Worm Wrangling at The Funny Farm

We rarely use regular compost any more. After we build a pile we let it work for 6-8 weeks then we feed the partially decomposed ingredients to our worms to finish the job. We use the worm castings as the main ingredient in our seed starting mix and we use them as a topdressing when we move transplants into the garden.

Our worm bins are modeled on Will Allen's bins at Growing Power. They are made of non-pressure treated 2 x 12's. They measure approximately 2' x 3' x 19" deep. We have 12 of them. We place about 6" of the partially composted material in the bottom of the bin then add about 5 lbs of worms. Then we fill the bins with more compost until it is bulging up over the top of the bin. As the worms consume the material gasses are given off and the pile shrinks about 30%. It takes about 60 days for the worms to completely eat the whole pile.

After they finish a bin we lure them out and move them to a fresh bin to start the process again. When Will described how they get the worms out of the bins i could not believe it would work until i did it for myself. What we do is lay a piece of window screen over the bin and spread about 3" of fresh compost over the screen. The worms are hungry and living in their own poop so they squeeze through the tiny holes in the screen to get to the fresh food. I know, hard to believe :) As they do this the contents of their gullets get squeezed out of them leaving a very fine layer of beautiful castings on the top of the pile under the screen.

We leave the screen on for a week, dump the worms and repeat 2 more times to get all the worms out. At first i thought that the last worms to come out were probably slackers but now i am of the opinion that they must be the most hard core worms because they were able to tolerate being in the bin with little food and surrounded by poop for the longest time!

After the worms have been removed we let the castings dry out for a couple of months before we use it. We push it through a 1/4 inch screen to remove the rough stuff which makes for some mighty fine castings. We collect the bits of woody material that has not completely broken down and use them to mulch our fruit trees. It is already inoculated with fungus so continues to break down and feed the trees. From each bin we end up with about 150 lbs. of screened worm castings.

We love our little worker worms!

Worms are Livestock Too!

I love raising worms. It is the easy way to break down organic waste into fantastically nutritious food for plants. I built 12 bins in the barn in which i'll raise my herd. Yesterday is got in the mail 10 pounds of red wigglers. They are consumers of partially decomposed organic matter and live in the forest duff not down in the soil like earthworms. I filled 2 bins half way with material that has been composting since 4 pm on March 22 according to those meticulous records i referred to in the last post. I put 5 lbs. of worms in each bin and filled them the rest of the way with the partially decomposed organic matter. I mounded each bin up above the sides. During the process of decomposition by the worms the mass will be reduced by about 50% as co2 and other gasses are given off during the process. Over the top i put a wet burlap bag. I sometimes use wet cardboard. Worms need to be kept moist and they need air. The organic material should be coarse to allow for good drainage and thus aeration to keep the worms happy and reproducing. There 2 rewards from worm composting. One is the worm castings (yea it is worm poop) the other is more worms. After 60-90 days the worms will have consumed all of the organic matter and will have had many orgies producing many eggs that hatch into many more worms. When the process is complete i will separate the worms from the poop (i'll describe that process when we do it) and start 4 more bins. After the next cycle i'll be able to start 8 bins, then 16, etc. But since i only have 12 bins , i,ll either have to build more bins or sell worms or both. Probably both.
My bins are 3' x 2' x 16" deep. Why are they that size? because that is the size that fit under the benches in our former greenhouse and could be easily be moved around by 1 person. (the first 6 are on castors so they could be rolled around.) They hold about 2 wheelbarrows of organic matter. After the worms finish their work i can harvest about 150 lbs. of worm castings and 10 lbs. of worms from each bin.
You may be wondering if i bury my kitchen scraps directly in the bins. No I don't. I put them in a pile with weeds, and other green matter from the garden. Worms have tiny mouths and can't bite into fresh greenery. As worm expert Will Allen at Growing Power in Milwaukee said " What's a worm going to do with a potato?" The detritivores (sow bugs, pill bugs, springtails and such) and the microorganisms need the break stuff down into small enough pieces for the worms to ingest them. When the pile gets big enough i start a compost pile. I'll talk about how i spice my compost in a future post. I will start the next compost pile a month before the bins are ready to harvest so i will have fresh partially decomposed material to fill the new bins. Then the process starts all over again.

Oh wait, I almost forgot, what i plan to do with the excess worms is feed them to the future chickens and the way in the future fish livestock.
All part of my cunning permaculture plan.

An exciting day at the Funny Farm

Today we planted our first crops. We prepared the beds by tilling in some of our gourmet worm compost, kelp meal and granite sand for mineral nutrients. We planted beds of basil, cilantro, chives, japanese snow turnips, and Scarlett Queen turnips. Our broccoli, red cabbage and lettuce plants are growing well in flats and will be ready to plant soon.

I tilled in organic fertilizer and kelp meal in the bed that is destined to have Top Hat blueberries. Top Hat is a new variety that is self-fertile that was developed at Oregon State U. The plants are said to grow 2' high and wide making them ideal candidates for pot culture. They promise to be a great addition to urban farming. The berries are supposedly almost as large as Rabbiteye. We'll see next spring.