Worm farm odor, et al

[mountainman]

So I'm looking at starting a worm farm for my soil plants to do homemade organic :-) As far as I can tell, I should be fine with one that's small, like a gallon. However my main concern is odor. This will be in a bedroom, so is it gonna stink to high hell like a large compost pile? (my girlfriend hates doing bedroom stuff when I put on the earth juice catalyst, don't want a composty shit smell making it worse)

And additionally, my reading on the OG FAQ's talked about other decomposing insects moving into your worm bin. Are these going to be pests in a house, and will they bug my plants? I don't want to attract trouble.

And of course, if there's anything that someone feels should be mentioned, please share :smokin:

[the image reaper]

making your own worm castings soil is a super idea ... when I was a kid, we used to raise worms for sale to fishermen ... the best method was an old refrigerator, or even an ice chest, lying on its back, lid closed, full of the best dirt we could dig up somewhere, a few tornup newspaper sheets, and coffee grounds ... the worms love their coffee in the morning ... too wet will drown them ... yup, stunk bad enough, I wouldnt want it indoors with me .. pretty much just an old, musty odor, but not pleasing ... kinda gives you a free look into your future grave :D ...

[MegaOctane12]

This is something I know about so I'll comment. Wormerys usually don't smell but they do eventually depending of course on what you put in there. Its not probally a good idea to have it in your bedroom because that will be an issue for you. If you can find a seperate room outside preferably i.e a garage or shed this would be much better. If you can't then its up to you. Don't feed your worms anything citric they don't like acidic shit and don't expect to see much once you've added them. It takes along time for them to get going and the biggest mistake you can make is wet moist conditions. They hate it. Avoid adding water at all. Don't know if you said your making your own or buying a starter kit but all wormerys need a kind of neutral bedding medium because being exposed to everything that's added all of the time would harm them.

The bugs you've heard about are infact fruit flies and you don't generally get large amounts unless what's added is really rotting and decaying and wet. Read up more about it I would say check out OG but it ain't there :(

[the image reaper]

since you're experienced, maybe you can help me, too ... after his post reminded me of doing that a million years ago, I went outside, and filled an old ice chest with my premium-quality potting soil I had left in the bag ... I figured I'd go buy a couple dozen nightcrawlers, and toss in it ... the theory being, the ice chest helps keeps the pests outta my soil, and the soil will gradually get a bit better from the worms doing their thing ... I can fill a pot with soil, throw some new bag soil in to replace it, and the cycle repeats ... too optimistic of me ?? ... I can always go fishin' ..... :smokin:

[mountainman]

Well, actually started a small worm bin today under the table that I keep alot of my houseplants in my living room. We'll see how it works out. I'm eager to get earthworm castings :stoned:

It's kinda funny, I'm exciting about worm shit.

[FireBrand77]

I keep my worms in a gallon container in the fridge,trust me they will live longer and grow much faster,and bigger in the fridge.I've never had smell probblems with worms.Keep em in the fridge really,and the results will be a whole lot better.PEACE

[rck2drums]

you can't buy worms from the bait shop to reproduce with. They were designed for bait and bait only. you have to either order your worms off of the multitude of websites or dig em up yourself. Just thought I would let you know.

[MegaOctane12]

since you're experienced, maybe you can help me, too ... after his post reminded me of doing that a million years ago, I went outside, and filled an old ice chest with my premium-quality potting soil I had left in the bag ... I figured I'd go buy a couple dozen nightcrawlers, and toss in it ... the theory being, the ice chest helps keeps the pests outta my soil, and the soil will gradually get a bit better from the worms doing their thing ... I can fill a pot with soil, throw some new bag soil in to replace it, and the cycle repeats ... too optimistic of me ?? ... I can always go fishin' ..... :smokin:

Worms eat rotting material and they need a certain amount of oxygen. What is your idea behind using worms in premium soil. Unless you add food i.e newspaper/cardboard/waste food e.t.c e.t.c the worms won't have enough to eat. By all means use the soil as bedding but the idea is to add your waste materials which get eaten and shit out by the worms, that's the good stuff. The soil alone won't get the treatment because it dosen't have enough food in it.

I suppose you could add purely soil if you wanted to but the quality of it would be pretty pathetic.

The fastest working compost worms are Red Wrigglers.

[the image reaper]

you can't buy worms from the bait shop to reproduce with. They were designed for bait and bait only. you have to either order your worms off of the multitude of websites or dig em up yourself. Just thought I would let you know.


not calling you a liar, or anything, but that doesnt make much sense ... I know from high school biology, earthworms are hermaphrodites, but still need two to tango ... I wouldn't think earthworm wholesalers are 'neutering' their worms, and they aren't the 'designers' of worms, only sellers ... hmmm, maybe real small vasectomy scissors :D anyway, I will go research this, and be back with an apology if I am wrong (again) ... :smokin:

[the image reaper]

I keep my worms in a gallon container in the fridge,trust me they will live longer and grow much faster,and bigger in the fridge.I've never had smell probblems with worms.Keep em in the fridge really,and the results will be a whole lot better.PEACE

CORRECT ... I remember the bait shop doing the same, and dumping ice on top of the worm-bed they had out in the open ... :thumbsup:

[mountainman]

I'm afraid image reaper is right about the worms reproducing. You can just buy them from a bait shop. Not only does them not reproducing not make sense, but the OG FAQ's suggested doing it too.

But then again, if you bought some worms that were shit and about to die, then you won't get any reproduction ;)

[FireBrand77]

I bought Nightcrawlers from a bait shop,to use for fishing.I never did use them all up,and I threw them in the back of the fridge.I didn't go fishing again for about a month,because it was too cold,so next time I decided to go,I opened up the container,and to my surprise their were eggs,and little worms,with the big old nightcrawlers.Baitshop worms will reproduce,and that is a fact.I've been raising worms for years.PEACE

[mountainman]

I'm using leaf worms, next best thing to the red wrigglers, although I'm sure nightcrawlers work too. I've got a small beer fridge, thinking of clearing it out for the worms. Do they really do better in fridges? I thought they just cool them in bait shops to slow their metabolisms so they survive longer without food.

[FireBrand77]

Well,that may be true,but worms like a cold damp climate,remeber they dry out easily.I'ts cold and dark in your fridge,the perfect habitat for them.I've tried keeping them outside,but it gets to damn hot here,and they always do very porrly opposed to the refridgerated ones.Take er easy.PEACE

[the image reaper]

got a couple dozen worms from the bait shop today ... along with some scraps, I threw some fan leaves in there too ... now theyre movin' kinda slow, but they're grinnin' from ear to ear ... :dance:

[mountainman]

Ha! Copy cat ;-) Congrats, though on becoming a worm farmer. I actually ordered some worm castings off ebay to get me through until my worm casting production is going well. Got a helluva deal too.

P.S. Worms have ears?

[the image reaper]

sure, they must have ears ... :D ... after they chewed on those fan leaves, they woke me up with loud music ... :dance: ... damn pot-worms ... :stoned:

[mountainman]

So I got 15 pounds of castings in the mail, starting my first worm casting grow tonight. Worm castings are a complete fertilizer and can be used all the way through flower, right?

Also, if I pot with worm castings, do I even have to fertilize later on at all?

[the image reaper]

everything I've heard, worm castings are the cats-ass for growing, it doesn't get any better ... but, outside of the micro-nutrients, I'm not sure what else makes it so good ... I added worms to my potting soil to make it better, figure its just sitting there for awhile, it may as well improve ... as far as fertilizers, my method is to watch the plant, let it tell me when to add nutes ... my opinion only, but I think a lot of unneccessary damage is brought on by too much 'love' for the plants ... (like when I drown mine from too much watering. ..lol) ... :smokin:

[mountainman]

But, I've read that you can't overdose on worm castings. That's supposed to be another one of the great things about them.

[mountainman]

Well, everything says it's the safest fertilizer out there, and you can't really overdose. So I took a clone and potted in a mixture I made from peat moss, perlite, and worm castings. A pretty significant portion of it was worm castings. I also fed various houseplants and some lowryders a tea made from the castings to see what happens. Castings are supposed to work wonders, we'll see. At the price I paid for it, it's almost impossible to waste them, cause they were so cheap.

[the image reaper]

I have a commercial worm farm just a couple miles away, they are asking about $70 for a small bag of 100% castings ! ... too rich for my blood, so I just put worms into my potting soil, to enrich it ... I hear the worm casting 'tea' is a miracle-worker ... :smokin:

[mountainman]

Yeah, the price depends on who you get them from. I paid less than $20 for a 15 pound bag of castings, delivered to my door. Great deal :-D

I'm using the tea on my lowryders right now, as they tend to be sensative to nutrients. So far they haven't minded.

[mountainman]

The lowryders are taking off more quickly than previous ones have even with copious amounts of the tea. I think this is the fertilizer to use for lowryder. My green pepper also loves the castings. There's flower buds all over. I'm gonna be eating goooood :D

[mountainman]

I've switched over to worm castings exclusively. Everything stays green and grows rapidly and there's no accuracy required in the dosing! If there's a miracle fertilizer, it's worm castings.

I'm still using Earth Juice Catalyst and Thrive Alive B1, but they're organic too. But development has been excellent with the worm castings and I'm seeing crystals forming. To heck with the synthetic crap I used to use, I use only worm castings now :D

[krakatoa]

To start with I dug up about 2 dozen worms from around the base of a compost pile. If it's the kind that thrash around instead of going limp, they've proven good to go in a bin. It was pretty amazing how fast even that small amount went through food and started getting their freak on. I was pissed off at myself for selling a small wood chipper before I got interested in vermiculture, because I have access to cardboard packaging all the time, but now no way to rip it up easily for bedding. My worms did great for months in some damp brown cardboard I tore up by hand, and with the pail they were in it was easy to sift out a small amount of castings at a time, since there wasn't much bedding. I made a larger wooden bin for them from some scrap, but I didn't have enough worms for it, and it became a pain in the ass to shift so much bedding around for very little castings. I think smaller containers and a little crowding are better for their breeding rate, judging from from that attempt, so I moved them back to the pail until I could buy a pound or two. I had two problems with the pail after that. One involved a piss ant invasion, and the other a recommendation to add crushed eggshells. I only added about 2 tablespoons worth, but either the ph change or the ants killed them all very rapidly. Things like that are why I didn't want to start off by buying a pound of them at first. Go real light with the eggshells if you use them to boost calcium in a small bin, just in case. I wondered if the nutrient value of castings that were mostly made from cardboard (and small amounts of veggie scraps) would be low, but as far as I can tell they work great dry, and as aerated tea with some molasses. I know of someone that killed some sprouts with the tea, but I think he accidentally let it ferment and didn't know to toss it out, or else it was an overnight bug problem. My philodendron, orchids, and other plants all like the tea just fine. I didn't notice any problem with smell, but I fed lightly, kept the food covered in bedding, and had a small bin. As far as refrigeration goes, I think that is to keep the commercially sold worms dormant in their small containers, so they don't eat up all the food or overheat. I had the bin inside in temps that were comfortable for me, and they were fine. If I went a little long between feedings they ate the cardboard.

Soil is supposed to be a bad bedding for wigglers. In soil they get stressed out from fighting their way through it, so they breed at a higher rate. Then their eggs hatch and the second generation is more acclimated to the soil, but they are tiny and barely eat or make any castings. When the tiny worms and their tiny egg casings get put back into cardboard bedding it's like they've seen the promised land. All those eggs hatch and become full sized worms that eat and shit normal amounts. It's supposed to be a good way to raise a population quickly, but inefficient when you already have a good amount of worms and want castings. All that info is from a breeder's site called The Burrow, where he tells the whole saga of taking them from soil to cardboard and back.

There was an interesting site where a guy wanted to get a patent for castings from worms that were fed high percentages of chitin. The chitin is the same material bugs use to make their shells. When the worm eats the chitin it turns into an enzyme that basically dissolves bug exoskeletons, so the bugs avoid it. When a plant is fed high chitin castings it's supposed to take up this enzyme, and prevent or stop an occuring bug infestation. In Iceland they make chitin by processing shellfish shells, but you can't give worms shrimp shells or whatever because it has too much protein, stinks, and will probably attract rats. However, fungi cells are also made of chitin, so at the moment I'm seeing if the worms are ok with eating some bracket mushrooms growing all over an old woodpile. If the test batch doesn't have any problems I'll start adding wild mushrooms to their feed regularly, and test out the castings next spring on some garden plants crawling with japanese beetles. With any luck there won't be any effect on taste with edible plants.

[mountainman]

Over time now, I've discovered that worm castings are the way to go. For me it's great because I can make my own worm castings, and it's completely safe to your plants. And if you're competent in hydro, just use a worm castings tea along with thrive alive and a catalyst. It makes the best quality plants I've ever had.

Pictures to come, hopefully.

[twoguysupnorth]

parks seeds has a 15lb bag of castings for 15$ plus shipping, which was 7$ with a few other things. i called the company they were from( greensence) and couldnt get them any cheaper. they had other stuff to like kelp and things. some places have outrageous prices and this has been the cheapest ive found. i think castings will always be a part of my soil too.

[HymroD]

.. kinda gives you a free look into your future grave :D ...

That made me laugh out loud and I am in a fucking funk!

Pe@ce,

HymroD still laughing