The final part of vermicomposting is harvesting your worms.
There are many ways for harvesting them. One of them is harvesting by hand. It can be time consuming but it is still the best way to harvest your worms. Why? Because when you harvest them by hand, you will stress the worms less than when you harvest them using a rotating harvester.
In this video you can see how to harvest your worms by hand.
My worm compost was almost done. So I’ve moved the right side of the bedding on top of the left side of the bedding.
I kept feeding the worms there and didn’t put new bedding on the right side of the bin.
After a few weeks, I moved all the bedding from the left side to the right side of the bin.
You could really see that the compost is almost done. You can barely see the old bedding in the compost. Everything became like it’s soil. And I haven’t put soil in the bedding. It’s pure dry leaves, newspaper and organic wastes. And it contains a lot of nutrients for your plants.
I’m building a larger bin for the worms so I can make more compost. The bin will have 3 sections. When the first section is done, I’ll start with the next one and worms will move there. Then I can harvest the compost in the first section.
I really love these worms. I don’t need a lot of time to take care of them. They don’t require a lot. And the quantity keeps increasing.
So I suggest you start making your own compost. It is cheap and easy to do especially when you’re composting with worms. These worms don’t cost a lot and you don’t need a lot to start with if the compost is for your home garden. So why not start by making your own compost bin and start making your own compost?
This week I’ve made my own worm tea.
Worm tea is actually tea from the finished worm compost. My worm compost isn’t finished yet. But the first half of the worm bin was done. So I added more bedding to the bin.
I’ve watered my worm bin so I can harvest castings using water. And the liquid that I’ve captured below from the drainage holes, I’ve mixed with water in a bin.
After that I’ve grabbed a little bit of the finished compost in the bottom and put it in a sock. And with that, I made the worm tea. Using water and water mixed with worm castings. I’ve let it stay in the water for about 2 days.
Today I’ve taken the sock with finished compost out of the water. Now I’m testing it to see how the plants will grow when I use it on them. I compare the results with plants treated with just water.
I hope that this worm tea can give the plants extra nutrients.
Castings contains a lot of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. So that means that this tea may contain the nutrients too.
You can find more information on worm tea in this article
Brandon Koots
Hydroponics Curacao
For questions or help, feel free to contact us via our email: support@hydroponics-curacao.com
I have my worms in a half drum. I’ve started by filling half the drum with bedding. The bedding was newspapers and on top, I’ve put dry leaves.
After about 2 months, the newspapers in the bin have now disappeared.
So now they need more bedding to live in. What I did was I’ve hand shredded more newspapers. Now the bin is almost full. And on top of that I’ve put more dry leaves. The dry leaves help to keep the newspapers below wet.
Then I’ve put food for them in the new bedding on top so they will move to the new bedding. I hope that they can get enough air in the old bedding below.
I sometimes pour water over the worm bin to harvest some of the castings. And I capture the water from the drainage holes in a bin. That liquid is filled with a lot of nutrients! I use it for my plants in my aquaponics system. That helps to make the plants stronger.
In june or july I will harvest this worm bin to start again. But I’ve planned to start a new and larger worm bin next month.
Brandon Koots
Hydroponics Curacao
For questions or help, feel free to contact us via our email: support@hydroponics-curacao.com
Vermicompost is what you get when food scraps are processed by worms. This is one of the main reasons people start keeping worms.
There are several ways to use worms and worm products in the garden:
Earthworms in the garden soil
They can be found in the top 12 to 18 inches of the soil where they can get a lot of food.
Worms can enrich the soil in many ways:
Earthworm’s activity depends directly on soil moisture and temperature.
The humus that is produced in vermicompost not only improves the soil, but stimulates plant growth and helps control diseases that attack plants.
Nutrient content of worm casting:
The nutrient content of castings varies depending on the type of food eaten by the worms.
Adding vermicompost in the garden:
Using castings in the garden:
Worm tea
Worm tea is water with disolved casting in it. Can come from bin as drainage or from harvesting casting with water.
Dilute tea with equal part water before using. It’s especially good for weak or diseased plants.
Worm tea can also be added to aquaponics systems. My plant have grown faster after I’ve added worm tea in the system. It doesn’t harm the fishes.
Brandon Koots
Hydroponics Curacao
For questions or help, feel free to contact us via our email: support@hydroponics-curacao.com
Unpleasant odor coming from the worm bin
This can be several factors:
Worms are leaving the bin
Use light to force them to stay in the bin.
Worms are dying: emergency situation!
Flies around the bin: fruit flies
Worms aren’t eating
Sometimes the worms need to get used to their new home. They should start eating after a few days.
Worms are gone
Brandon Koots
Hydroponics Curacao
For questions or help, feel free to contact us via our email: support@hydroponics-curacao.com
There are several ways to harvest worm castings. Read this article to find the best one for you.
Vermicompost is a mixture of worm castings and decomposed organic matter. It can take about 6 weeks to 4 months. This depends on the size of the bin and the quantity of worms you have.
There are a lot of ways to harvest castings and vermicompost. But I’ve only put one. The one that I think is the easiest way to do it.
Light Method
Dump the worm bin in a pile on a piece of plastic. Shine a light directly on it. Or do this outside in the sun. Worms will go down to get away from light.
Brush off vermicompost or casting off the top. When you see the worms, wait till they go deeper into the soil.
Do this until worms are completely separated from vermicompost.
Make sure the new bin is done. Worms that stay too much in light will die.
Brandon Koots
Hydroponics Curacao
For questions or help, feel free to contact us via our email: support@hydroponics-curacao.com
There are many different bedding types to start your worms in. In this article I’ve only put the easiest and most affordable bedding.
Newspaper
This is good especially when mixed with dry leaves or straw.
Advantages
Disadvantages
Try not to use colored inks. This can be toxic to the worms.
Smaller pieces will hold moisture better than larger pieces.
If you live in a hot area, put some dry leaves on top of the newspaper. This will help to keep the newspaper wet longer.
This article is about the different worm species that are best for vermicomposting. Learn more about the different species and find the best one for your compost bin.
Nightcrawlers
Nightcrawlers have the colors red or brown. They can get up to 30 cm long and live in vertical tunnels that can go up to 2 meters deep. Nightcrawlers can live about 10 years. These worms like to eat mulch and leaf litter. And they prefer a temperature at 10 degrees celsius. Their cocoon hatches after 14 to 21 days.
Nightcrawlers are not good for indoor vermicomposting systems.
African nightcrawlers
They are reddish in color. These worms can get up to 30 cm long. African nightcrawlers live in top few cm of soil. Under litter and mulch. They prefer to eat rich compost and prefer a temperature between 15 to 25 degrees celsius.
Red Tigers
These worms are also perfect for vermicomposting. They are dark red or purple in color. Red tigers can get up to 8 cm long and live in the first few cm of the soil and under mulch. They prefer to eat manure, rich compost, decaying plant & animal material and to live in a temperature between 18 to 23 degrees celsius.
Red wigglers
Red wigglers are the most common worms used for vermicomposting. That can eat half their body weight a day in food. So they are perfect!
They are rust brown in color. Red wigglers can get up to 8 cm long and live in the first few cm of the soil. They like to eat very rich compost, manure piles and decaying plant & animal material. Red wigglers prefer to live in temperatures between 15 and 25 degrees celsius. And it takes 35 to 70 days for their cocoon to hatch.
Blue worms
These worms are good for vermicomposting in warm climates.
Their color is deep purple and light yellow underside. Their can get about 15 cm long and live just under mulch. Blue worms like to eat compost, decaying plant & animal material. And they prefer a temperature between 20 to 25 degrees celsius.
Spenceriella species
They are deep purple in color and have a red to brown underside. This specie can get up to 15 cm long and live in the top few cm of the soil and under mulch. These species prefer to eat compost and decaying plant & animal material and prefer to live in a temperature between 20 and 27 degrees celsius.
Red worms
Red worms’ color is dark red to maroon and their underside is light yellow. They can get up to 8 cm long. Red worms live in the top 15 to 30 cm of the soil. They prefer to eat rich compost and decaying plant & animal material and prefer to live in a temperature between 18 to 23 degrees celsius.
It takes about 12 to 16 weeks for the cocoon to hatch.
Based on your weather, you can determine where to put your worms and what specie to use. Most compost worms do best at temperatures between 15 to 25 degrees celsius.
Brandon Koots
Hydroponics Curacao
Email: support@hydroponics-curacao.com
This article isn’t a long article. It’s just to give you an idea of what worms like to eat.
Many people don’t know what exactly they have to feed their worms.
Well, worms eat every waste of people and animals. But there are a few things they like the most. I know this because when I feed them one of these things, they eat it faster than other things.
What they like the most:
You can try it out too. Feed them on of these and go look the next day at the spot you placed it. You will see a lot of those worms there together. Maybe they already ate their food. This also depends on how many worms you have.
My worms are doing great now! I give them papaya and cucumber only. Because I know they love them. But now I’ve started growing pumpkins. I have 4 plants growing right now. And these pumpkins are planted for my worms.
Brandon Koots
Hydroponics Curacao
Email: support@hydroponics-curacao.com