Let's see your worm bins!

@GroundUpCannabisFarm I feel I should know what BSF are regardless where did ya get such a critter ?,looks like something I could use during the ice fishing season !

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They are kind of seasonal and they like hot temps and they are native in Oklahoma. Really, I just build a worm bin and they show up on their own. However, I did buy some last year to get the process rolling along faster, I think that I bought them in March and they don’t naturally show up until late May. They are starting to slow down in cooler weather, but I’ll probably make a thermal compost for them soon. I made the mistake of adding corn bread and sugar to my small worm bin and it got so hot that it chased them out. Lesson learned, but I’ll use it to my advantage during the winter months. I’m going to look into some kind of corn feed at the cattle store or maybe I’ll get some wheat bran and make extra bokashi for the worm bin. Anyways, I’ve bought Black Soldier Flies from a company called Sympom and they are popular and basically have a monopoly on the business.

Here is my homemade bokashi from 2yrs ago.

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This was about a month later…


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The wonderful world of winter worm wrangling :slight_smile:

I divided the worms and castings from the final 50 gallons left in the shade this fall. Fill all bins with root balls, or just left root balls in tact, and added castings and worms to each bin, then let them settle in for a few weeks. Added a little water, and recently added the pumkin, pot leaf, coffee grind, eggshell mix to each bin.

Santas beard is an understatement, santa’s bearded forest i say!


PB170133

Easily dealing with 500 gallons this winter. Happy beds in the spring!
PB170131

Good to be here, thanks for having me, have a wormy kind of day :wink:

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I’ve seen some of your pants on here, nice!!!

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Looking nice man, do you ever have trouble with micronutrients? I had to start adding iron and manganese to my soil and I started adding it to my compost too. Greensand really worked well, but I also have Fe and Mn sulfate. It’s just a thought, but I’ve been having my soil tested and it usually starts off the same. It will be super high in phosphorus and very low in trace minerals like Fe and Mn. I’m not trying to be bossy, just trying to have a conversation…

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I make a thermal compost when it’s real cold outside. I mistakenly mixed corn meal and sugar and added it to a worm bin in the summer and cooked my poor worms. However, it gave me the idea to do it for a thermal compost in the winter. I’m probably going to use some cheap chicken food this time.

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It’s all good gucf, lov talkin worms’ n stuff. Never really have trouble with micro’s, as I take care of my many mircobial herds, and they sort out the rest, including mining for micro’s 24/7 :wink:

As for the iron and manganese, I’ve not given it much thought. Along those lines of deficiencies, perhaps using well water helps with some of that.

I go heavy with canna leaf in the bins. Seems to me, all the nutrients a pot plant needs are in those plucked/trimmed leaves. Fans, sugars, whatever, it goes in the bin :slight_smile:

I also use greensand. Only in the worm bins, to make sure they have a proper size grit to deal with.

Are you testing your soil after or before you add the castings to it? What is your percentage of castings, 10, 20, 30%? Do you allow for the new soil to cook before testing?

Are you noticing the defiencies in all plants or just indoor container plants?

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It was pure compost that I was testing and it came back nearly identical every time, so I started to address the micronutrient def in the compost pile…

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Thanks. Looks like you have a nice bin going yourself

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Just getting my bin going… not sure if this link will work
https://gfycat.com/repulsivepositivedesertpupfish

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Damn, I am pretty jealous. Lookin good in there. :+1:

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Thanks! Glad the gif worked… can anybody ID the little round brown reddish bugs on the paper? Starting to see lots of baby worms pop up, so I guess that is a good thing.

Edit: I’m thinking Orbatid Mites…

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hungry little buggers, heavy on the avocado,pumpkin, coffee grinds, eggshellsPC010157

Brought the bins in early this year, i think it has helped, as there are no cold temps, they just plowed thru, and are super active right now, the bins are probably 1/3 turned over already.

Gonna have stuff to plant with soon :))))))

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down below 50f in here today. Things have really slowed down. PC250038
PC250038

But I have food in the fridge for next weeks heat wave :slight_smile:
PC250036

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I found my feed tunnel full of rough woodlouse. I found no worms. What did I do wrong?

:green_heart: :seedling:

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My little composters are hard at work. I kept a proper worm bin for a cople of years but they seem to do better in these 30 gallon tubs.
Newspaper, rootballs and fresh veggie along with the given coffee ground and eggshells. They love lettuce and cabbage and they take care of the rock phosphate and greensand before it hits the pots( pun intended).

Uploading: 0B46615A-6582-436D-85DA-9CD7030F1452.jpeg… Uploading: E933CAD6-41FA-4C85-91AB-C1453C1F3B66.jpeg…
My worms kick ass

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Dang @G-paS , worms aught to propagate like crazy. Slice up a potato and lay it on the dirt. If you have worms they will be under the potato. They know how to hide very well.

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That is where I am finding rough woodlouse.
I saw the thread for terrains.

:green_heart: :seedling:

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I just looked them up and they are decomposers, so they should be good. My worms love canna leaves, malted barley, and neem and karanja. They eat a lot of other amendments, but go crazy over these. Maybe try adding one of these or a banana. I use a banana to get them to migrate to the next level. If you don’t see activity from one of these it might be time to visit the worm guy or gal

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