Panning(kinda) for gold! This will help me get everything off to a good start.
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Found this yesterday, a mix of 3 Bacillus species: pumilus, subtilis, amyloquefaciens. Hope work as a enrichment for the final compost.
It smell like flu syrup 
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Worms got lucky and I let a half a cantaloupe get too ripe. I thought it was tasty before it went bad, and they seem to agree!
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Finished castings. Using acorn squash to draw them in. I will pull out the worm ball, add it to a new home.
New home
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Mine is a 300 gallon smart pot with cedar fencing around the edges. I cover with a small kids swimming pool in the winter.
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It must not get real cold there?
Iâm trying to figure out how I can start a new bin, but keep it outside indefinitely.
It gets really cold here. The frost can penetrate at least a foot of earth without insulation.
I was thinking about burying an old refrigerator and drilling out the door to vent. Iâd probably still have to cover it with a concrete blanket during winter months.
Thoughts?
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I run a 100L bin in the garage.
A little bit of insulation and they survive OK. I als have a small one in the kitchen so I can repopulate if they expire.
Cheers
G
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I mean realistically, it could get below zero here multiple times between December and February.
I guess I could keep an insulated box in the barn. 
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Maybe a heat mat on a timer, just to inject a little heat?
Cheers
G
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OG the gift that keeps giving - had a chance to glean through this thread - from the DIY worm farms and the diversity of the worm varieties! Glad I came across this one.
Iâve been running a worm farm with worms which are wild harvested - itâs been survival of the fittest.
Today me and the boy went on a bit of a worm hunt. We found some good ones to add to the bins.
Low maintenance is key - the ones pictured above are kept under the house - these are large nesting fruit crates that hold roughly 50 lbs of fruit. Ive had this worm population for almost 3 years. The bottom ones are the oldest the very bottom does not have holes. As I remove a bottom one I place a bin of compost on the top. The worms and turn full unchopped fruits into black gold in less than 2 years.
I keep one population in the house as a backup measure.
We dont eat meat at our household - we have a 5 gallon pail beside our garbage that fills up way to fast we place paper towel and all organic food waste - with additional cannabis trimmings on a fairly consistent baisis.
The raw organic waste bucket is mixed with a bit of living soil and dumped in a crate and placed on top of the stack. The very top bin is empty and acts as a lid and the bottom is hole-less to collect that liquid black gold.
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Wow! Where did you get the bins? Also whatâs the temps where they are? Iâd love to raise some night crawlers but I didnât think I could keep them cool enough. I was under the impression they had to be kept cold. That worm you caught looks like a snake!! Holy crap!
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Haha I know right, that thing is huge, and was wiggling lots and felt strong! Thanks for sharing the info, glad to know about the night crawlers - the red worms are the ones that proliferate in this farm for sure - . The bins under the house are a bit cooler but I canât imagine the night crawlers establishing any sort of population⊠but time will tell⊠maybe Iâll get lucky. I wonder if worms species can co exist fairly easily?
The bins Iâve used as a worm farm are called âharvest lugsâ I acquired them when I did business as a fruit hustler. Best gig was running blueberries at a buck a lb each run was 2000 lbs could do the run every two to three days while the blue season was running. These bins are from those blueberries each bin was roughly 40 lbs of blues. You could stack these crates so they donât crush the fruit or you can nest them - how I place them for the worms*
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Iâve heard of people raising the night crawlers in their basement or under the house so it would probably work. Iâve also heard you can use both worms if you have deep enough soil and the wigglers will work the upper zone of the soil while the night crawlers will work the bottom of the soil.
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Added some cedar fencing to the worm bin to help retain moisture and because I like the look. Also some plants for shading and I think the plants help the soil balance out.
The worms are really starting to proliferate now that itâs warming up.
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I do to 
nice & organic, doesnât scream âweed growerâ 
Is that perlite between the fabric & cedar? Bravo
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Itâs pumice. The pot wasnât perfectly round so I used that to keep the boards in a nice round shape. The neighbors already know I grow. A few years ago I had 14 ten foot plants. They pretty much took up the whole back yard. Nobody cares here in Oregon. You can pretty much do whatever you want anymore. But itâs worth so little here itâs not really worth growing that much. I still have 4 pounds from last year that just sits in the garage. I actually started getting the keef off today and separating the seeds. If I remember right the cross should be Nana Glue x Ghost Train Haze or possibly Sour Bubble too.
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Id dig a hole 3â deep and hopefully theyâll make it through the winter. We can get down to 10 degrees but thatâs rare. Usually in the winter lows are around 30. A lot of the wormâs definitely donât make it. You could just do the bin in the summer when itâs warm. Pull out all the worms you can before the cold sets in and bring those inside. Then put them back out when it warms up. Around here the ground stays about 50-55 year round. Iâm not sure if that number translates for other areas. Iâd probably look into what you soil temp is. I donât think that fluctuates much. Sounds like itâs really cold where youâre at. The frost here might go down an inch tops.
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Hello everyone, I had a small question and this looked like the place.
this summer I started a small worm bin in a 5 gallon bucket, I went out side collecting red wigglers while raking leaves with the kids and when ever we went fishing this year I would toss the extra worms in our worm bucket. A few mounts later its time to mix up another batch of soil. The worms have done a great job breaking down our scraps and now Iâm left with a little over a gallon of worm castings.
Whats a great way to harvest? while separating the worms without having to pick through all the worms?
Iâm a newbie to vermicomposting so my setup is literately a bucket. So any help would be greatly appreciated.
edit: I did some scrolling up and found some great ideas. my apologies for not reading first.
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Here I have the habit of sifting the humus⊠I take an amount of humus that will fill the space of the sieve and place a bit of material (food) underneath for the worms⊠They will go down to the food.
Or leave it in the sun for a while⊠Since worms are sensitive, they will go down!
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As
Punk77 says, they donât like the light.
The classic way is dump the contents of your bucket and sculpt into a cone under a lightbulb or the sun. The worms burrow into the cone, every 10 to 15 min. Scrape off the outer layer, that should be mostly worm free. Repeat until you have a ball of worms left.
Cheers
G
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