What 10 Months Of Worm Farming Has Taught Us

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[yoc]

Exactly... The young baby worms will do better around the adults because the adults are talking to them in worm language...

[tahirehsan]

I am in commercial worm and casting farming, we all learn from our set backs and by sharing practical knowledge with each other. Thank you for sharing your experiences precisely and without wasting time in stories. Very helpful, good work and good luck, keep it up.

[tonysu]

Very interesting and thanks for sharing.
Only thing I found odd is your experience with protein poisoning, aka "string of pearls" disease. I did a bit of an Internet search to see what people are saying about this because in my over 15 years of vermicomposting, I've never experienced the problem.

This is my personal conclusion based on my experiences and practice...
1. Possibly a main reason why I don't ever experience "protein poisoning" is because I don't feed my worms anything with protein... At least intentionally. Because I use my vermicompost for crops intended for human consumption or sell/give my compost to others, I don't put any meat, meat by-products or green manure in my bins to ensure 0% chance of e.coli or salmonella. I don't give my worms anything with vegetable protein in great amounts, either. You could say my worms are 99% vegetarians.
2. Sometimes I do feed my worms enormous quantities of food at a time. When I feed them kelp hand-picked from the ocean, I'll give them an entire month's worth of food at a time. Maybe others have seen worms over eat but I haven't... I don't know that worms are like goldfish and burst because they don't know when to stop eating.
3. Judging from the pictures posted of worms that are dying supposedly from protein poisoning, I wonder how many of them are actually dying from asphyxiation instead of poisoning. I see all the time in YouTube videos people feeding their worms in ways that can kill them. When any food is given to worms that will decompose rapidly by aerobic bacteria, the bacteria will consume all the oxygen in that area if the bacterial population is high enough and granulated, powdered and blended foods have a very high surface area to mass ratio which will create an enormous bacterial population explosion. Well, guess what... worms need oxygen, too so if all the air is consumed by bacteria, the worms will die... and in mass numbers. This is why all food should never be sprinkled across the surface of the worm bin or mixed into the bedding. Food should be buried in a hole dug in a bin corner or edge (or carefully in the middle) to allow the worms to approach the food you're giving them or retreat to the safety of uncontaminated bedding to avoid anything toxic.
4. Unless and until someone actually does a necropsy on a worm and determines it actually died from indigestion(of protein), I suspect the whole thing is a myth. I instead highly suspect they died from respiration or more exactly suffocation because of the toxic chemicals in that part of the bin. Such things as the smells of ammonia and alcohol are typical of anaerobic conditions that would occur when there is lack of oxygen... When the aerobic bacteria die because of lack of oxygen, then anaerobic bacteria can take over for as long as suitable conditions exist. I find it a bit incredible that as hardy worms have proven to be ingesting and even mitigating toxic chemicals as well as every malignant virus or bacterium known so far that worms might somehow die from protein causing toxic gasses in their digestive tract faster than those gases can be excreted.

There is only one major rule to always observe to be a successful worm farmer...

Give your worms choice.

That's all it takes. Give your worms choice to move towards what you offer and away if they don't want it.
Warm half your bin and keep the other side cool.
Make one side of your bin wet and the other drier.

Use your imagination to envision how to give your worms choices for everything and your worms can decide for themselves what makes them happiest.

[carolynoconnor]

I did many experiments when I had my warm business almost 20 years ago and the results were amazing your veggies are bigger and sweeter your flowers are larger and more colorful. I also started all my seeds in straight warm compost it retains moisture much better and gives the plant more aggressive root growth. It's really amazing stuff.

[cheersmeme]

I've had my red wigglers for 6 years now.
I blend egg shells for their grit in a little coffee blender . And I bought crushed oyster shells from Amazon . My little coffee blender was taking a beating. Lol
Then a few months ago while going to order more oyster shells I found Powdered oyster shells. Made from the same company 100% oyster shells.
Made my life easier, my blender life longer .. 😊 Cheers from Toronto 🇨🇦

[perennial-garden]

This video is a game changer. We are huge fans of eco gardening here... worms is our next step. Thanks for sharing.

[itsmewende]

10 months.!!!! That is some operation you have there. I bet people will want to buy the castings too.

[qzmpwxno]

This is an extremely good synthesis of what way more than 10 months of “passive” learning have taught me. A must watch for anybody into vermiculture and great inspiration to get hands on again!

[katarinavidovic]

You've created one of my 5 favorite youtube videos on worm farming. Great job! Highly informative and very helpful. Wish you the best in your vermicomposting and flower farming.

[jafquist]

Thank you for this video. Your presentation is great; just enough of being human, without all kinds of time-wasting chatter. I am preparing to start a commercial worm, casting, and casting tea operation, and your video has provided much inspiration.

I plant a fairly large garden every year. Aside from tomatoes and peppers, everything goes from seed. I raised European night crawlers for a while, and had quite a bit of pure castings. For two years, I covered every seed with a handful of castings, at planting, and the production literally doubled, both times, in comparison to adding nothing to the soil. Just sharing an experience.

[TheJoshuaFrey]

I really appreciated this video. I've kept worms for years now, but recently moved out to a farm and decided I need to up my game a bit as far as vermicompost goes. Really great seeing the lessons gained from your experience.

[ElderandOakFarm]

I decreased the number of worms bins I have, but back when I had a lot, I had my neighbors keep their fruit & veggies scraps for me, & I had a couple gas stations & donut shops saving their coffee grounds for me! Really helped to save money on feed!

[ontherocksinthesoilmichael]

I breed worms and I find that if you put a couple adults in the bin the cocoons seem to hatch better because the biological life of castings or bedding stays active.

[northeastworms]

It's a learning process, every day!

[abigailfraser]

My worms absolutely love teabags😂
I never used to give the teabags to them because I read that the bags had micro plastics, but pj tips now has compostable bags and the worms cannot get enough of them. I find that I don’t need to water them since adding teabags in

[debm-g]

Great video! Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[MAllen]

Thank you for the update! Love you are heavily into regenerative farming and creating related content.

[woolleycodwanderers]

I was really looking forward to this and it didn't disapoint 😉👍 totally fascinating 👍 looking forward to the next one and how you make the tea 🙂👍 ... 🤗❤👵🐾🐾🐾🤠 xxxx

[Sphere]

Hey Sarah, just discovered your channel and I love it! Your open mindedness, experimental nature, honesty, plain speaking and delightful little talks are a pleasure And your orientation to regenerative farming is exciting for without that changed focus, we're all doomed as a species, yet with it, the future is very bright indeed! I'm more focused on fruits & vegetables but what's good for the goose is good for the gander, eh? Heh. Good luck with your channel. It's going to be a rousing success and looks to be getting there already!

Anyway, I wanted to share an amazing little thing I recently discovered relating to vermicomposting. I've been keeping a worm bin for a couple of years now but still consider myself a beginner because I haven't brought a huge focus to it... yet. So many new things to learn and master!

My wife and I started juicing a few months ago which is an excellent way to get all of those bulky, fresh, organic veggies into one without having to eat the whole cornucopia. (just got a new Nama J2 too and it's a game changer and very exciting!!!) I juice in bulk to last a week and so produce a lot of pulp. I usually just compost it because the chickens don't really like it so much but I decided to try it on the worms. Most of the pulp they liked ok and ate. (no citrus!) But when I fed the carrot pulp to the little Wiggles, I thought my worm bin was going to EXPLODE! I didn't really know that I had THAT many worms! They all ERUPTED up to the surface like a mountain or volcano and simply devoured the carrot pulp!

So, that's really useful for a few reasons: If you want to gather ALL your worms to the surface, feed 'em carrot pulp! Then just scoop 'em all up off the top. Of course that won't bring up the eggs but it is one less step. Then of course it is great nutrition and makes for very healthy worms and it makes them extremely HAPPY! You do get emotionally attached to the little squirmers too, doncha? So it makes YOU happy also. It's really hard to over feed carrot pulp too. They just eat it too fast for it to spoil! And if you have a juicing store nearby maybe you can make a deal with them to get their pulp. That would be an incredible and free source of excellent worm food! Turn free juice pulp into great big healthy flowers! Cheers Sarah & Hubby!

[lukelucy]

Thank You for sharing so much of your time.