
- What kinds of worms do you have?
- Ef and EH
- What worm bins do you use?
- a home made flow through (outdoors), a can o worms (indoors) and various experimental bins.
- How many pounds of garbage do your worms recycle each week?
- plenty- all our organic household waste, alot of our waste paper/ cardboard and some garden wasre.
- Website:
- http://www.catherinedaly.net
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Comment Wall (4 comments)
- At 11:27pm on October 19, 2009,
Buddy Byrd said…
- Hello Catherine,
The boxes can support about 2lbs of red worms and I'm not sure about the euros, maybe 1 or 2 pounds. I made them small so I could move them easily. I'll be honest with you, when I had the boxes working before, I was mainly experimenting and not weighing anything. Even now I don't know when or if I'll be weighing anything. I mostly grind up hard to compost food scraps and mix everything with peat moss, compost, alfalfa meal, molasses and other organic stuff. I sift all of that and feed my worms. My goal right now is to multiply and fatten up my worms and sell them and the manure. I'm hoping sometime soon I can do more.
Sorry I couldn't give you any more information than that.
Thanks for your interest and good luck.
- At 10:51am on June 23, 2009,
Mark Shaw said… - Hi Catherine, I was told a worm farmer in South Africa has developed a process where he mixes all the worms, vermicast into a drum of water, the varmicast, worms and eggs float out onto a vibrating table with a 250 Micron mesh. The worms, eggs and undigested product fall into bins and the water and vermicast flow through the 250 micron mesh where he settles the vermicast and sends whe water back to the mixing tank. The worms ,eggs and other material are put into new beds. Has anyony eles had susess with this system. Mark
- At 9:08am on March 25, 2009,
Mark from Kansas said… - Catherine,
That's a good point. I just don't like the idea of losing those cocoons.
I think I am going to try to put the castings/cocoons in a small shallow bin with some rich feed,and maybe bring them harvest the juveniles to put in my larger bin.
- At 8:38pm on March 24, 2009,
Mark from Kansas said…
- Catherine,
I have a considerable amout of castings, however the castings are full of cocoons. How do I seperate castings from cocoons? I have tried to screen to an 1/8" to no sucess.
Thank You
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