Lastmanstandin31
Well-Known Member
Could I just dump a few dozen night crawlers in my soil bin, feed them and then just start using that soil in a few months?
So where locally can I get EWC?
- Thread starter Lastmanstandin31
- Start date
hotrodharley
Well-Known Member
Read about worm bins.
hotrodharley
Well-Known Member
Lastmanstandin31
Well-Known Member
Gonna read it now. Thank you.
PadawanWarrior
Well-Known Member
You want red wigglers. Nightcrawlers will go deeper in the pot, but also escape. I would only use nightcrawlers outside if it was me. I got my red wigglers from Uncle Jim's. They were great. They got fucked up in shipping due to the USPS, but they hooked me up.
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They have EWC too. I've never used their's but I'm sure it's good. I usually just get mine from Build a Soil. I have $5 off code for BAS. But here's the EWC I saw on Jim's.
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Richard Drysift
Well-Known Member
Yes that’s the idea but night crawlers don’t decompose organic matter has well as red wigglers. Thats the kind of worms you want in a bin. You can just order a few hundred (or thousand) worms from uncle Jim’s or many of the other vendors online and put them in a fabric pot with some soil and feed them but the manufactured bins like the worm factory 360 make harvesting the castings super easy. You can also build your own tray system like ones used in the link Harley provided.
It’s actually kind of difficult to separate the worms from the finished compost but in a stacked mesh system be it diy or store bought most of the worms gravitate towards the upmost tray that contains most of the food so you just pull the lowest tray out from the bottom and dump the compost into your soil straggler worms and all. Nice thing about the worm factory 360 is that it also has a spigot to collect the worm leacheate that is liquid gold for your plants. I feed it to all my weed and houseplants; diluted of course.
Starting up a worm bin is the ballerest move a soil grower can make. Store bought EWC is usually from worms fed mostly shredded paper and sawdust; homemade ewc is high brix as it from whatever veggie and fruit scraps you might have just tossed out anyway. I am literally feeding my plants garbage: Coffee grounds, eggshells, banana peels, rotted $trawberries, avacado skins, etc.
PadawanWarrior
Well-Known Member
I know. I need to make a space for a bin. Until then I'm just buying decent ones.
I do have worms multiplying in the pots I keep moist, but I've neglected a few pots in my basement, and some of the life has died in those ones. The pots that I have kept moist and fed are loaded with red wigglers though. When you move the mulch layer you can see them all over. I actually stopped mixing in the top dressing when I use it because they can get kinds pissed off acting when I did that. Lately I've just been mixing the top dressing mix with some EWC and pumice and just put that under my mulch layer and water it in. The worms seem to be less disturbed doing it that way.
Richard Drysift
Well-Known Member
Sure, live worms will improve any mix but when they are wallowing around in the same vermicompost for several months making baby worms the compost gets even more dank. Plus they get good airflow through the trays with a stacking tray system which they love. They hate to be hot and dry.
Wizzlebiz
Well-Known Member
They have them at ace hardware by me.