Growing worm farm - 2024 01 10

 


I used some of my Christmas money to buy four more worm bins to increase my capacity for worm cultivation.

I will drill aeration holes in one bin to set inside the other bin to provide catchment for leachate. Two bins make up one worm bin.

Last time I was feeding the worms and fluffing their bedding I realized I had too much depth on the feeding and the castings sides, especially as I shifted worms and undigested material from the castings side onto the feeding side. I also realized I have quite a bit of worm castings in the bins - both on the feeding side and on the castings side. 

My challenge is getting the worms and cocoons out of the castings so I can remove the castings from the bin and figure out where to put them. There are still a few worms at the bottom of the castings, down in the bedding area. 

After I drilled the aeration holes I collected cardboard and let it soak in the rain. I also collected some salad greens past their time and also some delivered flowers wilting after Christmas. I chopped up the flowers and stems. 

One of the new bins was designated to collect worm castings that still have worms and cocoons in them. This bin will be used to coax the worms out of the castings before the castings are collected for gardening or sale. 

In this bin I laid the wet cardboard, a layer of coffee chaff, a layer of potting soil and a layer of leaf mulch from the garden.

I selected the bin with the deepest castings and feeding pile. I scooped out the entire castings side of the bin and dumped it into the new bin. I put the salad greens, some alfalfa pellets and the cut up flowers on the other end of the bin and covered the food with another layer of wet cardboard.

The castings bin is now back in the worm barn. I now have one more bin to expand my feeding bins. I'm going to continue pulling the castings out of my existing bins - I have two more that are pretty much over full at this time. Thinking about it now, I had better turn that second new bin into a castings bin as well, to reduce the height of the feeding area in the remaining bins. That is also going to be a pretty big pile of worm castings, I probably need another bin yet for processing worm castings.

I wonder how much the worm castings are going to weigh that I will have ready for spring? I wonder how big is a one pound bag of worm castings?

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