Harvesting the Worm Castings

Unlike today which is miserable, yesterday was bright and sunny, nice and warm. There was also a good, stalwart breeze keeping the skeeters and blackflies at bay. So I naturally wanted to go out and weed the veggie garden. Since I was going to be outside anyway, I figured I might as well harvest castings from the second worm bin, I did the first, larger bin a while back just when I started planting. I like to be outside when the bin is out because I don't particularly want the crows to think I have just set up a buffet for them.

Harvesting the castings is getting easier. Probably because I don't sift it anymore. If it is half decayed and/or not moving, I take it. I don't care if there's a leaf or a little leftover straw stalk in the castings. So it's not the major time consuming chore it once was. The set up is easy. I put down a plastic sheet, gently dump the bin out. Rinse the bin out well and get the new bedding of dead leaves soaking in water, that would be the white pail in the top picture. Worms hate the daylight and will burrow down away from the sun. So I go weed for a bit, return and take the casings until I hit the worms, go back to weeding, and repeat.

As I go down into the pile, I will come across a clump of leaf bedding not eaten. I generally don't feed my worms for a few days before harvesting so they will eating the bedding but there's always a few clumps still hanging around. The clumps go back into the bin for one very important reason. Those little yellow, orange and white balls you see on the bedding are worm cocoons. Each will hold anywhere from 2 to 20 baby worms. I don't know why they're different colours and sizes unless they're from different types of worms or, and this thought seems to make more sense, because they are in different stages of development

So after an hour or so, the castings are pretty much all collected. Now comes the grody part. I am left with a pile of eewy worms and I am not going to pick them up, gloves or no gloves. Ugh. That's were the plastic sheet comes in so handy. Not only does it keep the worms from burrowing into the ground and escaping, it makes the perfect transport vehicle for the worms. I just pick up the corners and gently slide the worms and all their gooeyness into the new cleaned bin. Easy peasy, thank you very much. I rinse off the plastic and it's ready to use when it is time again to harvest.





Here's the nice, clean bin all ready for the most productive inhabitants of the DaM Farm. After soaking the leaves for awhile, I'll wring them out as much as I can and put a good 6 inches in the bin, that's the bedding for the worms. Then I will put in some soaked and drained rabbit manure. It gets finished off with another layer of leaves. One of the things about harvesting in the sun is I'm sure the leaves won't be too wet. The sun evaporates any extra moisture without drying out the leaves too much. Well, as long as I keep an eye on things, that's how it works.

And so is all this worth it? The hauling, the prep work, the back and forth, the great big squirm of worms? I think so, most definitely. Because this is what I end up with... a great big bag of worm castings (I have my foot in there for scale, the bag is bigger than it looks). It might just look like a bag of earth to you but it since I've been using it, my garden has just exploded with produce! The more we can grow ourselves, the happier the whole family is.

They're Coming Along!...sort of, with a little help.

My tomato plants germinated in a rather hap-hazard fashion. Gee, there's a surprise. Everything around here tends to be on the hap-hazard side. I guess that's what happens when you really don't know what you're doing but you have an inkling. Projects aren't a total failure but they're not a rousing success either; they do tend to work out in the end... sort of, if I don't kill them trying to 'help' them. If we didn't call our place 'The DaM Farm', the 'Hap-Hazard Homestead' or 'The Inkling Way' would have been good alternatives of even 'If We Don't Kill It, We'll Make It Stronger'.

The tomatoes plant are tall but scraggly. Which is an improvement over spindly, when I think about it. Both the Beefsteak and the Heritage seedlings grew the fastest. The Romas had one or two sprouts and I was pretty sure they were a lost cause. However, I've noticed a bunch of new sprouts in the last week or so and they are not spindly/scraggly at all (yet). May-be it's just the type of plant or may-be the seeds were inadvertently planted deeper. I don't know but it's something to muse over for the next year or so. The Beefsteaks and Heritages were both spindly at first. I got some excellent advice, gently run your washed hands over the plants a couple of times a day. Apparently it strengthens the stems. It certainly worked for me. My plants started standing up and growing straight(er). But they are scraggly and they're out-growing the flats they're in so I figured I'd help them along. Hopefully my good intentions won't be the death of them.

Yesterday I transplanted some. Of course, I started with my beautiful, home-grown worm castings (yes, I do make a fuss about them and mention them as much as I can but only because they have been one of the very few rousing successes). I just harvested four bags, about 13 - 15 pounds. I mixed the castings in with the earth at about a 1 or 2 parts castings per 10 parts earth ratio. I had to buy the earth because all my compost is still frozen solid. I'm kind of thinking that I should bag some compost in the fall and keep it inside. But let's not go there right now; I really don't want to be planning fall activities when Spring is set to cover the land in colour, warmth and dreams.

`

Once I had the earth mixed, I got all my collected containers ready. I basically kept anything I thought would work. I needed tall, narrow containers and frozen juice cans seemed to fit the bill well. Another lovely piece of advice I received was burying the seedling right up to their first, false leaves when transplanting This will make the plant sturdy and less straggly (and a lot shorter). So I did that. My biggest fear here is that with the roots right on the bottom, it will be difficult to know when they need to be watered. I noticed with the couple of plastic containers I used (ran out of juice cans), it's easy to see the water trickle down. Or may-be what I should have done was take the bottoms off and put screen or newspaper on instead. May-be with the next flats. This is one of the reasons I started with the Beefsteak seedlings, I have two flats of those so I figured I'd try one and see what happens. If they do ok, I'll transplant the others. If they die, well I have another flat of them so not all is lost (ah, there's another apropos name for our place).

So here they are, all set for a sunny window. They looked a little droopy right after being transplanted but that usually happens so I wasn't too concerned. Today, they are all very upright, happy looking little plants. So far so good :) (Another name that would work well if we didn't already call this place The DaM Farm).

Again, With the Compost Worms

The trouble with taking pictures of worms is as soon as the light hits them, they disappear into the bin. I turn over a clump of bedding to find a mass of worms but by the time I grab the camera and focus, most of them are gone. They're fast little guys when they want to be. If you look very, very closely, you will see a few compost worms in the bin. And if you have amazing eyesight, you may even locate the little cocoon to the left near the green straw, it's orange.

The bin is doing very well now. It's almost time to replace the bedding and harvest the first castings of 2010. I had a bit of an issue in late fall. I had changed the bedding for but I didn't wring it out enough. I thought I did but obviously it was too wet. At first, because the top part of the bin was not too wet, all looked fine. After a while though, I started wondering were the worms were, the food I was giving them was not being eaten. So I dug deep and discovered a way-too-wet layer and very few worms. Even with the drainage holes, the bedding was soaking. So I added plain dry leaves and gently turned everything over so the wettest would be on top and dry out faster. I had little hope for the remaining worms. I considered just releasing them into my compost box and just re-start the worm bin in the Spring. But it was so cold by then I worried they'd all freeze before they could burrow deep enough down.

I was amazed at how fast those worms came back. It was noticeable in two or three weeks. After a month or so, food was disappearing at a good rate and worms abounded. It was a hard lesson to learn, though. Hard on me to see all my hard work drown and even harder on the worms. I think after I soak the new bedding, I'll actually lay it out for a bit to make sure it's not too wet. I have also made a habit to gently dig down right to the bottom every now and then to make sure the worms aren't learning to swim, it's hard to do the dog-paddle when you don't have legs.

Fifty Seven Pounds

I finally got around to harvesting my worm castings. I emptied both bins and combined them into the bigger bin with fresh bedding which was dead leaves that had been soaked in water then drained. I have an awful amount of worms and when they are all in the bottom rolled up in a ball as I removed the castings, it's pretty gross. Especially when I have to pick 'em up. Ew. I think I will go back to my original way of harvesting which was to gently dump the whole bin on a plastic sheet outside in the sun. When I got down to just the worms, I just slid them off the plastic into the nice cleaned bin. No touching involved. Pretty sweet. While a huge ball of worms is icky, the castings are pretty amazing. It really does look like earth, rich and dark with a, well, earthy sweet smell. It really shows that every creature, no matter how 'primitive' or insignificant, does have an important part to play in nature. Worms keep the ground healthy and plants flourish because of it.

I filled up two feed bags about half way. I didn't want them too heavy. Just for fun, I weighed the bags. One was just over 25 pounds and the other topped 32 pounds. Fifty Seven pounds of worm castings. That's a lot, considering it is usually used in a 1 to 10 ratio. Like I have 570 pounds of earth/compost to mix the castings into. No worries, I will find a use for it all. If nothing more, I will use in the fall when I put the garden to bed.

Worm Castings

My little worm experiment continues to work out well. I actually have two bins going now because it's easier when it comes to harvesting the castings. I've found out that with castings, a little goes a long way; it shouldn't be anymore than 10% of a mix. I think I'll use the castings as top dressing for seeds and seedlings.

Those worms are pretty prolific. I have one and a half feed bags of castings and I will be harvesting castings again before I start planting. I have changed my harvest technique a bit since I can't be dumping the bin out in the snow. I take some of the contents and put them on a cardboard. Then I put a spot light on the contents. In about 15 minutes, all the worms go to the bottom of the pile and I take the castings. I continue until all I have is a bunch of worms left. They go back into a nice clean bin with bedding and food.

I honestly have no idea how many worms I have now. I have been feeding them regularly to my chickens and it doesn't seem to make much of a dent in the population. The worms do go through food fairly fast. Apparently a pound of worms can eat half a pound of food a day. I figure I put in at least a pound every two days or so. (When it comes to poo, rabbits are about as prolific as worms.) Now all I have to do is figure out how many worms it takes to make a pound and I'll have an idea of how many worms I have. But that's really not on my to-do list. The worms are thriving, the rabbit manure is manageable, I have beautiful castings for my garden, that's all that counts.

The Great Worm Escape or What Happens When you don't pay Attention

Life doesn't always run smoothly and sometimes the results are tragic or annoying or really, really funny. Some you learn a lot from, others you re-learn something you had no business forgetting in the first place. This is one of the really funny ones with a dash of new knowledge tossed in to make the whole mis-adventure somewhat worthwhile.

I've always kept my worm bin in the cold room which also passes as the wood room come winter. It's a big room, we stack about 8 - 9 full wood cords in there every fall, and being over the uninsulated attached garage, it's cool in the summer and cold in the winter. Perfect place for the worms plus the bin is not in the house proper so that's a perk for the squeamish (not I of course; but there is a couple of people in the household who can't say "worms" without adding a "EEWWW").

Our wood order came and sat in our driveway. We have found that's the best way to get the wood in ASAP. We tend to do the chores first when they impede our convenience and comfort, not to mention being a constant reminder every time you open the door. Tripping over a log pretty much puts the thought "Oh geez, gotta get that wood in" right smack center front of the brain along with a bruise on your leg.

Putting the wood in is pretty efficient because we have a hole cut out in the garage floor and we simple toss the wood directly down into the wood room. Then we go down and stack. I say 'we', but easily 80% of the work is done by Don and the kids. I stay away mostly. 'We' can't very well throw the wood down if the worm bin is there because 'we' don't want logs bouncing off the bin. So 'we' moved the bin just outside the wood room where the washer is. I noticed that when the bin was moved, the tray and the four little cinder blocks that raises the bin over the tray did not get put back in place. I didn't really give it much thought, I figured it was only temporary and it wouldn't effect the worms. And it didn't, the worms did fine and the wood was being brought in over the next few days.

Then I noticed the worm bin had been put back into the wood room. It was still not raised over its tray but sitting directly on about 2 - 3 inches of bark that covered the floor. I kept intending to get the bin back on the tray but it was just not a priority since the worms seemed to be fine when I fed them. Though I must admit, in hindsight, I didn't see as many as usual when I checked the bin.

Last weekend, fate had it that Don and I were both in the wood room at the same time and it was the perfect time to address the worm bin. I had decided to move it out of the wood room because the wood room was getting a wee bit too chilly and I was worried the worms would freeze. So after setting up the tray and blocks in the new location, Don and I lifted up the bin. We were going to drag it because that's the way it had been moved but I thought lifting was a better idea just to make it easier on the worms. Sometimes my little voice is right on the money. We noticed right away a few worms wiggling in the bark. I picked them up and moved the bark around just in case the was a couple more...

"OH MY GOD!!!" Don exclaimed in shock and horror, "There's a whole HERD of them!" It didn't seem like a good time to point out that the proper word is 'squirm', I was a little taken back myself. Not to mention being very busy fervently thanking the powers that be we did decide to lift the bin and not drag it. I really wouldn't want to see the results of that - worm mush has no appealing ring to it at all. Turns out worms really like bark - something I didn't know. Since the worm bin was not suspended on blocks when a worm stuck its wee head out a ventilation hole in the bottom it didn't encounter wide open space. If it did, it would simply withdraw right back into the bin but since there was all the lovely, comfortable wood bark, the worms decided to pull up stakes and move to a better neighbourhood - the floor of our wood room.

The next half hour was spent with Don holding a spotlight while I picked up worms.
He: There's one.
Me: I see it.
He: Bunch over there.
Me: OK.
He: There's another freaking herd.
Me: Thanks, and they are called a squirm, horses are herds, worms are squirms.
HE: I don't care, let's just get 'em off the floor.

Must of picked up easily 500 worms. The good thing is, they didn't venture out past the area of the worm bin, must of been too cold once they were out from under the bin in the wide open space..."Wood Room Space, the final frontier, these are the voyages of the USS Worm Squirm..." You gotta be a Trekkie to appreciate that quote. Ah, adventures on the homestead. "What did you do all morning?" Answer in a long cowboy drawl. "We-elll, we's rounded up a maverick bunch of worms that broke loose from the squirm."

The adventure did have some benefits. The worms were healthy, very lively and squirmy, and a good color. They were obviously thriving in the bark and the one thing we have an abundance of is bark. I figure it'll make great bedding for them. Which is wonderful since their usual bedding, fallen leaves, is under a foot of snow. And, if there was any doubt left at all, you know you have found your one true love when spending half the morning picking up worms is full of giggles, puns and co-operation. Quality time shows up in the oddest and most unexpected places, just like worms.

First Worm Castings

My little Dendrodrilus Ribidus are doing very well. The bin seems happy and full of life. I am seeing a lot of worm cocoons and little tiny worms so I'm guessing all is well now. I did have a bit of an issue a little while ago when I change the bedding. I used brown leaves that I soaked in water then drained for their bedding. I obviously didn't check the leaves well enough and I discovered a couple of centipedes in the bin a few days later. Centipedes are a no-no; they eat baby worms and generally cause havoc and mayhem. I've got enough havoc and mayhem in my regular life, I don't need it in my worm bin. Anyhow, everything seems to be back to rights now.

I did discover those little yellow and orange eggs I mentioned in my last worm entry were indeed worm cocoons. I took a few of of the eggs and put them in a small container with damp leaves. In a few days, the container was teeming with brand new worms! Ah, science at a basic level - "Let's try it and see what happens".

When I did change the bedding, I ended up with worm castings. Worm castings is beautiful, black, earthy smelling stuff. It is absolutely gorgeous to look at, considering worm castings is basically worm poop. I bagged the castings but left the top open for a couple of days. Sure enough, I had missed a few cocoons and found a bunch of baby worms. So they are now in the bin and I have some great stuff to plant in next spring. I think I will use it right around the seeds and plants.

Changing the bin's bedding and collecting the castings is a major operation. First I have to get Don and P, teenage son, to haul the heavy bin outside. Then on a plastic sheet that is in full sun, I remove all the contents, trying to make a mini-mountain shape. The worms don't like the sun and burrow deep down. So then I start removing the castings until I hit the worms again, I'll wait a few minutes while they wiggle furiously further down to escape from the light. I remove some more of the castings and repeat the process, and repeat and repeat and repeat until all I have left is a rather large and extremely annoyed squirm of worms. I put them in the nice, fresh bin and get the boys to haul the bin back down into the nice cool wood room. I was surprised at how long it took, almost two hours, which is why I see it as a major operation. But it was worth it, the castings are very impressive.

I did try something new that didn't seem to work at first. Usually I give them pretty 'aged', shall we say, bunny manure for food. Well, that's almost composted completely so last time I fed them, I used fresher stuff that I soaked in water for a while. I found it really heated up the bin and the worms didn't like that. They stayed away from manure. I just checked it this morning and while I found it was still giving off heat, I found the worms happily devouring it. I'm figuring the warming may not be a bad thing for the winter, that wood room gets awfully cold and a little heat might be welcomed. As long as I don't put too much in at one time. A bit of experimentation will be needed, I think. Simple science is calling again...

Worms, the Project Continues

So far, unlike the chicken coop, the worm project has been an unqualified success. I can’t hammer a nail straight if my life depended on it, but man, can I grow worms. A conservative estimate would be about 800 worms now. Plus any that have been born (hatched?) in the bin itself. The worms sure eat a lot; I can see the bunny manure reduce in two or three days. Last week, I put in more dead leaf bedding. I noticed it was really wet on the bottom, so Don drilled some more holes in the bin bottom and lower sides for me.

I’m pretty sure I have Dendrodrilus Ribidus. I have no idea how to pronounce that, I just know how to spell it while looking at the word itself on the internet. D.R.s are small worms, 3 – 4 inches or so, ranging in colour from dark red to pink on the upper surface, being paler below and they have yellow tails. They are common in the decomposing leaves and in compost and manure heaps, which is where I am finding them.

I have discovered that I was right about being apprehensive about getting non-native red wrigglers. They should not be released into the wild because of their voracious appetites and reproductive rates. They have actually been known to upset the balance of the hardwood forests because they eat the leaf litter too quickly. When that happens, the hard shelled nuts can’t incubate as they should. Red wrigglers can also lead to erosion and affect the pH of the soil. I always like those instances where my gut feeling is justified.

I need to find out about are worm eggs or cocoons. When I am turning the leaf compost and harvesting worms, I will come across little yellow or orange color eggs. They don’t look to be more than 1/8th of an inch. I usually find a lot of worms around them. I’m wondering if they are worm cocoons. If they are, I could add them directly to my bin. A cocoon will hold anywhere from 2 – 20 worms. Hopefully, I can find either a picture or a very good description of a cocoon soon. In the meantime, I might just take one of those eggs and keep it separate in some leaves and see what happens.

Happy Worms

I probably know more about worms now than I really want to. I found out they have 5 hearts and they can live up to ten years. A group of worms is called a squirm. A squirm of worms, or may-be a worm squirm. Almost everything I read stressed the importance of the worms being "happy". It just seems like an odd terminology to use with worms, I mean it's not like you can pick up a worm, look at one end or the other and see if it's smiling.

As it turns out, I did almost everything wrong. A worm bin should be wide, not narrow and it should have holes drilled in it for drainage and aeration. I'm glad worms can't read or else they would realize that they are in the most unsuitable situation and should all up and die on me. While I'm a big believer in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", I figured I was getting by on beginners luck and it wasn't going to last forever. So yesterday I got a plastic bin and punched tiny, tiny holes in it. I'm using the lid as a tray to catch any liquid, apparently the liquid is great fertilizer as well. I cover the top with a burlap bag and the worms stay put. I haven't caught any stray or escaping worms yet.

I got the worms when I turned our vegetable compost over, I picked well over two hundred worms and I'm sure that wasn't even half of what I saw. I stopped counting somewhere shortly after two hundred. It just seemed a little dweeby to be counting worms. Worms are a social lot, you find one, you'll find twenty, then you won't find any for a couple of pitchfork fulls and then you'll find another batch, or should I say squirm. The worms I have are red, with a yellow tail, they're bin-able, I think. For all I know, they could be red wigglers that were introduced into the area at one time or another. So I'll see how it goes. If they move and the bin doesn't smell, I'll assume they're happy.

Worm Project

I started a new project today. I'm going to see if I can raise worms. At first, I never saw the point of raising worms. They naturally gravitate towards the rabbit manure pile and then I throw the manure in the garden complete with worms so why make extra work for myself? I've changed my mind because 1) rabbits make a lot of poo and rats like to nest in the hay so anything that can make the pile go down faster is good. 2) The finished product is apparently marvelous for the garden. 3) Chickens eat worms, since I'm trying to raise chickens as naturally as possible, worms seem like a good food supplement.

It does sound like a good idea, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I'm running into problems before I even start. Almost everything I've read says to get red wigglers. I'm not buying worms when the ground is crawling with them. Red wigglers are not native to where I live and I'm wary about introducing any new life form to an area. So right off the bat, I don't have the recommended 1 - 2 lbs of worms to start my project. The other thing that needs to be solved is actually finding info on raising worms in cold climates. There's oodles of information on raising worms in areas where the frost line is two feet or less. So may-be worms can't be raised in colder climates but doesn't really make sense. Worms live here so there must be a way to raise them here. Another thing is that apparently only red wigglers can be raised in bins - I don't understand that, either.

So armed with very little knowledge, I going to try vermiculture and hopefully not murder a bunch of innocent worms in the process. I am using a five gallon pail. I do have buckets that would work but the pail is narrow and tall, I don't know if worms would crawl out of a low bucket and I don't particularly want to find out. Finding a mass exodus of worms the in basement is not something I would enjoy though I'm sure M. Night Shyamalan could find movie inspiration in such a scenario. After washing the pail out, I put about 4 - 6 inches of brown leaves in the bottom and then a bunch of bunny manure. It's moist, like a damp sponge which is the recommended environment for worms. I covered the top with cardboard just in case the worms can slither out. I think I might punch a couple of holes in the top for ventilation. I will keep it in the basement firewood room where it's dark and stays cool even on the hottest days.

I'm going to get worms from the compost, manure and leaf piles I have. Whenever I'm out, turning the piles or putting it on the gardens, I'll snag whatever worms I find and put them in my bucket. If the worms don't do well, I'll let them go. If they do well, and multiply, I figure by next spring I'll have enough to start a worm pit. I have all winter to figure out how to make a cold climate pit with local worms. You'd think that would be enough time.