Earthworms Vermicompost: A Powerful Crop Nutrient

These are research reads, not for everyone, but good info.

Earthworms Vermicompost: A Powerful Crop Nutrient over the Conventional Compost & Protective Soil Conditioner against the Destructive Chemical Fertilizers for Food Safety and Security:

http://www.envirofert.co.nz/assets/international-papers/Earthworms%20Vermicompost%20-%20A%20Powerful%20Crop%20Nutrient%20Rajiv%20Sinha.pdf

Earthworms: The ‘Unheralded Soldiers of Mankind’ and ‘Farmer’s Friend’ Working Day and Night Under the Soil: Reviving the Dreams of Sir Charles Darwin for Promoting Sustainable Agriculture:

http://www.envirofert.co.nz/assets/international-papers/Earthworms%20-%20The%20Unheralded%20Soldiers%20of%20Mankind%20and%20%20Farmers%20Friend%20Dr%20Rajiv%20Sindha.pdf

Vermiculture Can Promote Sustainable Agriculture and Completely Replace Chemical Agriculture: Some Experimental Evidences by Studies on Potted and Farmed Cereal and Vegetable Crops:

http://www.envirofert.co.nz/assets/international-papers/Rajiv_Sinha_Vermiculture_Can_Promote_Sustainable_Agriculture_and_Completely_Replace.pdf

composting with worms in 22 days-hmm interesting

Chemical nutrient analysis of different composts

The Benefits of Vermicompost

Apparently, the 1st link posting did not come out right. I was on break at work when I put this link up. Sanderson,thank you for correcting it. Your help is invaluable.  Subject: Cutting a new pathway in my Square Foot Garden Journey.

I been struggling with adding a compost pile to the garden, but couldn't settled on a method, tumbler versus pile. I finally made a decision on pile, despite having to turned the pile (work, just telling the truth) to get it to convert into rich composted material.  Then my choices for containment were between choosing straw bale wall, pallet walls or perforated plastic like the one use on "one yard revolution" youtube channel. Open pile was out, since I have to fight nutgrass.  Dreaded enemy in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area.

Then I came across the articles in the first post on vermicomposting versus conventional garden composting and chemical fertilizer nutrient outcome/results. Was very impressed. I found several articles on line,but did not want to overwhelmed everyone.  As you know, for those that been around, I am a lazy gardener and will do about anything to shorten my time working in the garden, so I can enjoy the beauty of the plants with my eyes, feel with my hands during down time or with my mouth at meal time, plus go do something else in my life.  I'm still working for a living.  The in-bed garden worm buckets have produced impressive results with the plants and I basically only have to open the lid, put the food waste in and allow the worms to do the rest. When full and everything is converted into vermicompost, I just pull the bucket out by the handle and dump into a 55 gallon garbage can to use later for fertilizing and making worm tea. I realized I can't do that practice anymore, because I was destroying worms and their cocoons, plus the microbial life  when I put them in the garbage can can for storage.

The articles above opened my eyes to this fact, plus the videos I posted from the Philippines. I will need to use a screen to sort the worm and cocoons out or put them directly into the garden beds.  The latter will most likely be the choice,keeping the cycle ongoing.

So for the next  years, I'm going to move into using straight vermicompost, using garden, kitchen and coffee, leaves, horse or cow dung,etc... In this area we basically can grow all year, if you use some techniques like cold frames, frost blankets or greenhouses in the winter and shade cloth in the summer.

The article surprised me on the the effects that cow dung had on the nutrient enrichment process. It's impressive, when compared to using straight garden compost material for worm feed. This will allow me to simply add material. then shovel it out (ouch, don't say it,"work"). The conversion is fast, as explained in the article and as I witnessed in my garden worm buckets. I having some difficulty keeping up the food supply since I have 20 buckets and will be adding 5 more. It's a learning curve.

So I will need to select a spot for a 2-4ft wide x's 8ft long x's 16" high worm bed. This will allow me to make bulk vermicompost. If successful, I will probably do away with the in-garden worm bucket. I'll probably make the walls out of cement bricks/cinder bricks or use old wood that I have laying around for the project. Then surround it with mulch.

I want to thank everyone on the forum who shared pictures of how they use mulch for their walkways. This has been extremely successful for me. the first year, saw about 30 small nut grass and Bermuda come up on the surface. I assumed they where transported in when the tree company dump their load on my property. Have not seen any more for several months. it freed up so much of my time and looks great. when it rains, it never floods or make puddles like it did in the pass. I put down 8 inches in height. Well worth it.

There is a church here that grow food on several acres for the hungry. I visited them in the past and noticed they have a small outdoor worm factory going. Will visit them for more advice.

Any suggestion or ideas is welcome. haven't come up with a name for this project yet. any ideas?

I will keep the forum updated on my journey.

Please do keep us posted, has! And I am glad you have gone to a worm-sparing method! They are hard workers, and very underrated!

I'm lazier than you are, neener neener neener!  I bought 1 lb of red wigglers 3 years ago or so and I have just spread them into all of my sfg beds.  I still have my worm tubes but found that because I mulch heavily for water conservation, they just eat the mulch and distribute their goodness into the soil for me.  

I have grabbed handfuls of worms from the tubes and each time I work a new in-ground garden bed toss in a handful of them there and then lay down heavy mulch and away they go.  

I look forward to reading your articles as soon as I have some time.  My main garden improvement ingredient is the fresh cow manure I am able to gather on our property.  The worms LOVE it and quickly break it down.  I usually pile a 12 inch layer mixed with the hay straw the cows didn't eat over a garden I'm resting and let it break down on the garden bed.  

I read an organic flower farm's blog last week and they've been no till now for 3 years.  One of the things they discovered worked the best was using black plastic over the weeds for 4 weeks.  The weeds were the cover crop (some times they plant cover crops).  The heat kills any seeds, the worms break down the material that dies and at the end of the 4 weeks they're ready to plant.  I'm going to give that a try on one of our hillside areas that's a real pain to weed whack and see how it works before trying on any actual garden area.

Always learning!

I love my little worms and am amazed how they further break down the compost and veggie/fruit scraps into fine, rich castings. The 3" worm tubes are a great way to grow them right in the beds. I have started moving the tubes around within the boxes every year to get the castings spread throughout the boxes. I also bury kitchen scraps here and there in boxes without the tubes. And, they love the horse manure in the compost. I top dress with compost in the fall, and in the spring I can just move the compost aside and there are worms everywhere!

getting deeper, where the worm go

http://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/huen/archana_paper.pdf

look at the plant picture at the bottom of the page


Vermicompost Research Update 2009

Bump

I didn't want to wait untill tomorrow to make my vermicomposting tea, so I harvested the vermicompost tonight from my vermicomposting bucket. 

does anyone have a easy way to separate the worms from the vermicompost? 
Tonight, I just spread it out on a flat plastic sheet to collect the worms for transfer back to the vericomposting bucket.

Your vermicompost is a nice consistency, mine is rather wet!

has55 wrote:does anyone have a easy way to separate the worms from the vermicompost? 

Some people use light. The worms do not like light and will move away from it.  Here is one example. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6h3N8OIQYM

Note ... I do not do vermicomposting so this is just from my own research on the Internet.

Tthank you trolleydriver, 
I separated the worms last night with just the room light. I'm in the that worm group, but had SFG forum on the brain when I posted. That video gave me a better understanding of what I did last night using a upside down garden seed tray cover. 
Thanks.

sanderson wrote:Your vermicompost is a nice consistency, mine is rather wet!  

I usually add some azomite or something dry like coffee grounds to my wet material such as carrot pulp,etc...It seems to keep the wetness down. I need to go to Bently's red worm composting site to brush up on technique.
Red Worm Composting

During this SFG journey with the vermicomposting bucket, I've learned I could lift it out of the SFG bed for harvesting and to separate the cocoons and worms. Today, a light bulb thought came to me during planting of tomatoes. In the teaming with microbes book, they recommended adding compost or vermicompost to the planting hole, just like it was written in the SFG book. I have the vermicomposting buckets within the garden beds approx. every 4 ft to 6ft, depending on the length of the bed. I was able to remove the lid, reach into the bucket and voila!, place it directly in the planting hole without going for external fertilizers. I was able to transferred some worms into bed , add the mycorrhiza  fungi, Epsom and put in the tomato plant without carrying a bunch of baggage.

I forgot to add the pictures to the above post.

I'm almost to the point where all I all need to do in the garden is prepare the soil,plant, minimal to scant weeding, harvest and easy clean up. 
The vermicomposting buckets have been extremely helpful with clean up, I'm learning more and more uses for them.
Now I'm chopping the old leaves in the garden beds and adding small amount water into the vitamix , blend it , then walk out to the vermicomposting buckets to pour it in. In this liquid state the worms and able to quickly break it down and create that worm poop quickly..I'm doing this with my kitchen scrapes too. I got the idea from the "one yard revolution" channel on youtube.

Has, What program do you have where you can write and draw arrows on your photos? Do you have a Windows?

sanderson wrote:Has,  What program do you have where you can write and draw arrows on your photos?  Do you have a Windows?

No, I have a 2007 iMac in my pretend mancave. My DW keeps bringing things into it.  I use the "preview" program to annotate text, arrows, lines, color, etc... on the photos, usually right after I take a picture with my iPhone . It comes with the iMac program. It also allows me to open in "preview" any pdf files I view on the internet, then annotate or for better reading experience.

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:I'm lazier than you are, neener neener neener! 



Always learning!

and the fight is on. everyone's a winner if it save time, money and allow us to enjoy the results from our work.

ADVICE FOR VERMICOMPOSTING

also another site for compost tea material

One of my vermicomposting bucket went anaerobic after I put in two quart of liquid vegetables that I create by blending it in my vitamix. It was too much, not enough air. This occurred about 3 weeks ago, We kept smelling something like death, but couldn't track it down, After watching this podcast, I realized where the smell came from and how to fix it. I have to examine the bucket for worms, It has dried out and I see fungi pathways. I'm going to put this video in the microbes thread also.

I just got thru watching that last video.  It was Verrrrry long but had a lot of information and also went in depth explaining certain areas of making a thermal compost pile..  Good part about moisture.  Also good info about Vermicasting.  

Thanks Has55