Radogast's Hi-Brix Basement Grow - New Location - New Soil - New Experiences

[Van Stank]

Looks like Rad and I have the same worm bin. Mine is the Worm Factory 360 Love this thing! It stays in my kitchen and there is no smell at all until you open the lid for feeding time. Even then, it is only the smell of moist soil. A large decoratve compost collection container with a removable interior plastic bucket stays on my counter. I just throw that stuff in the blender every couple of days with a touch of water and then bury the food and cover in the bin. Happy worms!

How do you all that have worm bins "harvest" your worm castings?

 

[Lady Antheia]

Van, it's super easy with my worm bin. The worms just move up to the top bins as they finish eating everything in the lower bins. What I usually do is give multiple feedings in the first bin and spread them out: one on each side in a clockwise fashion and one in the middle. When that bin in nice and full, I add another on top and start the same process. Eventually, the worms work their way up to the top bins to find food when they consumed everything below. So I just take the top bins off and grab the one on the bottom. Then, I put that one on top while leaving the lid off - the light will make any straggling worms find their way to the bins below. Remove the bin full of wonderful worm castings, put lid back on the others, scrape out castings, wash bin, and put to the side to keep in rotation for the next time.

 

[Van Stank]

Van, it's super easy with my worm bin. The worms just move up to the top bins as they finish eating everything in the lower bins. What I usually do is give multiple feedings in the first bin and spread them out: one on each side in a clockwise fashion and one in the middle. When that bin in nice and full, I add another on top and start the same process. Eventually, the worms work their way up to the top bins to find food when they consumed everything below. So I just take the top bins off and grab the one on the bottom. Then, I put that one on top while leaving the lid off - the light will make any straggling worms find their way to the bins below. Remove the bin full of wonderful worm castings, put lid back on the others, scrape out castings, wash bin, and put to the side to keep in rotation for the next time.

What type of yield do you get and how many worms do you have in your bins? I started adding store bought worm castings to my outdoor veggie garden and I am wondering how much one tray system yields you? I would also use it for making my living organic soil for the ladies!

 

[Lady Antheia]

There are approx 2000 worms in the bin, but hoping they continue to grow in numbers. The yield is pretty good. The worms eat about 1/2 - 1 lb of food per day. I would guess that each tray yields at least 2 lbs or more of castings, but I've never measured. That should be my next project.

 

[Radogast]

There are approx 2000 worms in the bin, but hoping they continue to grow in numbers. The yield is pretty good. The worms eat about 1/2 - 1 lb of food per day. I would guess that each tray yields at least 2 lbs or more of castings, but I've never measured. That should be my next project.

Lady Antheia,
Thanks for answering all these questions so well. My worms went mostly dormant in the cold basement after the move, but have been happy for a couple of months now. Since we have the same Worm Factory 360, your answers are very similar to mine. There are other worm bin systems, many of them larger, but the Worm Factory trays are quite simple to use.

Van Stank,
The number of worms doesn't really matter. worms will multiply and/or go dormant as needed. In the USA, I would just order the smallest number of red Wiggler worms from Uncle Jim's - they seem to provide virtually all the red wiggler composting worms. If you buy a worm bin some place, you will probably get an ad or a coupon for worms from Uncle Jim's.

How much can you harvest from a Worm Factory ? -Not quite enough. Enough to top dress soil going into harvest, but not enough to use as a soil amendment. My output is somewaht limitted; all my indoor worms eat are cannabis leaves and stems

 

[Blazinjones]

Lady Antheia,
Thanks for answering all these questions so well. My worms went mostly dormant in the cold basement after the move, but have been happy for a couple of months now. Since we have the same Worm Factory 360, your answers are very similar to mine. There are other worm bin systems, many of them larger, but the Worm Factory trays are quite simple to use.

Van Stank,
The number of worms doesn't really matter. worms will multiply and/or go dormant as needed. In the USA, I would just order the smallest number of red Wiggler worms from Uncle Jim's - they seem to provide virtually all the red wiggler composting worms. If you buy a worm bin some place, you will probably get an ad or a coupon for worms from Uncle Jim's.

How much can you harvest from a Worm Factory ? -Not quite enough. Enough to top dress soil going into harvest, but not enough to use as a soil amendment. My output is somewaht limitted; all my indoor worms eat are cannabis leaves and stems

Hey thats one way to get rid of the unused portions of your grow lol so the worms r jus stoned all day long what a great life to lead jus get hi all day an play an roll around in the dirt lol sounds like my dogs life thts all he does is get hi n play around wen im smoking if i dont blow a hit or 2 at him he gets all mad an will jus plop his head in ur lap n jus keep pushn it against u harder n harder till u pay him attention lol

 

[bobrown14]

What type of yield do you get and how many worms do you have in your bins? I started adding store bought worm castings to my outdoor veggie garden and I am wondering how much one tray system yields you? I would also use it for making my living organic soil for the ladies!

If you have outdoor gardens get yourself a compost bin and start composting your kitchen waste and garden waste sans meat and dairy. Worms will find the bin, before you know it there will be 10s of thousands of red wigglers. For an outdoor bin like that it take a season. We run 3 at a time. One is finished and being used for compost, when screened is almost 100% worm castings but doesn't look quite like what you buy in the store. the other 2 are in use, one gets filled then we switch to the other bin.. turn and burn....they are 100gal bins and the 3rd bin is 165gal. So screen and mix compost with peat moss and some minerals... soil.

I just mixed up ~2 cubic yards (yeah s shit ton) - lots of wheel barrow fulls.. mulched the gardens and use it for indoor gardening as well.

Worm bins are great ... a lot of work for me. I prefer to do the work all at once, screen compost and mix soil.

Option for you...

If you want to do organic growing, composting is a very rewarding enterprise. Also good for the environment. Check your local government, sometimes they GIVE you FREE compost bins. Saves a lot of money in the long run with less garbage pickup costs. Same deal with rain water barrels. Cheaper to GIVE you a rain barrel than to process rain water runoff via the water utility and having to upgrade plumbing. There's your source of FREE perfect water.
You'd be surprised how much water you can collect.

 

[Blazinjones]

hey rad and even bb if ur there or any1 tht cud help me out I jus noticed that in my flower tent my earl vixen has bugs up the ass in her soil I jus flipped a part I seen the soil had some fuzzy mold there and a patch of sumthn I think a part of ofwhere I was feeding malted grains wen I was doing jus a gallon mix up at a time and it got a clump of it there and just started to mold I guess idk but now I see a bunch of lil bugs crawling in and out of the soil like wen I move it and look under the soil line I see bunches jus climbing in an out of the soil what cud this be and how can I fix it I am doing my ipm twice a week so how r they still living


ps oh by the way my ipm concists of Monterey garden spray with spinosad and fulpower by bioag its humic acid and then protect with silica in it and then whatever tea I have at the time I will throw a teaspoon or two in there as well but yea I do that twice a week

 

[Radogast]

hey rad and even bb if ur there or any1 tht cud help me out I jus noticed that in my flower tent my earl vixen has bugs up the ass in her soil I jus flipped a part I seen the soil had some fuzzy mold there and a patch of sumthn I think a part of ofwhere I was feeding malted grains wen I was doing jus a gallon mix up at a time and it got a clump of it there and just started to mold I guess idk but now I see a bunch of lil bugs crawling in and out of the soil like wen I move it and look under the soil line I see bunches jus climbing in an out of the soil what cud this be and how can I fix it I am doing my ipm twice a week so how r they still living??

Hi Blazin - I have no ideas. What kind of little bugs? Do they fly?

 

[Blazinjones]

Hi Blazin - I have no ideas. What kind of little bugs? Do they fly?

not that I see I don't really see them till I move the soil around then they are everywhere lil white gray looking dots or so lol well its not funny but u get it

 

[Radogast]

not that I see I don't really see them till I move the soil around then they are everywhere lil white gray looking dots or so lol well its not funny but u get it

and they are eating half moldy grain and not your plant - that doesn't sound bad.

 

[Blazinjones]

Idk lol it jus freaked me out n kinda confused me since i use monterey garden spray how r they still alive or r they jus to deep n the spray dont get them in the soil or sumthn

 

[Radogast]

Tangerine Widow #2 in veg (Tangerine Widow #1 was a male and is no more.)

Seedlings really are pretty in their symmetry

I got to thinking that another male plant would be a hole in my rotation - so I planted another TW seed just peeking above the surface.

 

[Blazinjones]

Lookn great man gotta love those hi brix girls

 

[CCOiler]

I'm embarassed to say I went and counted my growing strains yesterday, and I am already at 10 strains 7 sativa or sativa dominant, 2 indica, and the indica CBD. The wife says she is fine with that mix through the summer. The family has been digging the sativas and probably won't get back to favoring indicas until the winter time - so I'm saving all my notes, and stockpiling indica buds for the winter. I found my cache of big jars and boveda packs yesterday: ready to chop and cure over the summer

Hey Rado, what's the name of your indica CBD?? Thank you for this thread and your time Sir.

 

[Radogast]

Hey Rado, what's the name of your indica CBD?? Thank you for this thread and your time Sir.

I'm running CBD Critical Cure, like several folks around here.

Sorry for the scarcity of updates, everytime I think I'm done planting the outside garden, another couple of plants arrive. Today I was planting at my house before planting at a neighbor's house. My neighbor had a blowout housewarming party where most people brought him plants and he plied us with food and alcohol. Today was the day after, so I helped him plant the plants.

 

[Lady Antheia]

A housewarming party with plants is a wonderful idea! That is so much better than multiple hot pads, plastic wine bottle openers, and misc. other items that someone might not need but will just toss in a drawer.

 

[bobrown14]

hey rad and even bb if ur there or any1 tht cud help me out I jus noticed that in my flower tent my earl vixen has bugs up the ass in her soil I jus flipped a part I seen the soil had some fuzzy mold there and a patch of sumthn I think a part of ofwhere I was feeding malted grains wen I was doing jus a gallon mix up at a time and it got a clump of it there and just started to mold I guess idk but now I see a bunch of lil bugs crawling in and out of the soil like wen I move it and look under the soil line I see bunches jus climbing in an out of the soil what cud this be and how can I fix it I am doing my ipm twice a week so how r they still living


ps oh by the way my ipm concists of Monterey garden spray with spinosad and fulpower by bioag its humic acid and then protect with silica in it and then whatever tea I have at the time I will throw a teaspoon or two in there as well but yea I do that twice a week

Thats from too concentrated Malted Barley.. just water in regular RO water, your IPM spray will TCO anything that's bad for the plants. The white stuff that looks like mold, probably is either mold or more likely Santa's Beard which is a form of mycelium/fungi... good things.

Blaze.. yer running a living soil, it's a good sign when you can actually see the living critters (for the most part). Get up close and personal and get in there with a microscope... you will look at your soil a little differently.

Let the soil dry out a little more before the next watering.

I would just keep up your IPM like you've been doing and don't sweat it yet... when you see lite spots on leaves then issue but you should be find since you're doing an IPM.

Just an FYI... if you ever took the lids off one of my compost bins, there's literally 10s of thousands of insects of all sorts. We use that compost to build our soil .... balancing act. Healthy plants fight off bugs and diseases without much help from us. Thing is we want our ladies to be building flowers not fighting off pests.

The best fight I've found to keep all pests to a minimum is LOTS of air flow (and IPM).

 

[Blazinjones]

Thats from too concentrated Malted Barley.. just water in regular RO water, your IPM spray will TCO anything that's bad for the plants. The white stuff that looks like mold, probably is either mold or more likely Santa's Beard which is a form of mycelium/fungi... good things.

Blaze.. yer running a living soil, it's a good sign when you can actually see the living critters (for the most part). Get up close and personal and get in there with a microscope... you will look at your soil a little differently.

Let the soil dry out a little more before the next watering.

I would just keep up your IPM like you've been doing and don't sweat it yet... when you see lite spots on leaves then issue but you should be find since you're doing an IPM.

Just an FYI... if you ever took the lids off one of my compost bins, there's literally 10s of thousands of insects of all sorts. We use that compost to build our soil .... balancing act. Healthy plants fight off bugs and diseases without much help from us. Thing is we want our ladies to be building flowers not fighting off pests.

The best fight I've found to keep all pests to a minimum is LOTS of air flow (and IPM).

Well i definitely got that now lol n yea my early v is seaming to be pretty healthy to me anyway lol she is starting to look like cheese all yellow and orange lmao but man does she smell wen u get up close am personal nice citrusy lemon pinsol with a hint of sour berries maybe idk sumthn kinda sour but jus cant think of the word other then tht lolbut yea the breeder said 8 to 10weeks well we r at 8 nw but im guna let her go some mre since i dnt see many amber triches for one and im in hopes of the buds bulking up alil more b4 i harvest so guna lean more towards the 10 weeks instead of 8 but we will see for sure in the next week if she dont pack on any girth at all ill prolly harvest but if i see alil bit of improvement then she can sit lol

 

[Blazinjones]

I'm running CBD Critical Cure, like several folks around here.

Sorry for the scarcity of updates, everytime I think I'm done planting the outside garden, another couple of plants arrive. Today I was planting at my house before planting at a neighbor's house. My neighbor had a blowout housewarming party where most people brought him plants and he plied us with food and alcohol. Today was the day after, so I helped him plant the plants.

well thts sure nice of you rado shit my friends all wuda showed up to if I had beer but none wuda stayed to help me plant well most of them don't no I even do regular gardening also but none of them no bout the 420 garden jus the family I live with and 2 close friends tht where guna start with me and we all learn together but now cause they moved they don't make it over as much as we used to but yea I just had a question for ya rado how do u test ur brix do u have a brx tester cause I was thinkn bout getting one since the person I am doing the sponsored grow for says there stuff will do a hi brix girl but they don't advertise it cause they never have had an actual reading done so idk lol but figured id get a tester my self and find out if dude was jus blown smoke or not lol but this is what I was thinkn for a digital brix meter from amazon does any1 know if this is what I would need or do I need something different I don't wana drop over a 100 bux on sumthn just to find out its not even the right thing lmao man tht wud suck but yea here is the link to what I was looking at on amazon to see if it the right thing or not??

Milwaukee MA871 Digital Sugar Refractometer with Automatic Temp Compensation, Yellow LED, 0 to 85 percent Brix, +/- 0.2 percent Accuracy, 0.1 percent Resolution: Science Lab Refractometers