falstaffo
Well-Known Member
gonna follow this 
Composting compost? Vermi-style!
- Thread starter GodOfPot
- Start date
TryingHigh
Well-Known Member
Canadian Tire / Canadian Nightcrawlers.
Vague in terms of describing them. Time and worm castings will tell. I think European nightcrawlers can do a similar job to Red wrigglers.
They are just "out of season" right now. Once I get my hands on them, I'll try to build another VC bin, and do a compare and contrast. Nightcrawler castings vs. Red wrigger.
Okay perfecto! I'm right at that point. Do you mind sharing what amendments you add?
Sorry, I swear I took a screen shot of this exact convo last year, I just cant find it in my phone anywhere
Be sure to post your results please! I'm going a little head first into all of this so if like to catalog it.
Also for any and all who are growing under the sun (any form), are using a LOS or "supersoil" I encourage you to stop by and contribute to "the great outdoor group grow" in honor of bonsai weed a late great member of this forum community.
Link is here...
The Great Outdoor Group Grow: Beastly Buds To Honor Bonsai
You could give her something high in Phosphorus and potassium, Alcuin would be good for her as well.
www.420magazine.com
falstaffo
Well-Known Member
are tiger worms the same thing? seems the most common around here
Nunyabiz
Well-Known Member
Correct, I feed my worms my cover crop which I trim back almost every day and chop it fine and add it under the mulch layer, also Gro-kashi, and the corn and alfalfa meal that's left over from when I make sprouted seed teas, plus my regular amendments such as malted barley, oyster shell Flour, kelp meal, crustacean meal, camelina meal, the worms love all this and turn that into Unicorn Poop.
Add to that some micronized soy meal, fulvic acid, gypsum.
Hydrolyzed fish protein and amino acids.
Coconut water, aloe vera and you end up with a pretty darn good LOS .
TryingHigh
Well-Known Member
Adding to community knowledge:
Canadian nightcrawlers do not do well in a conventional worm bin environment. They require special conditions in order to stay alive and in good condition while in captivity. The biggest factor is the temperature. It should be no more than 48-50 deg F.. They also need special bedding to do well BUSS-Bedding or some similar type. The feeding has to be on top and the crawlers will come to the surface and pull it into their burrows.
On the side of red wigglers (Eisenia fotida) or European Night Crawlers (Eisenia hortensis) the composting worms they do much better in higher temps up to 80 or 90 deg F air temp ( bin in shade will be in low 80s) at 90+ deg
So I guess my compost bin will be fine because it is still cold up here. My grow room only gets around 60F max (15C). So when it warms up, the Canadian Nighcrawlers won't do so well. And they may not like the life inside a VC bin.
I'll just have to get some red wrigglers when they are in season.
Canadian nightcrawlers do not do well in a conventional worm bin environment. They require special conditions in order to stay alive and in good condition while in captivity. The biggest factor is the temperature. It should be no more than 48-50 deg F.. They also need special bedding to do well BUSS-Bedding or some similar type. The feeding has to be on top and the crawlers will come to the surface and pull it into their burrows.
On the side of red wigglers (Eisenia fotida) or European Night Crawlers (Eisenia hortensis) the composting worms they do much better in higher temps up to 80 or 90 deg F air temp ( bin in shade will be in low 80s) at 90+ deg
So I guess my compost bin will be fine because it is still cold up here. My grow room only gets around 60F max (15C). So when it warms up, the Canadian Nighcrawlers won't do so well. And they may not like the life inside a VC bin.
I'll just have to get some red wrigglers when they are in season.
Okay perfect. So that what I was wondering. I have my VC and I added some promix but I should still add some amendments like the oyster shell flour, the barley and the meals....
As of now I only added some chicken shit and azomite.
Any idea how much of those goodies you add per square meter or say 15 gallons of the former mix?
Heres what I've seen around
Seem pretty good?
I'll need to grab some more stuff it sounds like.... but I need that unicorn poop you speak of and I need it badddd
Nunyabiz
Well-Known Member
I assume this is your starting soil from scratch.
Here is what I use which is buildasoil Oly Mountain Modern mix 2 and what it has in it from scratch.
Base Soil:
Use a starting mulch of barley hay until your cover crop comes in.
Keep it all very moist for a month or more just letting it come alive, water with coconut water and aloe vera, inoculate with mycorrhazae every week, once the cover crop is established trim it almost daily and start building a thick brown and green mulch layer.
When I walk into my grow room I smell my soil right as I walk in.
It smells alive.
I amend the soil and feed the worms with this mixture of 15 amendments every couple weeks or so.
I don't have a measured amount or a set time schedule, I play it by ear and let the soil tell me what it needs and when.
I also top dress with the Gro-kashi when it seems right.
Ahh and one more thing I do is I super oxygenate all my water with 02 emitters to raise the dissolved oxygen as high as I can.
Here is what I use which is buildasoil Oly Mountain Modern mix 2 and what it has in it from scratch.
Base Soil:
- 2 CuFt Sphagnum moss
- 1 CuFt Pumice lava rock
- 1 CuFt Modern Beginning charged Biochar
- 1 CuFt Rice Hulls
- 2 CuFt Humus composed of 1/3 Compost(Oly Mountain) and 2/3 EWC, and
- a few handfuls some probiotic herbs – comfrey, nettle, dandelion, etc..
- (Per cu.Ft of Base Soil)
- 1/2 cup organic Neem meal
- 1/2 cup organic Kelp meal
- 1/2 cup organic Crustacean meal
- 1/2 cup organic insect frass
- 1/3 cup Gro-Kashi
- 1/3 cup Karanja Meal
- 1/4 cup of fish bone meal
- 1/16th cup of Modern Microbes
- 3 cups of some Rock/Mineral Mix
- (Rock/Mineral Mix)
- 2 part Oyster Shell Flour
- 2 part Gypsum
- 1 parts Glacial Rock Dust
- 1 part Basalt
- 1 part Calcium Bentonite
Use a starting mulch of barley hay until your cover crop comes in.
Keep it all very moist for a month or more just letting it come alive, water with coconut water and aloe vera, inoculate with mycorrhazae every week, once the cover crop is established trim it almost daily and start building a thick brown and green mulch layer.
When I walk into my grow room I smell my soil right as I walk in.
It smells alive.
I amend the soil and feed the worms with this mixture of 15 amendments every couple weeks or so.
I don't have a measured amount or a set time schedule, I play it by ear and let the soil tell me what it needs and when.
I also top dress with the Gro-kashi when it seems right.
Ahh and one more thing I do is I super oxygenate all my water with 02 emitters to raise the dissolved oxygen as high as I can.
- Thorvin Premium Kelp Meal
- Karanja Cake - Terviva
- Alfalfa Meal
- CalPhos
- Camelina Meal
- Crustacean Meal
- Fish Meal
- 3x Fish Bone Meal
- Soybean Meal
- Sul-Po-Mag (Also Known as K-Mag or Langbeinite)
- Malted Barley Grains (3 Varieties)
- Azomite
- Basalt - Local Colorado
- Gypsum
- Oyster Flour
Yes. Yes. Yes. Except I'm not gonna be inside..... cover crop is in. I'm gonna hit Holm town nursery tomorrow and grab a few more of those goodies.
I really appreciate your advice I know you and Emilya are big soil freaks. It's just all a bit complicated for me to take in all at once but I'll be there soon.
falstaffo
Well-Known Member
i feel ya buddy!!! lol
WE have both in our vermi-bin. Night crawlers live deeper in the pile, red wigglers live at or near the surface. They both make GREAT vermi-compost and EWC.
Night crawlers are have a slower metabolism and don't reproduce as fast as the red wigglers do. If you have both eventually they cross breed and you get a mix of both worlds.
Red wigglers are a main stay in the EWC industry due to their fast metabolism. They get a lot of work done in short order.
IF you want to get worms - get a vermi-compost bin and start adding in your kitchen scraps. Set it outside on soil. It won't take long. The worms find their way to the food party.
On the grains in a vermi-bin. They are great. Grains actually are a catalyst. Think about how we make beer and turn grains into alcohol with the help of micro-organisms.
The trick to do that is to only put food on one side of the bin and over 1-2 weeks all the worms will migrate to that side of the bin...scoop out all the other side and replace with new media for the worms
You do that? A lot more work than I wanna do. We just pile everything on top maybe if I think about it, I will add in a handful of leaves (already moldy) and repeat until full. lol
I'm on Philly - the worms are just getting started. Was a cold late winter and early spring so late start for the little fellas. They will make up for it pretty quickly. Just need a 70F degree day or 2. We are having that now. Woot.
Worms for the win
You can purchase African Nightcrawler castings on line from BAS.
I mix that in with my VC when mixing soils or up-potting.
TryingHigh
Well-Known Member
Thanks. I know that I can eventually get red wrigglers. just have to wait a bit. I put out emails to some vendors and shipping relates to the cold. I definitely want to get to making my own castings/VC. I plan to put some into my notill pots as well.
Interesting what was mentioned about them breeding. Night crawlers x wrigglers.
"Since red wigglers are much more prolific in reproduction, at room temperature (25°C) you will very quickly have a bin dominated by red wigglers. Sure, the European Nightcrawlers will still grow, but worms cannot cross breed and can only breed with their own species." REF: Can Red Wigglers & European Crawlers Coexist In The Same Worm Bin?
My Canadian Nightcrawlers likely are slow ass reproducers... but decent eaters. I will be monitoring them. They've been in my bin for 2 weeks now. They are definite fat.
I was surprised these guys can live for 5 years.
and more bad news:
Raising Canadian Nightcrawlers is very difficult because the reproduce very slowly. Most worms that are raised sexually mature in 90-120 days. Canadian Nightcrawlers take 18 months to sexually mature because they are a cold weather worm. Also they grow so slowly because of this.
NET NET... I need to get me some red wrigglers stat. .. or some European night crawlers.
I have a book on Vermi-composting written by some sort of doctor of worms. I'm pretty sure they inter-breed. I'll have to look it up. He worked with a bunch of Canadian smarty pants university types on the mass production of vermi-compost on an industrial scale.
No shit <----- lol see what I did there?
This is actually pretty big in Canada. They are using worms for all sorts of composting.
Everything I know about vermi-composting is that they will both inhabit the same pile and both be perfectly happy, no domination just co-exist.
Look around for worm cocoons. Can grow your own from the egg sacks. Order now, start them indoors, then into your vermi-bin outside. Be good.
For them to hatch we need a few 70F degree days. They have just started down here in Philly. Like yesterday all of a sudden, worm castings everywhere. woot
I collect them with a bucket. Yeah one of them peoples. crazy about worm castings.
No shit <----- lol see what I did there?
This is actually pretty big in Canada. They are using worms for all sorts of composting.
Everything I know about vermi-composting is that they will both inhabit the same pile and both be perfectly happy, no domination just co-exist.
Look around for worm cocoons. Can grow your own from the egg sacks. Order now, start them indoors, then into your vermi-bin outside. Be good.
For them to hatch we need a few 70F degree days. They have just started down here in Philly. Like yesterday all of a sudden, worm castings everywhere. woot
I collect them with a bucket. Yeah one of them peoples. crazy about worm castings.
Nunyabiz
Well-Known Member
I got lots of little baby worms that I see everyday.
My worm population is growing in my pots pretty rapidly.
I assume they will maintain a sustainable population and not just become a solid mass of worms.
My worm population is growing in my pots pretty rapidly.
I assume they will maintain a sustainable population and not just become a solid mass of worms.
TryingHigh
Well-Known Member
Yes, same pile would be fine. My approach of using Canadian Nightcrawlers would be slow going. I'm sure they would co-exist, but the red wrigglers reproduce faster. I would source from the yard when the snow receeds. Another 15cm here today. Yay!
TryingHigh
Well-Known Member
So my VC bin has been filling up with kitchen veggie and fruit debris, which the worms love. When the summer hits, i will have access to more yard waste. How are VC bins with regular yard waste? (dandylions, grass and clover clippings) Or should I keep putting yard waste in my traditional garden pile?
Population self regulates with ratio of food and home and of course water.
The worms make soluble nutrients available to the plants as does microbes and mycos.
You know you messed up when you have a mass exodus.
They do a much better job with nutrient availability for plants than humans I'm thinking.
All those you listed - add them to the VC bin. Your pile you were adding them to should be an already available source of humus! Go get some. Jusst dont fill the bin with grass clippings. lol
YzMedic
Well-Known Member
If you do half green material and half brown material you shouldn’t get any smell at all. Plus the brown makes for good bedding. Brown can be newspaper and cardboard.
