Worm Farm DIY Plan

It is a well known fact in the organic gardening community that red worms create some of the best compost that you can use in your garden. It is actually a very simple process which I am going to oversimplify to get to the main point. The process is that you procure a container, fill it with dirt, some kind of bedding, add water, add worms, and add organic waste and this will set you on the path to having worm created organic compost. The problem with this process is that most people that do this often have the space and the time to make this process work on a continual basis. Some very large organic farms have entire hangers dedicated to the composting process. But what if you live in an urban area? Here are a few tips on how you can make a worm bin that will work in any urban or rural indoor situation.

The first thing you will need to do is go to the store and purchase some plastic storage boxes. They do not need to be very large but they should be sturdy. If you do not have a drill, you will need to borrow one or buy one in order to make ventilation holes. Do you read the newspaper? If so then you have what you need in order to begin the composting process. And finally, aside from dirt, you are going to need some red worms. About a pound of them will do.

Two very important things are air and water. All creatures need air and water to exist and composting worms are no different. The first thing you must do is cut large holes on the bottom of each bin with a keyhole saw. If you are following this particular format, you are going to need two bins because you are going to stack them on top of each other. This gets into separating the two worm end products, which will be talked about later.

Next you need to drill ventilation holes so that the worms can get air. Remember that these holes are not going to be as large as the drainage holes that you just drilled on the bottom of each container. The holes for water drainage should be at least an inch in diameter. Ventilation holes on the other hand can be one quarter of an inch so make sure that you have enough drill bits to choose from. The number of holes should be adequate to properly ventilate and drain the entire bin.

You will need to get your daily newspaper out now. If you just raked the lawn, all the better. Used shredded newspaper and leaves, get them wet, and place them so that you have about four inches of this material on the bottom. Also, if you have ever raised any kind of bird, you will know that they need grit in order to eat their seeds. Likewise, worms also need a small amount of grit to help digest their food. You can purchase corn meal or sand or if you have some dirt available from outside, throw a handful in the mix and they will be just fine.

If you are using two containers, you will do the following: take the lid from your top container and place it on the ground. Place the second container that does not have worms, but has dirt, on four blocks on top of the lid. Pending of course that you did not drill holes in the bottom lid, this will act as a catchall for excess water that will drain out of the containers over time. This liquid is what you may have heard being called worm tea.

The container with the worms will be placed on top of this with a sheet of cardboard that is soaked on top of the organic material and worms. Finally, to conclude this journey to make a worm bin, place your remaining lid over the top of the cardboard and seal it and check on it every couple days.

Worms actually do each quite a bit of food depending upon how many you have. With about a thousand worms per pound, and with each thousand worms eating half their body weight a day, you will need to add at least half a pound of organic material to your worm composting bin every few days in order to keep them happy, full, and processing compost.

Other things to check that you will learn over time is how moist soil is, and you might also check how many worms have replicated since you began the whole process. Too many worms in one small area can cause them to die if bin conditions and food amounts are not properly maintained.

You are done. You have just created your very own worm bin and now that you know how to make a worm bin, you might think of showing a friend or even making another one and expanding on your composting endeavor. Hopefully, you may use some of the organic compost or even the worm tea that will be produced over time to fertilize any plants or garden vegetables that you decide to grow during the year.

Treating for worms is not only expensive but it may be unnecessary. Why is it then that we are frequently told to deworm (or worming as we say here in east Tennessee) every 3 to 4 weeks, some times even every 60 days? I call it the “shotgun” approach – blast them out with the cheapest, strongest, most effective product you can as often as you can afford it! BUT – there is an alternative, worm check! Come on — if they don’t have worms, they don’t need to be wormed! Considerable money can be saved, especially if you have 30 or so horses like we do! Even more important, why bombard our animal friends with chemicals if they don’t need them? As a veterinarian who practices natural medicine, I believe that less of anything is almost always better. I must admit that I didn’t always think this way, but I guess one could say that I am on a mission today to let people know that there are alternatives and that it is time to ask: Is that really necessary?

So what is a worm check? Basically, it is an exam of a small bit of fecal material, i.e. manure, under a microscope. It is cheap; it’s easy and quite reliable except in very rare cases. Yes, but I have been told to deworm often and especially not to forget to rotate the wormers. This rotation recommendation exemplifies my point exactly. It confirms that worms are over time developing resistance. As a result, stronger and stronger wormers are needed. How strong will the medication need to be five years from now when the worms are wearing a suit of armor, and again, what will these super potent wormers do to our horses? Now is the time to examine our procedures or suffer the consequences later.

If I sound like I am on a soapbox, understand that in today’s drug oriented society you have to be! A fortune has been spent convincing you that if you don’t frequently deworm, you are not doing what is best for your animal. Granted, many horses do have parasites and do need worming often but not EVERY horse, and not EVERY 2-3 months! The reason we even have a parasite problem is that we have changed their environment from wide-open fields, as in the wild, to 12 X 12 stalls. Even considered worse than stalls are small paddocks and small pastures. This is simply because stalls are picked daily, pastures are not. The cleaner your operation and the more space you have on your farm, the less you can deworm. Young foals and yearlings would tend to have more problems than older horses because of the decreased ability to resist the worms. Obviously, a farm where horses are frequently coming and going, such as a boarding operation should have more likelihood of exposure, but on the other hand many of these facilities are meticulously clean. Worm checks tell you what the situation is, indiscriminant over worming tells nothing.

It should go without saying that the healthier your horses are the less likely they will have worms. As a caution, if you find your horse has constant problems with parasites or if he seem to be less than par, consider a hair analysis to rule out mineral deficiencies or imbalances or even the presence of toxic metals. I can’t believe how much aluminum toxicity I am finding. My gut feeling even is that a lot of the ”EPM ” like symptoms currently being seen are due to this metal, either coming from the water or our polluted air. One tablespoon of mane hair analyzed could save your horses life or at the very least prevent a lot of unnecessary medications. Parasites simply shouldn’t be a problem in a healthy horse, but you wouldn’t know if you aren’t checking – would you?

A positive worm check would require deworming, but by now you probably have an idea that I am not too fond of chemicals. With that in mind I ask myself, ” what was used before the advent of chemicals”? My grandfather used to tell me that a good chew of tobacco would worm a horse. I must even admit that I have tried it but unfortunately to no avail – God rest his soul! But what that did lead me to was a study of natural herbs that would work. Not only did I find the herbs but also I have formulated them into a paste similar to what most people are already using. Instead of chemicals, however, it is a mixture of garlic, cloves, and a few other plants that have been used for centuries. Forgive me for the commercial, but I am so excited about it! Equally exciting is that we have come up with a way for you to get a free parasite exam with each 6 tubes purchased so you no longer have to guess about whether you need it in the first place OR whether or not it even works. A postal mailer to our lab is even included for the thimble full of manure needed for the test. So my final advice is don’t over worm. For the health of your horse and generations to come WORM CHECK first!

For details on our products from The Natural Horse Vet visit our website

http://www.YourHorseVet.com

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Here’s an example article from Markco!

“Check out this great mammoth/worm meat farming location in Storm Peaks. I consider it more of a ‘pitstop’ between daily quests but if you wanted to you could farm here as described below.

There are two mammoth packs running around outside the cave where you do a hodir rep quest (southwest of the hodir faction area). My advise is to swoop down and kill both packs, go into the cave, then head back out and kill both packs again.

For a skinner you’re going to get not only meat but excellent level skins and the chance for artic furs. Even if you are not a skinner, these meats sell very well and can be cooked into great food for raiders. It depends on your server however, as to which will sell better: Meats or Cooked Food. On my server the worm meat sells better cooked and the mammoth meat sells better uncooked, but your server might be entirely different and the days in which you post will also effect your results.

It’s always nice to sell food in stacks of five at a time to players who are in need of grabbing food just before a raid begins. The meats I sell in stacks of twenty because people trying to level cooking often buy as many as possible for their skill ups.”

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SOME WARNING SIGNS:

Some warnings that your worm composting bin is not going as well as it should be are:

If your worms are dying

And if your bins smells like rotten or it attract some flies

WORMS ARE DYING:

There are some causes why is your worms are dying:

Your worm may not eating the enough food which is you should bury it with more food into the bedding.

Your worm may be too much dry, which in case it should be moistened in a box until it is slightly damp.

Your worm may be too much wet which in case it should receive bedding.

These may also receive too much heat under the sun which in case you should put it inside of your bin so that it may receive some shade.

Your bedding has been eaten and its time for you to add some fresh bedding to your worm bin.

BIN SMELLS:

Whenever you smell that your bin smells like its been rotten or your bin may attract flies these may be the three causes why your bin smells:

Maybe there is not enough air circulation whenever in case this may happen add some dry bedding under it and over of your worms and do not feed your worms for 2 weeks.

There maybe some non compostables may present some such as meat, some pet feces or some greasy food all of should be removed.

maybe some exposed food in the bin if in case you should be secured the lid cover the food scraps with a bedding and also cover your worms and bedding it with a sheet of plastic.

FRUIT FILES:

These fruit files are not harmful but these are a nuisance and a very common problem with our worm composting bins we should discourage fruit files by always burying our food wastes and by not overloading the worm bin we should keep always a plastic sheet, piece of an old carpet or some lid on the compost’s surface in the worm bin. The author of worms eat my garbage Mary Appelhof is acknowledges that she doesn’t found a perfect solution for the fruit files. If you add a spider this helps us to reduce fruit files if some flies persisted us, move the bin to the area where will not be bothersome.

A Guide to Composting With Worms

Worms can be useful in different ways. The compost worms are more easy to raise and can turn our unwanted food and organic wastes into a healthy rich plant food that can be use directly to the base of our  plants, or dissolved in water and it can be used as a foliar spray.

African night crawlers and European night crawlers are examples of large types of worms. This large type of worms can make for excellent bait and will almost catch freshwater species of any type of fish and other types of saltwater as well.

There are almost thousands of different types of worms, each of this thousands worms has its own purpose.Let worms eat our organic waste. They will be happily turned into some of the best fertilizers that can be used here at Earth. Worms also composts or it is also known as “worm castings” or “vermicompost”.  A fascinating and an easy way to recycle our wastes, vermiculture or worm composting:

Requires very little work

Produces no offensive odors

Help plants thrive

Only few things are needed to have good worm compost: a bin, bedding, worms and some worm food. By following some steps listed below, you will be easily learn how to make, maintain and you will easily learn how to compost your worm compost.

SUITABLE worm composting SPECIES:

A earthworm species are most often used Red Wrigglers but European night crawlers may also be used. There are names called at the European night crawlers including dendrobaenas, dendras, and the Belgian night crawlers.

You can also get your worms from your compost bin; you can purchase them/find a horse stable/farmer with aged manure pile

In every 1 pound per day of food waste, you’ll need 2 pounds of worms. Whether you are unable to get this many worms at the start, reduce the amount of food waste until the population of worms increases. Red worms can mature sexually in 60-90 days and it can produce cocoons which take 21 days for them to hatch their baby worms. Once the worms start breeding they can deposit 2-3 cocoons per week with 2 baby worms in each cocoon.

Red worms/ Red wrigglers are the best kind of worms for composting. These worms are often found in the old compost piles. These worms are different from the earthworms you would normally find in the ground. These worms have a huge appetite and they reproduce quickly and thrive in the confinement. These worms can eat more than their own weight in food every day. When you purchase some red worms, 1 pound is all you need to get started.

The best suited for composting are red worms. These worms are often found in the aged manure, compost heaps and piles of the leaves. These worms are also known as brandling and manure worms. Their official names are Eisenia foetida and Lumbricus rubellus. On the other hand dew worms are also better suited to life in the soil and shouldn’t be used in a worm bin.

You can also get your worms from your compost bin; you can purchase them/find a horse stable/farmer with aged manure pile

In every 1 pound per day of food waste, you’ll need 2 pounds of worms. Whether you are unable to get this many worms at the start, reduce the amount of food waste until the population of worms increases. Red worms can mature sexually in 60-90 days and it can produce cocoons which take 21 days for them to hatch their baby worms. Once the worms start breeding they can deposit 2-3 cocoons per week with 2 baby worms in each cocoon. 

FEEDING YOUR WORMS   

Worms in composting bins like to eat many of the same things we human beings to eat, only when they aren’t so picky. Favorite foods they eat are:

Stale bread

Apple cores

Orange peels

Lettuce trimmings

Coffee grounds

Non-greasy leftovers

Vegetable scraps

Feeding your worms at the beginning feed them only a little at a time. You can add larger quantities of food waste. You should do bedding regularly, if you rotate the bin as you go.  If you return to the first spot, most of the food you have buried there should have been eaten.

 Your worms can eat your food scraps, fruits and vegetable peels, pulverized egg shells, tea bags and coffee grounds. To avoid some potential rodent problems do not compost meats, dairy products and soon.

 If you pull aside the bedding bury the food waste deep and cover it up with the bedding again divide the bin into 3 or 4 imaginary sections and bury successive loads in different areas in the bin. There’s a weekly waste food that will help us human beings to determine the size of your worm compost bin and the number of the worms you’ll need. Do this for 2 weeks to get an estimate the average of our food waste.

METHOD FOR COLLECTING YOUR FINISHED WORM CASTINGS FROM WORM COMPOSTING BINS

After feeding your worms for 3-6 months, you have noticed the bedding has been eaten, and you may now begging harvesting the brown, crumbly worm compost. Whenever you are harvesting the compost and adding fresh bedding at least twice a year is necessary to keep your worms stay healthy. The bedding will be noticeably darker with your worms’ castings. After 2 and a half months have been passed, there will still few of the original beddings is still visible in the bin plus brown and earthly looking worm castings. Although our food waste is being added regularly, the bedding volume will be gradually decreased.

METHOD 1:

You should move the contents that you use at your worm bin to one side place the fresh bedding in a empty space and bury your food wastes there for a month/so. Harvest the other side after the worms you have migrated to the new food and bedding.

METHOD 2:

You have to remove one third to one half of the given contents of your worm composting bin, worms and all and add the worm compost to your garden soul. Add the fresh bedding and food to your worm bin.

METHOD 3:

Spread a sheet of plastic under a bright light of the sun. Dump your contents of the worm box into a number of the piles on the sheet. The worms will crawl away from the light into the center of each pile. You can brush away the worm compost on the outside by the hand.

“SOME FUSS” HERVESTING

Some of the worm composting can involves moving the finished compost over to the one side of the bin. Placing the new bedding in the space created, and placing our food waste in the new bedding  the worms will be gradually move over to the fresh bedding and food waste. The finished compost can be harvested

“MORE FUSS” MAINTENANCE

If you want to use all of the compost at once, dump the bin’s entire into a large plastic sheet and that can make piles of the materials. You can use the sunshine or a hundred watt light bulb to drive the worms to the under of the piles. Worms don’t like bright light because the single cells on the epidermis that reacts to the light. Scoop off the tops of each pile until all you have left is the worms in your composting bin.

 USING YOUR WORM COMPOST:

Your worm compost is more concentrated rather the most composts it’s because the worms great at digesting your food wastes breaking them under into a simple plant nutrients so you should use its sparingly for you to get the best results.

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It’s estimated that last year in the United States, 21 million tons of food waste was burned or dumped into landfills.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimated that over 64% of the waste generated in the United States is organic.

Instead of disposing of these materials in landfills, they can be recycled, composted, or
vermicomposted.

You can recycle your waste with the help of worms. Vermicomposting (composting with worms) turns many kinds of kitchen waste into a nutritious fertilizer for plants. When worm compost is added to soil, it increases the nutrients to plants and enhances soil texture and drainage.

Using worms to decompose food waste offers these advantages:

It reduces kitchen garbage disposal costs; It produces less odor and attracts fewer pests than putting food scraps into a garbage container; It reduces the cost of water and electricity that kitchen sink garbage disposal units use; It produces a free, high-quality soil (compost); It doesn’t take much space, labor, or maintenance; It produces free worms for fishing.

What type of earthworm should I use for vermicomposting?

Of the 4,000+ species of earthworms, only half a dozen of them are suitable for
vermicomposting. The most commonly used species is Eisenia fetida (Red wigglers).

Where do I obtain Eisenia fetida earthworms for vermicomposting?

Don’t buy vermicomposting worms from a bait shop. You need at least 1,000 worms, and bait shops only sell about a dozen worms per cup. Buy them in bulk (roughly 1,000 earthworms per pound) from a worm grower.

How often do I feed the worms?

Feedstock throughput in vermiculture is based roughly on how many worms you have. Eisenia fetida will consume 50% to 100% of their body weight per day. Assume the worms will eat half of their body weight each day. The number of worms you have is measured in pounds; there are approximately 1,000 red wigglers per pound . So, one pound of worms can consume half a pound of food per day in the proper conditions.

For more information on composting with worms, visit Garden Paradise Ideas