Multiple plant stage specific worm bins?

[Mazer]

Dear Gentlefolks,
I have been reading intensively any (serious) online sources dealing with WCT. I just started to use these brews. I was wondering if any of you ever built different bins to supply the plants with specific foods/beasties?
meaning for example a bin where you put more banana peals for flowering stage and another with more N rich worm food for vegetative stage? my diy worm bin is roughly 10''x16'' and 12" high. I have just about enough space to add another (maybe two). I do not need huge amount of compost. Just good quality.
Wormly yours,
M

 

[Wetdog]

Not a bad idea and having 2 bins is always a good idea.

It didn't work out for me, mainly with the separate feed stocks. It lasted about 6 weeks and I just went back to the same diet for everyone.

My main worm feed is coffee grounds and fresh, then frozen comfrey. Coffee grounds are high N and the comfrey provides good amounts of everything, NPK, minerals, the whole enchilada.

What I also do is keep coffee jugs by the bins with kelp meal, neem cake, alfalfa pellets, laying mash, and oatmeal. Magic marker on the top with what's inside. Light top dressings will bump up whatever you may be looking for and is a lot easier than separate feed stocks.

Right now, there are 3 permanent bins and 2 'batching' bins as an experiment. The 'batching' is mainly a smallish amount of heavily amended bedding (~3gal/bin and had to let it cook), with no further inputs and used after ~3 months, as is, with no harvesting.

We'll see how that goes.

Meanwhile, give your idea a go and see how it works out.

 

[Mazer]

Not a bad idea and having 2 bins is always a good idea.

It didn't work out for me, mainly with the separate feed stocks. It lasted about 6 weeks and I just went back to the same diet for everyone.

My main worm feed is coffee grounds and fresh, then frozen comfrey. Coffee grounds are high N and the comfrey provides good amounts of everything, NPK, minerals, the whole enchilada.

What I also do is keep coffee jugs by the bins with kelp meal, neem cake, alfalfa pellets, laying mash, and oatmeal. Magic marker on the top with what's inside. Light top dressings will bump up whatever you may be looking for and is a lot easier than separate feed stocks.

Right now, there are 3 permanent bins and 2 'batching' bins as an experiment. The 'batching' is mainly a smallish amount of heavily amended bedding (~3gal/bin and had to let it cook), with no further inputs and used after ~3 months, as is, with no harvesting.

We'll see how that goes.

Meanwhile, give your idea a go and see how it works out.

Thanks for your encouragements Wetdog! Question for you: do you add any none mineral/plant material to your soil? I am trying to stay away from the easy manure-guano-fish/crab stuff route.
I have had a greenthumb pretty much since forever and I "feel" the plants growing. I feel/think/sense (without any research paper to support my intuition) that plants are better off on a lighter diet than with those big mac-ish feasts.
Am I being too poetic or do I make sense?

 

[calliandra]

Dear Gentlefolks,
I have been reading intensively any (serious) online sources dealing with WCT. I just started to use these brews. I was wondering if any of you ever built different bins to supply the plants with specific foods/beasties?
meaning for example a bin where you put more banana peals for flowering stage and another with more N rich worm food for vegetative stage? my diy worm bin is roughly 10''x16'' and 12" high. I have just about enough space to add another (maybe two). I do not need huge amount of compost. Just good quality.
Wormly yours,
M

I'd say let the plants decide what they want to eat, and just provide a well-rounded, microbe-rich substrate for them to do it in.
You can have no idea what they need in every split second of their life, no matter how hard you try.
Because that is how fast plants send out signals into the soil to get the microbes to produce the nutes they need.

 

[Mazer]

I'd say let the plants decide what they want to eat, and just provide a well-rounded, microbe-rich substrate for them to do it in.
You can have no idea what they need in every split second of their life, no matter how hard you try.
Because that is how fast plants send out signals into the soil to get the microbes to produce the nutes they need.

Hello Calliandra,
I gotta say it make sense and I agree with you. So you are suggesting that I keep my fingers crossed so all the necessary nutrients are present in the Living Soil?
I am new to this but I learn quick and speak fluently Plant. I just got to enhance my skills MMJ dialect.
A good gardener is one that knows how and what to watch.
ZRG"lçïfrr ltsss (that means "peace upon your soil" in blue corn dialect)
M

 

[calliandra]

Hello Calliandra,
I gotta say it make sense and I agree with you. So you are suggesting that I keep my fingers crossed so all the necessary nutrients are present in the Living Soil?
I am new to this but I learn quick and speak fluently Plant. I just got to enhance my skills MMJ dialect.
A good gardener is one that knows how and what to watch.
ZRG"lçïfrr ltsss (that means "peace upon your soil" in blue corn dialect)
M

Nah don't keep your fingers crossed, it's such a pain to do even everyday tasks like that
Chemistry follows biology, so if we have the complete biology, the bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, microarthropods and worms, they will take care of the chemistry plants need to thrive.

Because it's like this:

The plant sends around 50% of its photosynthesized energy to the rootzone in the form of exudates, which are special mixtures of nutrients for the soil organisms that will spike nutrient cycling for whatever nutes the plant may be needing. The bacterial and fungal populations grow and consume inorganic and organic matter around them, storing those nutrients in their bodies (and there are probably specific populations in all temperature, humidity, and aeration ranges - each has its own - science currently suggests there are 75,000 different bacterial species & 25,000 fungi. wow.).

So they extract these nutrients into organic, soluble forms (=nature's biobizz), that are packaged in delectable snacks for protozoa and nematodes. When these predators eat the bacteria and fungi, they get surplusses of nutrients, which they poop out into the soil, and can be taken up by the plant. Thus far what scientific research has found without doubt, though it is clear there is a lot going on down there that we haven't even begun to understand.

VoilÀ soluble nutrients for the plant, in the exact amounts it needs right now. And this is going on 24 hours a day seven days a week, multiple different sourcing processes going on in that rhizosphere, ph's ranging from 5.5 to 11 in myriads of microsites, and the plant is orchestrating them all.
How can we compete?!

So what is left for us meddling humans to do?
Provide the conditions so that can happen unrestrained.

In the case of cannabis we want a relatively even balance of fungal to bacterial populations, because cannabis is native to mid-successional ecosystems, where annual plants dominate. So we provide a substrate that allows them to do that: greens for the bacteria, browns for the fungi. Unless the plants they came from were stressed, your ingredients will contain all the nutrients a plant needs to survive, because otherwise, how could it even have lived, right?
So no worries about the nutes!
You just need a good diversity of organisms who will process all that into plant-consumable forms.
And those come with your inputs.
If they're diverse on the greens side, no fungicides, no pesticides, that part is taken care of.
On the fungal side, it depends, we probably all need to innoculate, since the way we've been treating the earth, those have been drastically decimated over wide expanses on the land, and thus aren't being handed around via our food either.

And you're probably already doing that to some extent anyway.
So to focus on that in terms of the microbial life we're adding, makes finger-crossing redundant

And hang on to your intuition, end of the day, that's worth more than all theory
Cheers!

 

[Mazer]

Nah don't keep your fingers crossed, it's such a pain to do even everyday tasks like that
Chemistry follows biology, so if we have the complete biology, the bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, microarthropods and worms, they will take care of the chemistry plants need to thrive.

Because it's like this:

The plant sends around 50% of its photosynthesized energy to the rootzone in the form of exudates, which are special mixtures of nutrients for the soil organisms that will spike nutrient cycling for whatever nutes the plant may be needing. The bacterial and fungal populations grow and consume inorganic and organic matter around them, storing those nutrients in their bodies (and there are probably specific populations in all temperature, humidity, and aeration ranges - each has its own - science currently suggests there are 75,000 different bacterial species & 25,000 fungi. wow.).

So they extract these nutrients into organic, soluble forms (=nature's biobizz), that are packaged in delectable snacks for protozoa and nematodes. When these predators eat the bacteria and fungi, they get surplusses of nutrients, which they poop out into the soil, and can be taken up by the plant. Thus far what scientific research has found without doubt, though it is clear there is a lot going on down there that we haven't even begun to understand.

And hang on to your intuition, end of the day, that's worth more than all theory
Cheers!

Dear Calliandra,
you make sooooooo much sense! I had no idea about the root exudates you mentioned! A whole new topic of research for me )))
Truly enlightening post!
So to sum it up and PLEASE do correct me if I am wrong.

-With the soil mix we bring a tad bit of plant food but lots of food for fungus and bacteria food.
-With the compost teas we bring the fungus and bacteria.
-with seed sprout tea we bring mostly enzymes (Plants consume these directly right?)
-With folliar spray we bring more life to the phyllosphere and to some extent some plant nutrients to be uptaken by the leaves.

Please do add on to this flashcard.

Other point, I live in a concrete jungle with virtually no access to other quality composts than my worm compost. I possibly could get some compost from friends who do not really take good care of their compost piles that much. Is it ok to make tea with a compost has not been treated in the best way possible? or could it be harmful to the plants? is it possible to store compost in say a tote in a basement? or should I feed it directly to my worms?

Flashcardingly yours,
M

 

[calliandra]

Dear Calliandra,
you make sooooooo much sense! I had no idea about the root exudates you mentioned! A whole new topic of research for me )))
Truly enlightening post!
So to sum it up and PLEASE do correct me if I am wrong.

And I'm happy to get these concepts into circulation, we can heal so much with them!
So here goes:

-With the soil mix we bring a tad bit of plant food but lots of food for fungus and bacteria food.

Yes, but also structure that will keep things aerobic.
And if you count the compost to the soil mix, that's microbial populations too.

-With the compost teas we bring the fungus and bacteria.

And hopefully, also flagellates, amoebae, and maybe even some nematodes. Because bacteria and fungi alone do not get the job done. They mine, but they have to be eaten for those nutrients to actually be released in plant-available forms.

-with seed sprout tea we bring mostly enzymes (Plants consume these directly right?)

Yes! Whilst I'm not sure this is generally accepted (but neither is the concept of the soil food web ), plant roots can take up larger molecules, cell organelles - like mitochondria or chloroplasts, and whole bacteria, to use directly in grotwh processes, like building blocks. Shortcutting the work required by all that de- and recomposition the mineralists would have them toil through LOL
Seed sprouts will contain a load of nutes for the microbes too, along with microbes themselves.

-With folliar spray we bring more life to the phyllosphere and to some extent some plant nutrients to be uptaken by the leaves.

Yep!

Other point, I live in a concrete jungle with virtually no access to other quality composts than my worm compost. I possibly could get some compost from friends who do not really take good care of their compost piles that much. Is it ok to make tea with a compost has not been treated in the best way possible? or could it be harmful to the plants?

I wouldn't. And yeah, if the system you're introducing a bad compost to isn't very strong to begin with, it could tip the balance into worse conditions than you had before.
So if you think lots of anaerobic shit went on in those piles, I'd let them keep it to themselves...

is it possible to store compost in say a tote in a basement? or should I feed it directly to my worms?

Ahh, wait a sec, so you're thinking of adding the bad compost to your bin for the worms to reprocess?
I like the idea conceptually, but not sure it's worth the hassle? Not sure how long one would have to let them work at it, and may be easier to just let them process fresh stuff in the same time?
I haven't tried that, so can't really say

Oh but storing (good, finished) compost - just make sure it's getting air, so a woven bag would be better than a closed plastic box (which I understand a tote to be?), but a plastic box with lots of aeration holes also works. If you get moisture down to 30%, the microbes will go to sleep (and will need reactivating), but it's in the most stable state like that.

 

[Wetdog]

Other point, I live in a concrete jungle with virtually no access to other quality composts than my worm compost. I possibly could get some compost from friends who do not really take good care of their compost piles that much. Is it ok to make tea with a compost has not been treated in the best way possible? or could it be harmful to the plants? is it possible to store compost in say a tote in a basement? or should I feed it directly to my worms? /QUOTE]

M, I'll try and give you the best advice I can from years of learning the hard way.

*I* don't use *compost* at all in my mixes. Thermal type compost, like when we think of compost. People tend to gloss over a couple of words when Coot gave his advice about the humus component. *Use a QUALITY compost OR vermicompost OR a combination of the two*

Either one or both are fine IF they are QUALITY. If it's not quality, you're better off leaving it out entirely than ruining the entire mix by adding garbage. I learned this the hard way many years ago with garbage "compost".

I DO know the quality of my vermicompost (the highest), and use only that and pine bark fines for my humus component. The mix has not suffered by leaving out less than quality ingredients.

You know the quality of the VC that comes out of your bins. Stick with what you know.

Feeding the suspect compost to the worms? That's your call, but do it in a separate bin 'just in case'. No need to endanger your entire worm population. Myself, I would probably pass, the whole "Silk purse from a sow's ear", deal compared to, known to you, food sources.

Experiment as you will, just don't endanger your main crops.