Dirt Hugger
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A Fertile Cocoon
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Compost as worm food - 2006/06/19 13:08
Hi,
I'm completely new to the worm world so please forgive any faux pas I may make along the way!
I recently constructed a large-scale, outdoor wormery as an experiment for my work, which is a commercial composting company. There are 40kg of worms in there at the moment, split between two bays. They're currently living in the compost that we produce, which is a rich, dark compost of medium consistency (somewhere between soil and mulch).
I was told by the people who supplied the worms to me that as worms feed on the remains of dead plants in the ground, they would be happy chomping through this. But our compost has gone through a process which involves reaching tempratures as high as 70 degrees celsius and is fully matured.
I'm wondering if in fact the compost is in itself enough food, or if I should be adding fruit peels etc. every so often as well?
Also, I've read mixed opinions about eggshells for worms ("No egg shells please" http://www.kitsapezearth.com/index.html).
Can anyone enlighten me on these two points?
Much appreciated.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge" - Bertrand Russel |
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redhen
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/06/19 21:16
I'm wondering if in fact the compost is in itself enough food, or if I should be adding fruit peels etc. every so often as well?
I think that finished compost has less to offer the worms as rotting vegetation does.
Also, I've read mixed opinions about eggshells for worms
Well add me to the list that puts all the eggshells in the bin. I do not rinse or spend more time than a simple hand-crush when adding.
Susan Quinby-Honer
redhen@nc.rr.com
Starve the Landfill...Feed the Earth. |
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WormMainea
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/06/20 07:28
I, too, add egg shells straight to my bin-- stack them and smash them. My worm shipments always have visible pieces of light brown eggshells. I'd like to hear from those who think egg shells are bad.
WormMainea.com |
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glowery
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/06/20 10:28
I had been told when you add something that is fully composted it is okay as part of the bedding, but was of too little nutritional value to the worms as food.
I also add egg shells to my bins, I just toss them in the food processor with what ever else I am chopping, slicing, and dicing at the time for the worms.
Glenda
I always wanted to be somebody; I guess I should have been more specific. |
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Dirt Hugger
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/06/22 03:57
Thanks for all your helpful responses. My director's a co-carer for the worms (since I built the wormery on her organic allotment property), which is great except she can be a stubborn thing and insists that worms are "wild creatures who live in soil and do quite well without being fed scraps" which is a fair point but I tend to want to take the advice of seasoned worm folk here on this forum!
So the general consensus is that I should carry on adding fruit peels as I have been? There are 2 bays of worms, and each bay is an area of about 2m x 2.5m, and I have been chucking in about a gallon of banana peel/ melon peel/ potato peel/ egg shells per bay every couple of weeks.
Also, will the worms eventually break down the small pieces of wood in the compost, or should I try and remove as much as possible now to make harvesting easier in the future?
Thanks again!
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WormMainea
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/06/22 07:04
Why not put the fruit peelings in the worm bin-- where else would you put them? It only makes sense to put fruit an dvegetable matter into the worm bin.
How big are the pieces of wood that you're talking about? We used wood kitchen matches to light candles during a power outage March of 2005, and I can still find those wooden matches in one of my bins. I think they will eventually break down, but until then I'm hand picking them whenever I harvest from that bin. For me wooden matches go in my outdoor bin where a wider varitey of compost critters are available to go to work on it.
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Dirt Hugger
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/06/22 07:50
Oh of course it makes sense to put any fruit or veg waste in. However, this wormery was originally constructed to see if the worms could work through our already top quality compost to produce even greater quality vermicompost. So the question is: will feeding them too much "other" stuff prevent them from working the compost to the extent they might've without other food... 
At the moment I'm getting large quantities of fruit waste from my local juice bar and cycling over to the wormery 7 miles away to check on them.
I am planning on making myself a wormery for my home very soon for our domestic food scraps; I might even use the design you provide on your website 
PS. the wood pieces are no larger than 2 inches long and the width of a pencil. They are just natural, unprocessed bits of tree.
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge" - Bertrand Russel |
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redhen
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/06/22 13:19
However, this wormery was originally constructed to see if the worms could work through our already top quality compost to produce even greater quality vermicompost. So the question is: will feeding them too much "other" stuff prevent them from working the compost to the extent they might've without other food.
That finished compost does not have a lot of food for the worms and they will leave or die trying to find a better source. By feeding the produce you will be making vermicompost from the "get go". The worms will stay and happily convert your waste into a valuable resource.
Susan Quinby-Honer
redhen@nc.rr.com
Starve the Landfill...Feed the Earth. |
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Dick
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/06/23 17:18
Couple of thoughts on your worms. First off, worms don't eat scraps, plants, compost or much of any vegetable matter. They are essentially predators on the microbes that eat this stuff. As long as the medium they are in has an active population of microbes breaking it down, the worms will be happy.
Also tell your boss that the worms in compost don't live in the soil and in fact will die if placed in soil. They are compost worms and naturally live in leaf litter, manure etc. A few hundred pounds of fruit scraps will rot and make them very happy. Fruit scraps, leaves, grass clippings and such break down much faster than wood chips, so the worms will get more to eat, much faster.
Good luck.
Dick
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Jerry
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/06/24 09:01
We have been feeding worms for about eight years now. We do not feed anything but compost.The compost is the food source and the bedding. We have one bin that we add our food scraps and garden vegetable that get to big to eat. We produce a premium worm casting.
If your compost has a high bacterial and fungal count your worms will be fine. We have ours in bins and windrows. We cover them with black plastic. We have not watered in two years. The condensation from the plastic keeps it at the right moisture level. This might not work in all areas especially in areas wiith low humidity.
Jerry
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Kuznles
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/06/28 00:39
Yep, I too feed compost to my worms and they thrive on it quite well. I have an old garden way composter, it is supposed to make compost in 14 days, but I have never been able to. I load it up and turn it every day for 14 days, then dump it into an old plastic feed trough for about a week usually there is very little smell to it by this time, so I put into one of my worm bins, and if it doesn't heat in a day or so. I add the worms which get nice and fat in there.
Kuznles
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Dirt Hugger
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/06/29 04:31
Very interesting. Our compost does indeed have a range of mesophilic bacteria and fungi in it. I added another layer of new compost this week, about 2 inches, and this morning when I checked on the worms they were all hanging out in the new stuff apparently pretty happy.
How do I know when they've exhausted the compost and when to add more? It's so black in colour as it is, it's hard to see if there are castings.
I'm continuing to throw in a few handfulls of banana, melon, and sweet potato peel, along with egg shells as well, just in case...
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UncleBubba
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/08/15 09:49
In a posting here, Jerry mentioned that he covers all of his windrows with black plastic and does not have to water. I wonder if he has any problem with heat using this method. I use the black plastic on my inside bins and it keeps them as moist as I desire. However on my outside bin the temperature gets pretty high when I cover it with the plastic. I am in South Alabama with daytime temps in the high 90s but my outside bin is in a very shady area.
Deep in the "Heart of Dixie" |
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superworm
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/09/01 14:22
if your going to use just compost you can always make some worm casting tea using some worm castings (id go 1lb per gallon), 1tbs of mollasis per gallon of water and good airation from a fish tank air pump for 24 hours. you want to make sure to use RO water that has less than 50mm of solids and less than 10ppm of chlorine(this is key as chlorine will kill many of the micro-organisms you want from this). water the compost with this before you add it to the bins. this will innoculate your compost with over 9 billion bacteria, fungi, protazoa, etc per gallon of solution added. (1 gallon of this solution has the amount of bacteria and other beneficials that 2000 lbs of castings have in them) also if you dont already add alfalfa and barley into your original compost i would recomend it as barley is loaded with enzymes and alfalfa is also excellent for speedy plant growth
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jlance
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/09/02 08:03
Hi superworm
what kind of an affect would barley and have if add to the worm bin?
John
heal the earth with worm farming.
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Judy
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2006/09/02 16:53
The worms will re-work their own castings if left to it. In fact, I have a couple fattening buckets that are going back into some casting material today because one of the buckets got too wet, soupy and started to smell. How will the compost behave in your bin, will it heat up all over or has the heating stage passed? I have indoor bins, so practice top feeding to avoid heating, but some people deliberately plant heavy organics in some spots to keep the rest of the bin warm. Veggie furnaces.
My worms get all of the vegetable material from the kitchen they can handle. They do better if I top feed it. I layer the coffee filters right onto the worm 'bedding', then layer on more food, with a lid of shredded paper (newspaper and junk mail). I used to crush eggs, but unless they go through a coffee grinder, they are kind of hard to sort on the screens. This winter, its back to the little squeeze or none, so I can find them at harvest time. The worms don't seem to mind.
I have too much stuff at garden time for the worms to handle, so some goes to the compost. The worms would benefit from it as bedding because there is still some organic matter that is in a composting state. Having compost that could heat up would seem to be my main concern.
When Life Gives You Scraps, Make A Quilt. |
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triad_ekn
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2007/07/12 13:33
Hi,
Newb here --
Quick question. I've accumulate a fairly large pile of grass clippings, etc. over the past several years. I believe the last time I added anything to this pile is probably about 2 years ago.
I'm hearing that there is probably little or no value for use as feedstock - sounds like the compost needs to be fairly fresh.
Do you think there is any value in trying to use this as part of the bedding, i.e., mixed in with shredded paper, etc., etc.?
Thanks,
--Ed
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fourmares
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2007/07/12 15:57
You could use it as bedding. The worms can probably eat it too. However, if you have been turning it you can probably just spread it on your garden as it is. Why not toss some in to your worms and see how they like it.
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triad_ekn
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2007/07/12 16:17
Hi fourmares,
I'm just info gathering now... I don't have any worms to test with -- yet!
I've never turned this pile of grass
But thanks for the advice... one can always test these things like you said. They'll either like it or not.
Best,
--Ed
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wellsworms
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2007/07/13 09:19
 Tell your co-worker to get with the program, do some research. The worms your using DO NOT LIVE IN SOIL they do best in decaying vegetable matter making the best soil conditioner you can get
FEED IT TO THE WORMS
WELLS,vermont
jerry walker 2008 |
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wellsworms
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2007/07/13 09:32
Turn over you pile of grass clippings and you will be most likely surprised at the amount of worms in the bottom layers.
asuming you find lots of worms that will tell you that you could use it or not as feed for your worms BTW you didn't mention the type of worms you have.
Post edited by: wellsworms, at: 2007/07/13 09:37
FEED IT TO THE WORMS
WELLS,vermont
jerry walker 2008 |
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triad_ekn
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2007/07/13 16:42
wellsworms wrote:
Tell your co-worker to get with the program, do some research. The worms your using DO NOT LIVE IN SOIL they do best in decaying vegetable matter making the best soil conditioner you can get
Hi wellsworm:
Not sure who this is addressed to, but thanks for the update.
As far as worms to be purchased, I'll be going with Eisenia fetida, but am also interested in learning about Euro, African nightcrawlers, along with other species I've seen mentioned.
Later on, I'll go turn around the compost pile and see what's going on.
--Ed
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WFike
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2007/07/20 17:15
Dirt Hugger wrote:
Also, will the worms eventually break down the small pieces of wood in the compost, or should I try and remove as much as possible now to make harvesting easier in the future?
Thanks again!
The wood chips will take from a year to 18 months to break down. I have some beds with horse manure and wood chips that I started over a year ago that is just now getting to the point where you can't see the chips any more.
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WFike
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2007/07/20 17:24
I was just wondering if you could restart the finished compost by pouring a solution of dissolved horse manure, or something sugary over it to reactivate the bacteria to process it some more? The worms would then find something to eat.
redhen wrote:
That finished compost does not have a lot of food for the worms and they will leave or die trying to find a better source.
Post edited by: WFike, at: 2007/07/20 17:26
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farmer9989
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Re:Compost as worm food - 2007/07/21 17:05
on your orignal question if this is an (experiment)
if you add any other food besides your companys compost the outcome will be changed . in order to find out if the wormes will process it into better or different stuff you can't add any thing.
just my two cents.
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