After careful thought and deliberation I’ve settled on two winners – that’s right, TWO WINNERS – for the “Worm Inn Project Challenge“! Both of these ideas will be combined for the new Worm Inn project.
All in all, I was really pleased with all the great ideas that were submitted! I’m hoping/planning to try some of the other ones in various ways (using other systems etc), and I would LOVE to see some of you Worm Inn users out there trying some of them as well! (Speaking of which, Larry – I’ve started stockpiling gum in your honor, buddy! …NO, that’s not an April Fools joke! lol)
The two winners chosen were: John “I never win anything” White (LOL) and Paul Letby! Congratulations to both of you.
You will each receive a brand new Worm Inn + worms (big thanks to Jerry Gach for his generous assistance with the prizes).
I REALLY like John’s idea of coming up with a specific goal weight (of wastes) and seeing how quickly we can get there. But with a project like that you need some “competition” – and that’s where Paul’s idea to pit the Worm Inn again a regular plastic worm bin comes in!
“Last system to hit 100 lb is a rotten egg!“
Or something like that…(and hopefully neither of them ends up smelling like a rotten egg!)
😆
I’m really excited about this one. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun!
The key was to find something fairly easy to set-up and maintain – while still being really interesting. It needs to be indoors, and to not result in ME being forced to sleep outdoors (aka “in the dog house”! lol).
Now we just need to work out the details!
It’s going to be important that the two bins receive exactly the same waste materials and same bedding materials. As such, I will likely need to come up with a pre-determined food “mix” that always get’s used. OR perhaps I can simply freeze the portions for the bin that is behind.
Initially, they will both receive the exact same amounts of everything at the exact same time. But once one of the systems enters “overfeeding” territory (while the other is still ok to receive more food) I’ll need to start staggering feedings, while still making sure that the slower system is receiving the same food in the same order.
As for worms – I’ll be using Red Worms and I think I’ll aim for a good sized starting population (exact same size of course) in each system since I want to hit the ground running.
I’m hoping to get everything set up and rolling later in the week or early next week.
If you have any additional thoughts/ideas about the experimental design don’t hesitate to let me know (in comments below). And also let me know if you plan to try any of those other Worm Inn project ideas! Would be great to follow your progress.
In case you are also wondering about the exciting “new development” on the Worm Inn front, let me assure you that I’ll post an update about that fairly soon as well!
Thanks everyone!
8)
Either way, we know which one will be easier to harvest! 😉
Just to make your life easier, Bentley, maybe it would be best to run the project until the Inn has hit the target mass of castings, and then harvest the bin to see if it has more. Otherwise fighting with that bin every few weeks to see what the harvest is on it may be a headache.
I’m excited to hear what happens!! And congrats to the winners of the worm inns!
woohoo I am a winner!!!!
You won’t believe this, but my church had a adult Easter egg hunt after the kids had theirs and I won the price egg!
If I played the lottery I would be going right now to get a ticket.
I would like to take a moment to thank my wife who lets me keep worms in the house (even if they are regulated to my office)
My friends who don’t laugh at me to much for being a Worm Farmer
and all the small people who I had to step on to get to this point in my worm life!
am interested to see what the new news will be
CASEY – not really sure how I would determine the mass of the castings.
I think I may not have been clear in my explanation. What I’ll be primarily looking at is how quickly wastes disappear in both of these systems (and how quickly I can get to the target weight of food waste that needs to be added). So it will be a simple matter of adding all the same stuff to both systems (writing down the weight of the materials added), monitoring the situation, and then adding more food etc as appropriate. Hope that clears things up
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JOHN – Why I am not surprised to see you giving an acceptance speech?? lol – too funny.
That is hilarious that you are on such a roll!
Hopefully your wife will be proud of your win and allow you to set up your prize Worm Inn!
Please please please make a video follow along series!! Your YouTube channel needs more uploads 🙂
For worm count/amount, why not use a Red worm bag that you sell on the Canadian site. Would allow us to see how quickly they can multiply in a properly maintained system.
Wow! I just pulled that out of my head right after reading the contest. Something good DOES come out once in a while! Ha ha.
Just wanted to say a big “Thank You!” to Bentley for the prize (Really cool prize!!!), for running this site and running contests we can win! Also for your weird and whacky experiments that we all love to follow.
MATT – I am definitely overdue for some videos. Will see what I can do!
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HINZY – I like the idea (always fun to test out the Red Worm Mix), but in this case – because we need everything to be exact (even a difference of say 20 worms could potentially skew the results), I think doing an actual worm count will be important. I would like to do another experiment with the RWM, though, so thanks for the idea.
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PAUL – glad you are excited! I’m looking forward to seeing how the Worm Inn works out for you!
8)
I second Matt! It’s always cool to read about but I love to see it in action!!
You could put the worm inn against the worm factory 360. I think I know which one will win but it would be very interesting to see how much faster one is over the other. Also it would be interesting to see the quality of casting each bin produces.
I think it would be great to see probably the two most marketed bin in a face off. It only takes about 3 seconds on YouTube to see people discussing the two of those bins and arguing on the pros/cons of each.