Worm food turns into worm castings - 2024 08 11

 


Yesterday I extracted 70 lb of worm castings from my 10 bins (bin on the right). This was one week of production. I am trying to get into a regular weekly schedule for extracting castings and feeding the worms. The bin on the left is the mix of food and bedding to be added for this week's feeding.

My worm production system is utilizing the sterile compost soil produced by the City of Vancouver (city soil) and turning it into high quality, microbe rich worm castings.

Last week I extracted 65 lbs of worm castings to make room to add new food. Most of the green food had been consumed.

Last week's food recipe:

  1. old alfalfa pellets, somewhat moldy (part of green mix)
  2. overgrown lettuce plants from the garden (part of green mix)
  3. city soil (part of brown mix)
  4. coffee chaff (part of brown mix)
This mix was soaked in water for several hours to soften the alfalfa pellets.

After extracting the worm castings, I divided the bin of food into the 10 worm bins.

There is a layer of old, damp cardboard I have been using as a topping for several weeks. The worms are breaking this material down week to week, I just lay it back on top of the new food so they can keep breaking them down. I'm trying to phase out cardboard in favour of using the coffee chaff instead, just because I don't always have cardboard on hand.

On top of the cardboard layer I put the rubber mat I am using for a waterproof lid. It is not a tight fit. There is a 1" gap between the lid and the edge of the bin all the way around the top to allow for breathing and air flow. 

The bins are moved back into my worm barn for another week. That was last Saturday.

This week, I did the same process, but this time, instead of alfalfa pellets, my food mix used a bucket of rabbit droppings and bedding to add green compost to the mix.

I'll check back next Saturday to see how the worms liked their food mix of rabbit droppings.


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