Let's see your worm bins!

Btw, thx @Gpaw and @Tinytuttle for the info about the slime mold! No new experience of whitezilla trying to escape the bin and nothing unexpected appearing in my grow tote!

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My worm bin today. Surrounded by organic hay to keep them warmer in the winter.

After removing some soil. Its a mix of pot soil, from unused pots atm and sheep and Ocean compost for the worms to eat as well as the hay on top. Some alfalfa growing away at the front, cant kill it now I just keep chopping it back and it grows again. I need some comfrey in here as well. Probably about 32 cft of soil in there atm 48cft would fill it. I am dropping down to 5 gal pots for some auto runs so I will probably be putting another 10 cft back in here for a few months when I empty out my 10 gal pots that I wont be needing.

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Looks great keep them moist and covered

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Well slight delay on starting my bin. Looked at the “order status” page and it shows that it is back ordered (though they didn’t seem fit to actually NOTIFY me, but hey) and that I would need to reorder. Now, it seems that it can’t be shipped to the store, where I can pick it up for free, but The sure will ship it right to my door, for a small fee of $5.99.

Seems that $10 savings isn’t so attractive any more, so I ordered it from the Despot and it will actually arrive 3 days earlier than from Lowes.

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:+1: that’s what mine looks like only one container so far one month in, so far so good :man_farmer::maple_leaf::guitar::sunglasses:

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"This giant earthworm worm was found in extremely rich forest soil in the foothills of the Sumaco Volcano in Ecuador.
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It’s been identified as a Martiodrilus crassus, which translates to “worm which feeds on dogs.” Like other earthworms, these giants spend their lives sucking down microbes and decaying plant or animal matter in the soil.
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Scientist @phil_torres said, “It had a surprisingly similar feel to the earthworms I dig up in my yard. It felt like a long, slimy, ridged muscle. It seems like it is 90% muscle, 9% dirt, 1% nervous system. If I were starving out there, I might be tempted to cook it.”
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However, at five feet in length, it’s not the longest recorded worm, nor even the planet’s biggest species of earthworm. The Giant Gippsland earthworm, found in the clay soil along streams in Victoria, Australia, can stretch to an impressive 9.8 feet in length!”

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Wow! @SamwellBB I’m guessing that a weeks worth of :poop: from this thing would be equivalent of what I do in a year!

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Bloody hell that’s huge. They are supposed to eat their body weight in food a day roughly, that would probably eat more food than me, Tremors film come to life :rofl:

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yeah that fucker is scary to say the least

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That is awesome.

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This is my process sometimes a week or 10 days apart with new foods depending on what my family eats. This week it was watermelon… I try to mix it up as far as the diet for the worms. I am having a issue in the lower bin the have gotten through the cloth on the bottom and have been drowning in the water in the bottom bin. But it’s alive with life. Guess my system will breed out deep burrowing worms? Lol food for thought. Anyway hope you like it ask me anything! Blessings

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As already stated, I’ve been doing it differently for years. I top feed my Europeans, in a premade bin that we purchased years ago. It appears that I have a good healthy group of fungus. I threw in some dry cannabis branches and had fungus pop up in a couple days.

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I sifted some castings out last weekend but there are still a bunch of worms in there I need to sort out. I left the bin w a fabric pot covering it, checked on it today and saw this.

Those little mite looking things are attacking the centipede looking thing. Not sure if this is good or bad? I thought the centipede things are good for breaking down woody stuff? Either way was pretty cool to see in action.

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My guess would be predatory mites any chance you can get a pic through a loop? Are they fast movers for their size.

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From what i have learned this is neither inherently good or bad. Natural gardening will normally keep a balance. It’s just how it works. When one side gets out of proportion with the other, it will consume most of the available food and have a die off. Then the other side will increase its numbers. Then you will reach equilibrium once again. Good vs bad will always be a balancing act. I got done reading “Teaming with microbes” and dead bugs add important nutrients back into your soil, so there is always a purpose.

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I’ll see what i can do. And no, these things barely move.

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I am not sure the centipedes are a good thing, I never had any issue with them but from what I read it seems they could be eating the worms…
They are small so unless they really are too many, I can’t see how they could do much damage!

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When I blow the pic up in photo shop they look like predatory mites, so they will be good for keeping the fungus gnats down as well as the bad mites and nematodes…

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I get those mites in my bin too, they are detrituvours, my guess is the centipede looking thing (I think it’s an earwig) was already dead and they are breaking it down. They tend to like the higher carbon sources in my bin like stems and cardboard.

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