Wormcasting

[Virandell]

Hi anybody doing here wormcasting specifically for cannabis ?
I just get a wormbin and I wonder what food would be perfect for cannabis
Bedding will be from Coco coir I am planning to feed them mostly banana peels and apple mice after processing from cold press juicer some egg shells to keep pH stable, strawberry stalks and pears.
Anybody using here amandents like kelp meal, fish meal or something like that ?
I been also thinking to feed them stinging nettles as they are amazing but I am not sure if they are all rights for worms.

 

[Azimuth]

Egg shells take a really long time to break down so they're better handled some other way. The fruit peels are mostly water but definitely good as long as they haven't been sprayed with insecticides. You can add the other things like the meals you reference. Also can run your compost thru it if you have a pile going. I add leaves, and any of the soil amendments I'm going to use in the pots. Some of them can get a bit hot as they compost down so be sure to give the worms somewhere to go to get away from the heat if they need to.

Nettles, comfrey, dandelions, horsetail fern, etc. are all great things to add as they are known as dynamic accumulators of nutrients that then can get transferred to your finished vermicompost. Just don't add too much at one time to allow the worms enough time to process it.

Fresh worm castings are awesome to add periodically to your soil as a top dressing.

 

[bobrown14]

yes... any of the meals work GREAT. Also wanna add some minerals like rock dust. That helps the worms digestive track. Like a chicken gizzard.

Be sure to add local worm castings. They will be in the leaf mold.

 

[bobrown14]

Egg shells wont break down very fast. Crush them and the worms will use them like rock dust to help with digestion.

Dont forget there's more to vermi-composting that worms. there's a huge amount of bacteria also breaking things down and well insect if ya havent noticed yet.

The thing about the insects is you leave the bin over winter, the insects turn into frass which is also a good thing.

 

[Virandell]

Egg shells wont break down very fast. Crush them and the worms will use them like rock dust to help with digestion.

Dont forget there's more to vermi-composting that worms. there's a huge amount of bacteria also breaking things down and well insect if ya havent noticed yet.

The thing about the insects is you leave the bin over winter, the insects turn into frass which is also a good thing.

Thanks alot buddy for info I will defenetly add rock dust aswell as I have a bag
I also trimmed my 4 plants today and I put leafs in the freezer I will feed them to worms aswell ^^

 

[Virandell]

Egg shells take a really long time to break down so they're better handled some other way. The fruit peels are mostly water but definitely good as long as they haven't been sprayed with insecticides. You can add the other things like the meals you reference. Also can run your compost thru it if you have a pile going. I add leaves, and any of the soil amendments I'm going to use in the pots. Some of them can get a bit hot as they compost down so be sure to give the worms somewhere to go to get away from the heat if they need to.

Nettles, comfrey, dandelions, horsetail fern, etc. are all great things to add as they are known as dynamic accumulators of nutrients that then can get transferred to your finished vermicompost. Just don't add too much at one time to allow the worms enough time to process it.

Fresh worm castings are awesome to add periodically to your soil as a top dressing.

Thanks alot buddy for help appreciate it
About insecticides I am not sure it's store bought fruits so defenetly have some crap on them should I wash my banana peels ?

 

[Azimuth]

I use mine, unwashed. I'm sure they probably had some crap sprayed on them when they were growing and I was concerned that stuff would kill the worms. Doesn't seem to have hurt them, though.

That said, however, the cleaner your inputs the better.

 

[Vegan4life]

I put my kitchen produce scraps, vaped weed, any cannabis plant scraps, trim and plant compost. I do occasionally add kelp and neem meal and used coffee grounds and filters. I never put any tomatoes, peppers, onions or animal products. I also never put acidic fruit like citrus or pineapple. Most produce I use is organic. Bio-char is also a great additive. Any animal waste needs to compost for a while before adding, just in case animals had been de-wormed recently.

 

[bobrown14]

We sometimes add meat products but we live in the country. When we lived in the city that kinda stuff attracts rats so no go. Out here no rats (knock woody). Too many predators and less hoo-man.
sometimes we put bones on top of a compost heap and watch the crows have at it. It gets pretty hilarious sometimes. They cant fly with it so they run around arguing who's bone it is. Then the feral cat shows up. lol turns into a freak show.

 

[jaybirdz]

I'll preface my comments by stating I compost in an outside garden daily not in a wormbin. The area I compost in has an amazing amount of worms with each shovel full compared to other areas of my yard. All my fruit/vege/coffee grounds and yard waste (except grass clippings) gets tilled in regularly.

My advice would be to research the type of worms you plan to use and get an idea what the best soil PH range for that breed would be. Then look at what you plan to compost into the soil and how those items may change the PH. For example adding coffee grounds to soil can decrease PH (more acidic). Lastly check the PH of the water you use to keep the soil moist in your wormbin, I'd get the soil and water PH close to the same unless your using water to raise or lower soil PH. I believe a happy worm colony thrives with the right soil/water PH besides the food for them you provide.

 

[Hayron1088]

I don’t see much on time frame as to when the medium the worms are making is ready. I also have a worm bin with approximately 800-1000 worms with a 20 gal bin roughly half way full. The initial medium I mixed was 3 bricks of coco coir and a four pound bag of organic worm castings. I’ve tilled it and used it as a top dressing a couple days ago so obviously I cannot make a judgment if it’s ready or will help my plants or not. Anyone know where I can further educate myself on this?

 

[bobrown14]

Red wigglers are always a part of our vermi-bins. They just show up for the partay.

 

[Azimuth]

I think you're looking at 3-4 months at least for good castings. I have a stacked system consisting of 3 bins that are rotated. I load the top one over the course of a month or so. When it gets full, I harvest the bottom one, and rotate the others down and the put the empty one on top and start filling it. Often I'll go more than a month per bin and get better vermicompost when I do.

If I were to rebuild the thing I would add at least one, maybe two additional bins to give them each more time.

 

[Azimuth]

I should also say that the longer it goes the more the the vermicompost is turned into castings. More of the original inputs have been broken down by the microbes and have had a chance to go through the worms' gizzards. This adds more beneficial bacteria than you can get from simple compost by itself, and therefore is a much better end product.

The moral of the story is, give it time and it gets better, but the earlier versions are good too, just not as good. So I would start using a little of it as soon as it looks ready, and let the rest continue to breakdown over time. Regular compost is good by itself, but after going through the worms it turns it into some magical stuff. The good old "unicorn poop".

 

[Hayron1088]

Your right my vermicompost bin is still coco coir more then castings. I’ll continue the process! I also have a homemade bin outside. It has leaves and lawn clippings, I add compost starter when needed and also add compost tea once or twice a month. It’s essentially made from plastic netting and stakes. The top of the compost seams to be “changing” but the bottom still looks much like leaves. It’s four feet tall so turning it in any way shape or form is out of the question. Not sure what I’ll do with it haha

 

[Azimuth]

Your right my vermicompost bin is still coco coir more then castings. I’ll continue the process! I also have a homemade bin outside. It has leaves and lawn clippings, I add compost starter when needed and also add compost tea once or twice a month. It’s essentially made from plastic netting and stakes. The top of the compost seams to be “changing” but the bottom still looks much like leaves. It’s four feet tall so turning it in any way shape or form is out of the question. Not sure what I’ll do with it haha

The red wigglers, I believe, are surface dwellers which would match up with what you are experiencing. Adding another species of worm that digs deep, light nightcrawlers, would help mix things up a bit deeper.

The bins I use are at most 12" deep, so I don't have that issue.

 

[Odjob]

All I do is keep two compost piles, one finishing an one starting, and let worms go back and forth. I use sand for grit and get about a square yard of castings a year. My new pile has a real funky mold on the go.

 

[Roots]

All I do is keep two compost piles, one finishing an one starting, and let worms go back and forth. I use sand for grit and get about a square yard of castings a year. My new pile has a real funky mold on the go.

Those are European night crawlers. In my opinion the best composting worm.

 

[Roots]

I use the European Night crawlers. For a medium my local Home Depot sells a cow manure/humus mix that has some dark heavy soil in it. I put a 40 pound bag in a tote, water it well to the point just before wet and keep it that way. Dump my worms in and run a bead of powdered alfalfa 2 inches wide down the middle of the bin. They make dark nice looking castings with whatever benefits alfalfa has in them. I make soil covers out of Sunset Blush wine boxes with the shiny side down. Very important. I have to feed at least twice a week. What I do is harvest the castings by sweeping them onto a piece of wine box with a sweep brush after they have eaten the alfalfa. Throw the worms back. If you have a lot of worms you can get castings pretty fast. About the time you have used up half of the bag of composted cow manure/Humus put another bag in there. You can do this twice then you have to separate the worms from the medium and put them in new. It is really easy.

 

[Odjob]

I suppose they are Euros. I get them from a dairy farm just up the road. The patriarch says that thay have been in the manure piles as long as he can remember. I've shown them what I do with them and they're really seeing the potential! They can go deep and make the winter no problem with a bit of insulation. I use maple leaves that they gobble up in the spring. They are voracious eaters. Unfortunately they will leave a pile and eat residue that would be better left for ground cover.