Hello everyone, come on in! Today, I am starting my day with some worms. I'm checking my worm
composting. It's a gorgeous day and I thought, 'what a better way to start the morning than with
some worms!' I actually have my worm compost in my garden beds, actually in some raised
beds. So, I want to go over what we've been experimenting with. I'm not an expert on worm
composting, I'm definitely a geek and I've done a lot of research, and I'm learning a bit as I go,
so I'm going to share that with you. But first, go ahead and hit that subscribe button and that
notification bell so you don't miss any great content this season. And, if you like the video,
go ahead and tap that like button so other gardeners find it. All right so, worm composting
or vermicomposting. I love worm castings and I buy worm castings to put in my beds, whether
I'm starting a new bed or I'm amending a bed for a new season, those nutrient-rich, mineral-rich
worm castings or worm poop is phenomenal for your beds. It's good to help with pests,
it helps with soil borne diseases. You know these worms, they consume this great organic matter
and then they give us all the benefits of that consumption when they poop it out. So,
I wanted to do worm composting for two reasons. One, I wanted to do it for those great castings,
but I also wanted to do it so I could have them in my beds. And
you know, throughout the season you're gonna notice that your soil compacts or shrinks.
It's due to a lot of things, but one really important thing is that you have living soil
and as microbes and other ,you know life. Bugs consume that organic matter it shrinks,
right? So, by putting some worms in here they're going to create nice little air pockets for me,
at least that's my plan. All right, so let's talk about worm composting and what you need. First,
you need to create an environment for them. And, it needs to be large enough for the worms, so most
of the time you're going to use a 5 to 10 gallon container. And, the material that you can use for
that, you can use plastic you can use wood, you can even use glass some people use terrariums.You
do want to make sure though, that you meet their needs. And worms have basically five needs right,
they need moisture, they need air, food, darkness, and warmth. So, whatever environment you're
creating for them you want to make sure you meet those needs. Moisture, let's address that first.
You want it to be moist but not wet, right. So, typically when you're putting in your bedding,
and we'll talk about bedding, you're going to squeeze out the extra water and you're going to
place it in there. So, you don't want it soaking wet, you just want it moist. Air, you want air,
airflow in that container, but you also want to protect your worms from pests. So, we're going to
talk about how we're giving them air flow and then also how we're protecting them from pests. So,
you might put holes in your containers for the air flow, but the biggest problem is all these little
flies and gnats that'll come in there, right. But we'll talk about that. As far as food goes,
worms can actually eat their body weight in food scraps every day. So, I had no idea
that that was possible and I learned that on Uncle Jim's Worm Farm, on their site, that's where I got
my worms, my red wigglers from. So, if you have a pound of worms they can eat a pound of food
scraps, and with your food scraps you want to make sure that you're not using any dairy, or meat,
or any cooked food. That oil from any cooked food can attract pests. So, you're really just using
fruits and vegetables, and typically you want to stay away from acidic, like citrus, that's not
really good for them. And we'll talk a bit more about food as well. Darkness, they like it dark
so if you don't have it in a bed then you want to keep it somewhere, whether it's in your garage or
in a covered location, so it's not, the sun's not beating down on their soil especially not on your
container. And then warmth! Worms, like me, like temperatures anywhere between 60 and 80 degrees.
You can go down to 50 degrees with worms, but as you get too cold and you get too hot, they will
stop consuming and they will stop producing, so we're not going to get that wonderful worm poop,
or you could kill them. And that's part of the reason I didn't start worm composting earlier,
just so many things that I was reading about how easy it is to kill them.
So, I didn't want to buy a bunch of worms and then have them die on me because I neglected them,
which is, I think, easy to do. So, let's jump into my little bin and I'm actually using a one gallon
container, right. I told you five and ten, but I'm using a one gallon because these beds are smaller.
One of the companies that produces the beds
or the containers that you can put in your garden beds, those are are really large.
They seem to have it down, the containers are gorgeous I'll make sure and put some links in
the description so you can check that out, but they were just too big for these beds, for my
raised beds that are fully contained, right. So, I wanted something that I
could put in here but wouldn't take over my space. So, I chose one gallon food grade
plastic containers. And in these containers, I ended up, and I'll pull one out for you.
This is the container, and I drilled a bunch of holes in it, all in the sides and in the bottom.
Now, I did think about just cutting the bottom out because I've seen some other gardeners do that,
but I didn't, I decided not to do it to start. I want them to go in and out of the soil,
but I don't know, I just decided not to do it. So, I didn't cut them out, but I have tons of
holes all the way around and I've already seen that they go in and out of these containers.
So, it seems to be working. But, if I think that they're getting a little bit stifled, then I will
cut the bottom out. Actually, I have some video, because I've been taking video the whole time, so
I'll make sure it's in here. On one of the beds, I saw all the worms below the container in the soil
and I was a little worried about that. I thought, 'well, maybe they don't like the
container anymore, are they gonna go back in?' But as soon as I put in new food scraps they did. So,
it wasn't a problem, all right. So, that's the container I'm using in the bed. Now I'm
gonna have you come take a closer look and I'm going to show you on the inside.
All right so, now let's go into these beds, and into this compost.
Now, I've left this worm compost alone for right now because there are a couple things
in it. One, I have some volunteer plants, which is great they're just popping up that's awesome,
and I've taken some of them out and potted them up, and I'm going to see what grows from them.
It's absolutely amazing! But, in this one, when I first opened it up some flies flew out, right.
And really, you want to work as hard as you can to keep those flies out. So, there are a couple
of things. Now, I have this little compost bin that I keep in the kitchen. It does have a seal
on the top, right? It does have one of these and then has a little filter on it to try and keep the
smell away, and it works great, I love it. But those bugs seem to get in here no matter what.
So when I come out, I do open this up, I let them fly away, they've probably laid some little guys
on here which is unfortunate, but I try and keep it closed up. I let some of them out
before I put the food scraps into my worm compost. The other thing in this compost,
there are some food scraps up at the top. So, I'm basically showing you what not to do on here.
The best way to keep pests like gnats and flies out of your warm compost is,
one when you're putting in your food scraps cover them up, so get them down into the material,
right, a little bit more, so cover them. And then, the holes that I put in the side
and the bottom, I need to make sure that they're covered with soil so they're not open
for these critters to come in. So, really making sure that that soil
comes up nice and tight there, and then making sure that lid is on tight. So, those are the
ways that you're going to make sure that you do your best to keep them out. And so far,
I've read with some of the other forums out there with people who are doing the worm composting,
they'll find, you know, they'll find more flies in there they'll find critters in there.
So, it is something that you need to watch and pay attention to, but so far the things that I've been
doing have been keeping it to a minimum. But, I didn't do a good job in this one, in really taking
these guys and covering them up a little bit better. This, you know, I have some mushrooms
in here and some other things in there. Now, as far as temperature goes, I was really worried,
we did have some colder nights recently, and when I say cold, I mean California colder.
So, we were getting down into the 50s maybe, high 40s and in some cases. So,
I was worried about that and I've been checking the temperature quite a bit in here. Now, from
what I understand and from what I've read, you can help them increase the temperature by giving them
nitrogen rich food scraps. So, like mushrooms, like greens, things like that, that once they
consume it's really gonna, it's gonna heat up just a little bit. I didn't know that, I read it,
I thought 'wow that's cool,' so I dumped a bunch of mushrooms and some spinach that I had in here.
So, that is one thing that may help you on the warmth side. Now, the other thing, so
what I want to do in this bed is, I want to check a couple of things. One, I want to see if I still
have worms in here, so I'm going to go through and I'm going to pull out some of these volunteers,
and I'm going to kind of sift through this a little bit, and I am going to do,
in this bed I can see that, you know I still have some food scraps at the top,
maybe I need to - oh here's a worm, oh god, look at that guy!
Maybe I need to mix this up a little bit, or maybe they just don't need more. The other thing about
worms, the lifespan of a worm, I guess is about a year, right? But, they are hermaphrodites, so
they can be male or female depending on what they need to breed. Oh, here's a little one, or
did I break him? Hopefully I didn't break him! What they need to breed, and when they do breed
you get little sacks and in those sacks you get two to three worms. When they come out
they are little white stringy looking things. I don't see any. So be careful, don't think that
though that that little white stringy thing is necessarily fly larva. This little guy though.
I'm wondering what that is, is that a good guy or a bad guy?
It doesn't, that doesn't look like a maggot to me so.
We'll have to see though. I don't know. All right, so I'm looking to see how they're doing
in the beds and then I check temperature at this time; and the other thing I want to see
is, in here I'm gonna pull this out really quick.
In these holes, I have nice little holes that go through - oh here's a little guy,
in the bottom here. I'm gonna throw him back in. So, I see them down, they're going down in,
but they also, and one of the other beds there are so many little paths for these guys going through.
Which tells me that they're doing some of the things that I want them to do. They're going in
and they're creating these nice little pockets in here, which is absolutely awesome. And,
they're going through the beds and they're giving me some worm castings, also.
Which is phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal! Okay so, the other thing, harvesting worm castings.
Usually you're gonna do that every three to five months, you're gonna harvest those castings.
Now, for me these containers are smaller so I may be taking out some of this,
some of it a little bit sooner. Now, to harvest worm castings there are two ways to do it. So,
let's talk about the two ways that you would harvest those worm castings. One is to section
off your container, right? Stop feeding the area that they're in. Create some bedding on the other
side. Now, to create your bedding to start your worm compost, I should have told you this in the
beginning. You are going to have some bedding, you can lay down some cardboard, you can put in,
what I did is I used some wood shavings in there which were really nice, some coffee grounds
that were in there. Of course, if you order your worms they are in that bedding too, so I pop that
on the top. I put in some ground eggshells that are in there to give it a little grit,
and then I started adding my food scraps in there, and then I did add some soil in there to cover
the food scraps. So, that's how I started mine. So, if you want to harvest, then you're going
to put a divider in, the divider should have holes in it. And then stop feeding one side,
start feeding the other side, they'll move over right, all the worms will move over, and then you
can start harvesting your worm castings. For me, this is not big enough for me to do that. So what
you can do then, is you can take, I can take this whole container, I'm going to take it to a table,
lay down some plastic. I'm going to pour out the, I'm going to pour out all of this compost here,
make some piles, and we know worms like darkness, so what happens is the sun hits down on those
piles and the worms will start to drill down deeper. Then I can take off top layers, put it
off to the side, they'll drill down even more, put some more off to the side, drill down even more
and keep doing that, and then put what's left back in. Now, in any method you may still get worms in
the castings that you're trying to get out of it. My composter in my bed so if I sprinkle all those
castings and I get worms in them they'll just drill down, right. And in your beds they'll just
drill down too, into the soil. So, it shouldn't be a big deal. But, that's how you harvest them.
I check these every few days, so every three days is pretty much my feeding schedule, plus
checking them and making sure that they're good. Since I'm in the beds every day it's very easy,
so I like this method. I honestly think if I tried to do it somewhere else I would neglect them.
I'm just being honest, I would totally neglect them. So, I actually right now really enjoy it.
We'll see how it goes when I get into spring and summer and it gets a little bit hotter.
Plus it does take up a little bit of room but, I'm okay with that for right now. So, so far so good.
So, just to recap why would you want to do some worm composting or vermicomposting? One, the the
worm castings are phenomenal for your garden. Yes, I'm still going to be buying worm castings because
I'm not going to produce the volume that I would need for all these beds, but I'm producing some,
which is nice, and supplementing that, so bringing down my costs, I'm buying that. Plus, for me,
another benefit is that they will go into my beds and create those nice air pockets, right.
And really, soil is living soil, we want life in the soil, so I definitely want these worms in here
doing all sorts of wonderful things in the soil. Okay so, any resources
associated with worm composting will be put in the description below, so go ahead and check that.
If you have any questions let me know, or any comments, or tell me about your worm composting,
am I missing something? Because please, I'll take all the advice you could possibly give me! Go
ahead again, and hit that subscribe button if you haven't already, and the notification bell. And
thank you for joining me today, and I look forward to talking to you guys soon! Happy Gardening.