@greasemonkeymann and
@stowandgrow
Thanks guys. I definitely bought some black peat moss.i mean this stuff is nothing... I'll definitely be checking bags before I buy from now on.
That's if I buy bags of anything at all.
Going to start making my own soon. What's a realistic amount on castings you guys think I would get if I were to harvest a 15 gallon smart pot each month? I know their is a lot of factors just looking for an estimate.
i'm not sure I understand the question exactly...
Are you asking if you had a 15 gal smartpot that you have as a wormbin?
And don't expect anything for the first 45 days or so at least, unless you buy a large amount of worms to begin with.
If you want to accelerate your progress, and can afford fifty bucks or so you can get an asston of worms (uncle jims), and then you'll be harvesting in about 30 days or so...
I'd go with a 25 gallon smartpot, a bunch of shredded, soaked cardboard or newspaper, some like peat as a base, personally I threw an extremely rootbound 1 gallon rootball in mine, and added a bunch of soaked & shredded cardboard, about a 4-5 days or so, the worms will be acclimated and ready for some food.
Fill the pot about 1/3 way, to allow you to add stuff as you go, you may want to buy an extra coffee grinder or mortar & pestle to grind up some eggshells for your worms, this does two things, it adds a good amount of calcium to your vermicastings, and also helps the worms digest their food.
but like everything, don't overdo it.
my method is pretty simple, I freeze the leftover fruit & scraps, I have found that the worms have their "favorites" meaning the stuff they consume within hrs, those include pears, melons, apples, grapes, tomatoes. Freeze them all, for a day or longer, and then thaw in a plastic bag, sealed. I like to allow the mushy thawed fruit to go bad for a day or so, then mash it up inside the bag, mash it to a slushy plop, no mess, no fuss, then dig a hole in your wormbin, about a fist size, and plop the fruit/vege mash in it and cover with the dirt you dug out, no smell, no run off, I don't water my worm bin unless it gets super hot, the moisture from the fruit is enough. I keep my bin outside but I literally could keep it inside with no issues, no flies, no stink or anything.
After like an hr or so, if you are curious, uncover the fruit and you'll see a writhing mass of redworms the size of your hand or bigger, they go NUTS over it.
Ah, and I do like to either rinse out the plastic "mush" bag, or toss it, either way, it works well if you shop at a grocery store that has good produce bags then you can just use whatever you bought the fruit in.
Things I have used for food that I don't recommend are the following.
banana peels, they take too long to breakdown, and the worms don't like em, possible pesticides too, even organics
kale, smells literally like a rotting animal, not recommended. I'd smell a fish emulsion tea that's been anerobic for days over composting kale...
celery, too fibrous for them to breakdown readily.
avocado seeds, or peels, they LOVE the actual avocado though! Like crazy, but not the seeds or peels.
my worms can destroy an entire large pear in about 6 hrs. BUT, I do give them a day break between feeding, when it's cold I feed them once a week.
Oh, another thing, my worms don't like coffee grinds, thats the most common "worm-food" for wormbins, and mine take SO long to eat them, so I use my grind as a nitrogen additive for my compost pile, works awesome in that regard, compared to fruit though the coffee takes a week or so to consume, the fruit takes hrs, plus I speculate that a fruit based vermicast may be higher in phosphorus, which is always a good thing.
waste not.
Ok, thus concludes this coffee/black tea fueled rant. Whew.
