My latest batch of “homemade manure” – yummy, yummy (for worms)!
It’s been quite some time since I’ve made any mention of my “homemade manure” concept (for those of you unfamiliar with the term, be sure to check out these blog posts: “Homemade Manure” & “Homemade Manure Mania“).
Just as a review, the basic idea here is that I am attempting to create a nutritious “homemade” material that provides all (or at least most) of the great benefits offered by some (aged) livestock manure (of course, not all manures are created equal). In my mind, an ideal worm food provides a well-balanced nutritional profile (thus encouraging the development of a diverse microbial population), while also providing some “structure” and the oxygen-availability that goes along with it (i.e. we don’t want a big, gooey, anaerobic mess).
The first time around, I was using a LOT of food waste – material I spent many hours blending up, I might add! While it was certainly fantastic stuff, my time is definitely a lot more valuable than that (spending a morning producing a tub of worm food just doesn’t cut it). As such, this time I decided to use poultry feed as the primary “food” component. For the “structure”, water-retention, and C:N balance, I used multiple types of “bedding”: shredded cardboard (and brown paper), fall leaves, and coco coir. To kickstart the microbial community, I mixed in some molasses and also added a scoopful of compost ecosystem material at the end.
Here are the photos to basically show the process of creating my latest batch of homemade manure:
I filled the tub about half full with shredded cardboard then added lots of water (all said and done, it was probably around 2 or 3 gallons
After mixing/soaking cardboard & paper, I added some molasses
Next, some fall leaves I had on-hand
A few scoops of poultry feed
Some coconut coir to soak up liquid pooling in bottom
Scoopful of “compost ecosystem”
Homemade manure, all ready for chow time!
Adding homemade manure to winter worm windrow
As you can see, I decided to use the material right away in my big outdoor bed. I will likely make a few more batches of the stuff to REALLY help kick that system into overdrive in time for spring!
I am happy to report that making this time of homemade manure took far less time (would have been even faster if I had had the shredded cardboard all ready to go) since it was just a matter of mixing everything up.
I am very interested to see how the worms respond! I’ll certainly provide a follow-up at some point.
Ok, so here we are six days after I added 15 lb of bulky food waste to my experimental Worm Inn, and the level had gone down enough to warrant adding even more! So, I did just that – this time it was only 10 lb (haha). As you will see in the video, it almost didn’t even fit – but my trusty hand rake came to the rescue.
I have little doubt that I am NOT going to be able to simply continue processing wastes at this rate – there are a lot of resistant materials going in there, and I really haven’t done enough with them to ensure that they’ll end up broken down any time soon.
What I would like to start doing at some point is really focus on making the materials a lot more worm-friendly before adding them. I’m not sure I’ll go so far as to blend them all, but I will likely try to macerate them by hand as much as possible (after putting them in my deep freezer for a few days and letting them thaw out).
Anyway, this has been a lot of fun so far. Needless to say, I am blown away by the fact that the system has handled so much waste being added to it (without creating a horrible stench, killing off my worms etc etc).
Recorded a new video today, after noticing that the level in the system has dropped significantly.
A couple of important take away msgs:
1) I am NOT suggesting that anyone should attempt to overfeed a worm composting system like this – ESPECIALLY not if you are using an enclosed “Rubbermaid” type of system. This is just me having fun with one of my systems – keep in mind that I have a decade of worm composting experience and that this is one of my major passions in life – the last thing I would want to do is lead a vermicomposting newbie astray! Be sure to check out my “Getting Started” page if you are fairly new to the hobby.
2) I am NOT suggesting that plastic worm bins are “bad” – not by a long shot! They are great systems, especially when you are just starting out. They are very easy to set up and don’t cost much money. With proper aeration (be sure to check out my “Mini” Bin to see how this can be improved) and/or drainage you can probably process a fair amount of wastes in a medium to large bin system. I still use enclosed bins myself (mainly for experiments though), but have switched over to using a lot of open system (even a simple plastic tub without a lid works well).
Just a very quick post to point you in the direction of what looks to be a cool resource. Credit for the find goes to ‘Mark from Kansas’. He is in “research mode” at the moment (in case you are wondering why he has been so quite as of late), and came across a really interesting section all about Soil Biology on the USDA website: Soil Biology.
Some of you might wonder what “soil biology” has to do with worm composting (after all, we’re not using soil, right?) – well, there are certainly a lot of parallels, and a solid understanding of soil biology can indeed help a great deal when it comes to understanding the inner workings of your composting systems.
Anyway – just wanted to provide that link for those who might be interested. Thanks again to Mark for tracking it down.
I know these winter worm composting updates must be getting pretty boring, given how well the system has been doing, but alas, I still don’t have any major disasters to report on. Things have continued chugging along beautifully in the bed, even without much in the way of “food” being added.
As you can see, temperatures in the heart of the system are between 25 and 30 C (77 to 86 F), although the readings are a little lower on the remote temperature monitor I have sitting inside the house. I decided to unplug the string of rope lights a little while ago, and there seemed to be a minor dip in temperature, but nothing overly significant.
With the system doing so well, the REAL question of course, is how well the worm population is doing. I decided to finally do some serious digging around a few days ago to see for myself.
I quickly noticed that the springtail population seems to be doing just fine! Below you can see masses of them covering some green tomatoes that were once in my basement freezer (I didn’t do a great job with my food freezing last fall, and have decided to feed my worms with it instead).
I was happy to see that the Red Worms also seem to be doing well – definitely comparable (if not better) than in my big straw bale bed last winter!
Normally, even when you keep the system fairly warm, you just don’t end up seeing the same densities and size that you would during warmer weather. In the case of this system, I will likely be harvesting worms for customers fairly soon.
Since the bed volume seemed to have gone down a fair amount by the end of last week, I decided to add a bale of alfalfa hay over top. I am really interested to see how the worms react to this once it starts to break down!
To help things along a little, yesterday I buried some shredded cardboard then poured a watering can full of molasses-water over the central zone. Hopefully the cardboard will help to hold a bit more moisture up near the top (where the alfalfa is) making this zone a bit more inviting for microbes and worms alike!
