Worm Food.?

So I definitely Need to make a work farm... The question is, what exact foods can I should I use? And, can I continually add More food for them to compost? Or, should I make a batch then after its finished make another... I could do this perpetually...?

I have an Endless supply of carrots,.onions, cucumbers, celery, egg shells, and so much more at my finger tips, all for free. Should I use all this for my worm food? What ratios?

Thanks so much, going to do some research but at work right now and wanted to post this thread.

cannakis said:

So I definitely Need to make a work farm... The question is, what exact foods can I should I use? And, can I continually add More food for them to compost? Or, should I make a batch then after its finished make another... I could do this perpetually...?

I have an Endless supply of carrots,.onions, cucumbers, celery, egg shells, and so much more at my finger tips, all for free. Should I use all this for my worm food? What ratios?

Thanks so much, going to do some research but at work right now and wanted to post this thread.

Click to expand...

Not trying to jack your thread at all but I am wanting to see replies and I am also wondering how big of a farm to make...to fill like 15-20 gallons? That's alot of worms and containers?

vitamin_green_inc said:

Not trying to jack your thread at all but I am wanting to see replies and I am also wondering how big of a farm to make...to fill like 15-20 gallons? That's alot of worms and containers?

Click to expand...

haha no problem thats why we are all here!

I make bedding out of peat moss and dry leaves (canna leaves mostly) and a little recycled soil. Then I feed pureed oats, frozen pureed veggie scraps (no citrus), a small amount crab meal, neem meal, rockdust, kelp meal. Then coffee grounds, pulverized egg shells, left overs from seed sprout tea's and compost tea's.

If you just read about a worm bin 360 rhey will tell you the dos and donts

anzohaze said:

If you just read about a worm bin 360 rhey will tell you the dos and donts

Click to expand...

Yes, but how much ewc or vermicompost is produced? What is the size of the environment/how many worms to produce, say 10-20 gallons by 2-4 months time?

i use mostly leaves. the bigger and older the pile the better.dont disturb or turn it like a composting.very big worms will be there next year.another successful thing i found is clover.i plant large patches of clover and next season worms galore.dedicated areas for permaculture are great idea

vitamin_green_inc said:

Yes, but how much ewc or vermicompost is produced? What is the size of the environment/how many worms to produce, say 10-20 gallons by 2-4 months time?

Click to expand...

I have 3 x 30 litre bins. I harvest one every 6 weeks. I get roughly 5 gallons of finished castings from each bin.

IOW, each bin kicks out 5 gallons in 18 weeks. If you were to start 4 bins, with roughly a pound of worms (about 1,000 worms) in each bin you'd have your 20 gallons in 4 months time.

As for food, you can feed them pretty much any veggie/fruit scraps with the exception of onions (and garlic) and citrus fruits. No meat or dairy either.Coffee grounds are fine, tea bags are good too.

It helps to freeze the scraps which breaks down the cell walls and speeds up decomposition. Cutting up or blending the scraps in to a slurry does the same by increasing surface area.

mudballs said:

i use mostly leaves. the bigger and older the pile the better.dont disturb or turn it like a composting.very big worms will be there next year.another successful thing i found is clover.i plant large patches of clover and next season worms galore.dedicated areas for permaculture are great idea

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i really like this could you elaborate? are these dedicated areas outside? planting clover outside and harvesting or leaving in area?

st0wandgrow said:

I have 3 x 30 litre bins. I harvest one every 6 weeks. I get roughly 5 gallons of finished castings from each bin.

IOW, each bin kicks out 5 gallons in 18 weeks. If you were to start 4 bins, with roughly a pound of worms (about 1,000 worms) in each bin you'd have your 20 gallons in 4 months time.

As for food, you can feed them pretty much any veggie/fruit scraps with the exception of onions (and garlic) and citrus fruits. No meat or dairy either.Coffee grounds are fine, tea bags are good too.

It helps to freeze the scraps which breaks down the cell walls and speeds up decomposition. Cutting up or blending the scraps in to a slurry does the same by increasing surface area.

Click to expand...

now do i Have to puree scraps and freeze them? or can i just throw them in?

so no onions.? why?

yep a compost pile and a strictly leaf pile.the leaf pile produces the most earthworms.as for clover i rototill,remove whatever grass i can,then massive clover broadcast seeded.that is for enrichment of soil for use later.turns out when i dig the next year theres a bunch of worms.just one way to make an area for earthworms whether you take them out or not.the leaf pile is my favorite because when i finally dig theres beneficial leaf mold and worms.except for ph its super soil this black spongy goodness.hope that helped sometimes im not as articulate as people want.

Holy sheep shit!
-red (cheechs cousin)

cannakis said:

So I definitely Need to make a work farm... The question is, what exact foods can I should I use? And, can I continually add More food for them to compost? Or, should I make a batch then after its finished make another... I could do this perpetually...?

I have an Endless supply of carrots,.onions, cucumbers, celery, egg shells, and so much more at my finger tips, all for free. Should I use all this for my worm food? What ratios?

Thanks so much, going to do some research but at work right now and wanted to post this thread.

Click to expand...

read the "vermicomposters thread unite"
it's like two centimeters away from this thread, and it'll teach you all you need to know, or you can google/bing/yahoo "vermicomposting"

cannakis said:

now do i Have to puree scraps and freeze them? or can i just throw them in?

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You don't *have* to, it just speeds things up a bit.

cannakis said:

so no onions.? why?

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Because worms don't like them??

I dunno. Every vermiculture website and book says to avoid feeding onions to worms.... so I avoid it.

vitamin_green_inc said:

Yes, but how much ewc or vermicompost is produced? What is the size of the environment/how many worms to produce, say 10-20 gallons by 2-4 months time?

Click to expand...

Like most things done organically it takes time, especially when it gets a lil cold.
I have two large smartpots that I use for my wormbins, and it took a good month or so to start getting castings out of them, and now that my worm population is higher, the casting production is much faster (duh), but I would say this for sure, start a wormbin with NEXT harvest in mind, it's hard to speed these little guys up. And the usual 2-3 month time fr a harvest is enough time to get them established.
Gotta remember, more worms, equals more castings, kinda goes without saying, but if you buy 15 bucks worth of worms and expect them to crank out enough castings for a grow in a couple months, you may be sorry.