Hey Bob, question for you on your vermi-composting. Just started our vermi-composting journey and am curious as your favorite 'inputs' for your worms. Thanks brother!
Everything from kitchen scraps but no meat/fat/dairy (attracts vermin and smells).
Almost everything we clean out of the garden. NO citrus.. worms will avoid them.
leaves are great input and use them as a layer to keep the heap aerated. Best to mulch them with a mower to break em up but not required for sure.
Grass clippings are great too..
Coffee grounds are GREAT ... VERY good keeps the worms working overtime.
I grow Comfrey (Bocking 14 its sterile) just for the compost bin. Cut them down to the crown about 6 times a season. Stuff em in the bin to over flow. Worms go wild and Comfrey is a green manure so it will heat up... worms move down or to the sides until heat dissipates.
There's some science to it but it's not all that critical.
The important part is "quality in = quality out" so I don't put paper/cardboard that kind of stuff in there.
Every few months I throw in some rock dust, crab shell meal, alfalfa meal... anything you wanna amend soil with you can put in the bin and the nutrients will be ready when you make a batch of soil.
Gotta keep the bin covered tho.. or rain water washes away the goodness mainly the Nitrogen... which isn't a good thing. We want to keep that in the bin so its there when we mix up some soil.
The science says 70% brown matter to 30% green matter...
I've read up on all the science and there's a lot of it and it gets pretty serious science with advanced math formulas and all kinds of stuff. Crazy but hey they figured it out and it works for sure.
Basically all we do in mainly kitchen scraps and amend with extras from the gardens and leaves. It's all going to break down and it it doesn't that's what the screen is for. The stuff that doesn't break down this time will go back into the bin and it will break down eventually.
I've been doing this since the 70s and never really worried too much about the ratios. Just only put in quality food ... think of the worms as your pets and feed accordingly. There's bacteria and fungi also in the bin even more so than worms.
So there's a trifecta going on... keep a balance and everthing will work out.
2 things from the kitchen I don't add in:
1) egg shells (even washed crushed) a lot of work washing then you need grind them up... may as well cook em and put them in some vinegar. They take WAY too long to compost.
2) citrus - worms don't like citrus.. must be a PH thing.
There is absolutely nothing better for soil than vermi-compost you make your self.
If you burn hardwood fires for heat can add in some of the charcoals or even the ash but go easy.. add a little at a time = shovel full, not buckets at a time.
Common sense... always good.
One day i'll grow up and have a big boy garden too. *looks down and kicks rocks*
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...cheerz...h00k...
Tomatoes are also bad because the seeds... no mater what I do they will germinate. They are easy to weed so no too bad!
