April 2009
You are currently browsing the articles from Red Worm Composting written in the month of April 2009.
A question from Joyce:
I read about the C:N ratio. How do you increase the C? How
do you make sure the N doesn’t get too high? I am not a scientist or
chemist. I lost my worms to the “ammonia smell”. Thank you.
Hi Joyce,
Sorry to hear about your worms! They are indeed very sensitive to ammonia – even at very low levels, this gas can kill them quite quickly.
The good news is that keeping the C:N ratio pretty high is not very hard. One thing I should mention before getting into C-rich materials though, is that it is very important that whatever you are adding to the bin is not already emitting ammonia.
For example, you can have all the c-rich bedding you want, but if you add fresh manure to a standard worm (enclosed) worm bin you will almost certainly kill your worms. Same goes for any really foul, rotting material. The larger the system and the more air flow there is, the greater the chance it will be able to buffer the negative impact of the material being added.
Ok – getting back to C-rich materials…
Any of the typical worm bin ‘bedding’ materials, such as shredded cardboard, shredded newpaper, coco coir, peat most etc are great for boosting the C:N ratio – they also help to provide an excellent habitat for the worms since they are highly absorbent, and also allow good air flow (although the latter two, should be mixed with one of the bulkier types for best results).
The ultimate material however will be something that is ‘living’, such as really well-aged manure/straw, rotting leaves etc. These materials have the added advantage of being loaded with microbes, and potential sites for the conversion of ammonia into much less harmful nitrogenous (N-containing) compounds. This is why composts can work so well as a biofilter medium.
So you end up with the triple bonus of inoculating your system with lots of microbes, providing your worms with an excellent protective habitat, as well as helping to keep your system up in the optimal C:N range.
Hope this helps!
Written by Bentley on April 17th, 2009 with 2 comments.
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Here is a question from Karla,
I live in Texas where the red ants are always a problem.
Well at least once a month I find them in one of my bins. My bin or
kept on the deck in the back yard. Will they eat my worms? What can I
do to keep them out? Will ant killer, kill my worms?
Hi Karla,
Ants are a common pest in outdoor worm bins. Generally, if you maintain ideal conditions for your worms however, they shouldn’t create too much of a problem. Ants prefer much drier conditions than worms, so keeping your worm bed nice and moist (assuming good drainage) is a good start.
Ants also tend to be much more interested in the food scraps in a worm composting system than in the worms themselves. That being said, aggressive species like fire ants can probably cause some issues if abundant enough.
I definitely would NOT add any sort of ant killer to your worm bin – this could definitely harm or kill your worms, not to mention the rest of the compost ecosystem. Aside from keeping the system moist, perhaps you could try some other strategies to discourage the ants from coming in to the bin in the first place. Try setting up a perimeter of diatomaceous earth on the ground around your bin – this should greatly harm any ants that try to cross it, since it is essentially like a field of broken glass for bugs (ouch!).
You may also want to try some other relatively innocuous deterents. Put some honey mixed with borax in shallow dishes near the bin. The ants should start focusing on this pretty quickly, and when they take this material back to their nest, it can end up killing off a lot more ants.
If you know the location of ant nests on your property, you might try pouring boiling water on them – not the nicest thing to do (haha), but when push comes to shove, you gotta do whatcha gotta do!
Hope this helps!
Written by Bentley on April 17th, 2009 with 7 comments.
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A mushroom that grew in my big outdoor worm bin a couple of summers ago.
Here is a question from Maggie:
So i was checking on my closed bin worm compost and noticed
tall thin white mushrooms!! Is this normal? There are some fruit flies
in my bin and there are no bad smells. In fact I love the fresh earth
smell!!! A little background, I started regular composting then after
2 or 3 weeks decided to add worms. I had about 15 pounds of food and
added 2000 worms give or take. And they have been in their new home
for about two weeks. I have dug around and there are worms wiggling
about near the top, I havent gone more than 2 inches down. But
everything seems ok!! I guess im just nervous that I am going to end
up with a pile of garbage instead of wonderful compost!! Thanks for
your help and any advice and I LOVE this website, VERY helpful!!!!
Hi Maggie,
Have no fear! This is very normal – as you can see (in the picture above), I’ve had this happen myself. Mushrooms are of course the fruiting bodies of various species of fungi. In a composting ecosystem there are a LOT of different types of fungi at work, so there is a lot of competition for resources. This is probably why you don’t see mushrooms popping up all that much. Aside from that, when there are worms in the system, they generally wreak havoc on fungal mycelia (the networks of fungal material) simply via their movement – not to mention the fact that they likely graze directly on it. As such, it would likely be more common to see mushrooms pop up in a passive compost heap containing no worms.
That being said, certain mushroom-producing fungi also have a particular affinity for carbon-rich materials, such as those used for ‘bedding’ in a worm bin – shredded cardboard, newsprint etc. Since worm composting systems are often rich in these sorts of materials, it’s not too surprising to see these fungal species briefly taking advantage of this resource.
Believe it or not, I’ve read an account of someone who apparently grew edible mushrooms in a worm bin and harvested a pretty good crop over the course of several months. I am quite surprised by this, given the competition and worm activity, but I’m actually somewhat curious to try it out myself.
Anyway – hope this helps, Maggie!
Written by Bentley on April 15th, 2009 with 2 comments.
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Here is a question from Larry:
I have hundreds of tiny white balls that move around on their own, they
appear on all areas of the bin and tend to move off of the surface to
underneath the bedding.
There is no indication of any kind of bugs or flys or spiders, could
they be freshly laid worm eggs?
They are much smaller then a normal looking worm egg.
Hi Larry,
Those little moving white balls are almost certainly a species of white mites which are extremely common in worm bins.
They tend to thrive in really high moisture conditons, and can often be an indication of overfeeding – or at least adding materials that the worms can’t readily consume right away. They also really seem to love water-rich, cucumber-family fruit (veggies?) like squash, pumpkins, cucumbers etc.
As I’ve mentioned in other posts, ever since switching to lid-less systems, I rarely (if ever) see these mites anymore. Their ideal habitat seems your typical enclosed plastic worm bin, and I think virtually every single one of these that I’ve set up has had them.
Sometimes it can look like these white mites are attacking your worms. When there is a population explosion, it’s inevitable that some will end up crawling on worms, but I’ve also noticed them concentrated on dead and dying worms. My guess is that they are scavengers, and are simply feeding on a readily available food source. They won’t do more that perhaps irritate (by walking all over them) a healthy worm.
One other thing to mention. These white mites can also be an indication of a declining pH – especially if you see lots of small white worms (known as ‘pot worms’ or ‘white worms’) appearing at the same time.
I can assure you that worm cocoons don’t move on their own. They also tend to be quite a bit larger than mites, be straw-colored or brownish, and look more like lemons than little balls.
Hope this helps!
B
Written by Bentley on April 9th, 2009 with 3 comments.
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I’ve written previously about my attempts to use dryer lint in my vermicomposting systems. Unfortunately that project didn’t really work out too well, since the bins I added the material to have a fairly fast turnover, due to worms getting harvested for orders on a regular basis. As such, I basically shelved the idea, hoping to revisit it at some point.
Well, that time has arrived!
I decided that, rather than adding lint to my active bins, I would instead set up a brand new system using only lint as a bedding material. Not sure why I didn’t think of it before – but hey, better late than never!
As I’ve written before, an ideal worm bin bedding should be 1) absorbent, 2) carbon-rich (high C:N) and 3) structured to allow for decent air flow. In all honesty, I think we have all the bases covered with lint – but we shall see.
Setting this system up had he wondering why I never thought of something like strips of old t-shirts as a bedding material. While it will likely take longer for cotton to break down than something like shredded cardboard, I think it would provide an excellent habitat matrix.
Remember back when I added a Natura Eco Cloth to my worm bin? Same sort of idea.
Moving on to methodology…
I basically set up this system the way I always recommend setting up a new bin. I added a thick layer of lint in the bottom, then a layer of food waste – and continued upwards with alternating layers. As per usual I finished off with an upper layer of lint.
As you can see in the picture, I was pretty lazy with the food waste – no chopping/blending etc. I am going to leave the system to sit for a week or so. During that time I will likely check on it, and mix and/or add water as needed.
Should be interesting!
I will of course keep all y’all posted!
P.S. One thing I almost forgot to mention. As I’ve written previously, I don’t really recommend this approach if you use dryer sheets, since I’m not really sure what chemicals might end up in the lint. If you haven’t tried re-usable dryer sheets, you might want to look into it – they lose their effectiveness after awhile (we don’t use anything currently), but it’s nice not having to buy new bounce sheets (not the mention avoiding the chemicals).
Written by Bentley on April 8th, 2009 with 5 comments.
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