Made $40 an hour this morning

[GreenhouseEffect]

OK, so I didn't EXACTLY earn $40. But pretty close to it.
I harvested a bunch of earth worm castings from my worm bin, took me an hour to sift it, and I really didn't do much for the Red Riglers to turn kitchen scraps and paper egg cartons, into high quality plant food. I sifted 3 gallons out of about 2 cubic yards of mostly finished worm compost. I would have spent about $55 to buy that.
Pretty much any grower or gardener could do that with a big plastic tote drilled full of holes, and it wouldn't really cost anything after the initial purchase of the "worm bin" and some composting worms.
I bought my earth worms from Uncle Jim's worm farm, there is info on how to raise worms on there web site to. I am not affiliated with them, I just love growing in worm castings, that I make from stuff that would other wise go to the land fill. Instead it provides me with some high quality smoke!!

Hope I inspire somebody else to start a worm bin, maybe even recycle, and quite throwing it all away!!

-Greenhouse

[LurkingInTheGrass]

Following along, because I expect the thread to be informative.

I have considered a worm farm (the boss wants one for her flowers, I like the idea of upgrading the organic waste. Silk purse from a sows ear 😁.

Does a worm bin smell? Do you keep it in the house, in the shed/barn?

[GreenhouseEffect]

Not as informative as it would be if some one else were posting this!
Doesn't smell if you only add stuff like fruit and vedge scraps, coffee grounds, egg shells, AND you keep those types of things covered well by the bedding material( shredded egg cartons or news paper; leaves or coco coir are the BEST bedding).
I keep mine in my greenhouse, I made it out of wooden pallets, and have a pad across the top as my "couch"
Super easy to keep a worm bin though, check on it when you empty your bucket of kitchen scraps like twice a week. I used to keep a smaller bin in the house until I built my GH.

Thanks for following!

[Crow]

The cot in the grow tent is just perfect. Enjoy!

Crow

[GreenhouseEffect]

Thanks. It's actually my worm bin though, built it out of some pallet wood I had laying around.
Had to figure out how to make all this stuff fit. Least I get the top bunk!

[9fingerleafs]

Hahahahaha man what a great story you tell with the pictures. And that bud looks exquisite. What strain is that?

[GreenhouseEffect]

Thanks! It is some Blue Dream I grew this spring, Humboldt seeds variety from Seedsman. Really liked growing it a lot, smelled like lemon Merangue cheese cake while it was in flower, really want to grow that one again!

[starramus]

OK, so I didn't EXACTLY earn $40. But pretty close to it.
I harvested a bunch of earth worm castings from my worm bin, took me an hour to sift it, and I really didn't do much for the Red Riglers to turn kitchen scraps and paper egg cartons, into high quality plant food. I sifted 3 gallons out of about 2 cubic yards of mostly finished worm compost. I would have spent about $55 to buy that.
Pretty much any grower or gardener could do that with a big plastic tote drilled full of holes, and it wouldn't really cost anything after the initial purchase of the "worm bin" and some composting worms.
I bought my earth worms from Uncle Jim's worm farm, there is info on how to raise worms on there web site to. I am not affiliated with them, I just love growing in worm castings, that I make from stuff that would other wise go to the land fill. Instead it provides me with some high quality smoke!!

Hope I inspire somebody else to start a worm bin, maybe even recycle, and quite throwing it all away!!

-Greenhouse

I try to charge $5000 per hour only I never collect. I will have to show this thread to my wife. She is the one obsessed with recycling. But I end up doing all of the extra work.

[LurkingInTheGrass]

LOL
May want to remove the last sentence in your post, before you show it to her 😁

But, I feel what you're laying down 😁😁😁

[Crow]

I have red wigglers in each of my 5 - 7 gal grow pots now rooting around in Maine Coast Stonington Blend organic soil along with some dry grass, crushed egg shells, shredded brown paper, and some cuttings off the plants run through the blender with a few spoons of coffee grounds and some wild mushrooms we decided not to eat. Has been about 2 weeks with the worms and everyone involved seem happy

My intention is to build a worm farm tub and reprocess this $ 28.00 per 1.5 c.ft. Stonington Blend soil through the winter so that I can reuse next spring. Will save at least $ 100.00 next grow, not having to buy soil and it should be even more nutritious to my grow.

We shall see.

Crow

[9fingerleafs]

Have you seen herbin farmer on YouTube? He grows killer buds with a no till worm bed and has lots of tips and video journals. I’m no expert but I think you should do the composting separate from the roots. It gets really hot inside compost and the process produces CO2 wich you don’t want in your roots displacing oxygen and acidifying your medium. Once the worms have eaten all that plant matter they create worm castings aka “fresh soil” and that’s what you grow your plant in. I apologize if I’m wrong that’s just my limited understanding of compost and worm beds

[Crow]

Hi 9FL - You are absolutely right that I should not try to build a hot compost in my pots. GreenhouseEffect makes the distinction between hot composting and vermi (worm) composting in his post below.

I'm not doing any hot composting in my pots - just once, added a bit of thoroughly blended stuff (with added water to create a liquid sludge as worm food - this is my own idea and actually might be a mistake but so far it seems no harm done - to worms or plants) along with some grass, plant cuttings and shredded paper on top of the soil as mulch, to create a cooler hangout for the worms working under my 600 watt LEDs.

My biggest concern these days is overwatering the worms I don't saturate my soil but rather water more frequently.

Crow

[GreenhouseEffect]

I wouldn't worry to much about over saturating the worms, they are actually pretty tough that way. I just water normal and they seem fine, I got so many worms in my soil, that it pretty much MOVES when I touch it, Lol! Have even rescued them from the compost tea barrel after a couple day's, and the little shits were fine!!

[GreenhouseEffect]

It depends on what type of composting you do 9fingerleaves. You can do a hot compost, which requires the correct ratio of carbon and nitrogen, plenty of oxygen, and some amount of mass to actually heat up. This is usually something you would do outside. There is also vermi composting, aka a worm bin, and this type really doesn't heat up. If you were to get the conditions required for hot composting going in your worm bin, it would be to hot for them, and they would be crawling away for dear life! I do both, I had a hot compost pile going outside this summer, horse manure and some old moldy hay, and man, that thing got STEAMING! Pretty cool to see it happening, I had compost for my raised beds by July, and have even been enjoying vegetables from those beds the last few weeks.

I think it is really awesome for us growers to re-use soil and coco, even if it will just end up going to the yard or outdoor garden. It really helps to reduce our footprint of resources used, and it's better for our image in the eyes of the public. I feel like it looks bad to people if we are buying new stuff constantly to grow weed, and then dumping a bunch of used coco, nutes, soil etc. into the landfills and such. I know most everyone on this forum is responsible about that sort of thing, it definitley moves our cause of legalizing weed forward, instead of back, if we can keep a good wrap with the everyone else. Least my thoughts!

[9fingerleafs]

Ohh I see. Thanks for the clarification
I am currently at my 6th round with the same fox farms soil. I feed every watering cause it has no much nutes. I think it has the water retention of soil but you have he control over the nutes like in coco. It works great I have no issues

[D.A.A.S.69]

Nice ,I like worm beds, if we all quit using ro, water, we would be really saving resources.