The Journey

I'm now also blogging on Steemit

Posted in A day in a worm farm on Feb 21, 2018

While some superstars can earn a lot of money blogging and vlogging, I barely get any cents from my current blog and Youtube channel. On top of that, because my traffic is not comparable to the other blogging celebrities, Youtube has disable monetization on my account. The ads on my worms/BSF related pages don't bring me even 10 USD per year...

The main purpose is not to make money but more to share the information anyway.

But what if I could do both at once? Is that possible? Well that's what a new blogging / social network platform is claiming.

Steemit.com is a new generation blogging platfo...

Homemade fish amino acid

Posted in A day in a worm farm on Nov 12, 2017

Yesterday night I tried one recipe for fish hydrolysate (fish amino acid) that only required fish, vermicompost, molasses, yeast and water. Today after talking to my friend Larry J. Shier from The Blue Worm Bin, I tested the traditional way of making fish amino acid with just the fish and the same amount of raw sugar. This method is from the Korean Natural Farming community.

What I did was simply:

• cut the fish
• added a layer of raw sugar in a 5L bucket
• add a layer of fish pieces
• add more sugar to cover the layer of fish, shaking the bucket to settle the sugar
• add another layer of fish
• add more...

Attempt at making fish hydrolysate fertiliser at home

Posted in A day in a worm farm on Nov 12, 2017

I have been doing compost tea regularly, it's a great way to extend coverage of your vermicompost. But I'm missing an ingredient that seems to be very popular with making fungal dominant compost tea: fish hydrolysate (fish amino acid). The reason was I didn't want to spend more money on this pretty expensive liquid.

So today I thought I could try and make my own. I regularly go fishing and last season I brought back some bait fish that I was going to use but never got around to do it, there were some fish that we also forgot in the freezer. So I have my main ingredient, the fish :-). Most reci...

Using clover as mulch

Posted in A day in a worm farm on Nov 12, 2017

I have read a bout white and red clover being great as living mulch. They area apparently one of the best nitrogen fixer, that is they get the nitrogen from the air and fix it in nodules on their roots.

Just like with using alfalfa (lucern) or sugar cane mulch, when the clover is established, it also protects the soil from direct sunlight, reduce water evaporation and protect the soil from compaction due to raindrop impact.

Clover grows very fast and will take over a garden bed in no time, given conditions are met. In my sweet potato bed, the white clover has reached 25cm height, when I plante...

The Urban Worm Bag: A new worm bin is born, it's exciting!

Posted in A day in a worm farm, Product Reviews on Nov 10, 2017

Something new is always exciting

It’s been a while since I have seen a new type of worm bin appearing on the market, especially here in Australia. I know in France for example there had been models of vermicomposting systems that I have never seen here. The City Worms for example is one sexy home scale worm farm.

This blog is a bit long, if you just want to jump to the product page, the link is at the bottom.

Little tour of some the existing worm bins

Before I start discussing the new product, the Urban Worm Bag, lets have a quick tour of some of existing commercial worm bins out there.

Stack...

My airlift vortex AACT brewer

Posted in A day in a worm farm on Sep 10, 2017

I recently created a large BSF (Black Soldier Fly) larvae compost bin so my previous design using an inverted pontoon pile cap has been converted into a more suitable use: an airlift vortext Actively Aerated Compost Tea Brewer. The shape of the container makes it ideal for this type of tea brewer.

My previous compost tea brewer that uses an air diffuser was working great, however, due to the number of small pvc sections (over 20, not counting the air pipe) and fittings, it was a bit tedious to clean, even though not too bad. For this new design, there is only 9 sections (not counting the air p...

DIY plastic drum BSFL compost bin

Posted in A day in a worm farm, Black Soldier Fly Larvae on Aug 27, 2017

After the success of my previous BSFL compost bins I decided that for this coming season I will build a larger system that will allow me to use more larvae and compost more food waste. So I use the materials I collected over the months and started the construction of Pantagruel. Those who have followed me must now know about Gargantua, my DIY CFT. In the french Literature, Gargantua is a character from a novel from the 16th century by François Rabelais, Pantagruel is Gargantua's son, they both have a huge appetite.

About two years ago, I have collected three 220L (55 gallons) plastic drums, tw...

Using horse manure to feed the worms

Posted in A day in a worm farm on Aug 05, 2017

For a home scale worm farm, the use of animal manure is totally unnecessary. With one to three worm farms of the style of the Worm Cafe for example, my family of three generates more food than the worms can eat. However, because I have a CFT worm farm and multiple other larger systems I need more food source for all the worms. I sometimes receive kitchen scraps from friends but there are times where I need more. That's where the horse manure come into play. I have access to free fresh horse manure, just 13 minutes from home.

Today, with a friend, we went collecting about maybe 15 large bags of...

Harvesting the Worm Swag

Posted in A day in a worm farm, The Worm Swag on Aug 02, 2017

I went in the garden today and noticed that the mulberry tree is fruiting! I think it has been two years that I planted these trees from cuttings donated by Annette, a member of "Swap Your Crop" Facebook group. How exciting! This reminds me of my childhood in New Caledonia, I used to climb mulberry trees and spend hours eating the fruits.

I need to take care of those two little trees. So today I decided to harvest my Worm Swag for the first time and add the vermicompost to the pots.

So the Swag was designed to be harvested from the bottom. There is an opening in the fabric that is held clos...

New milestone: Gargantua CFT is ready for harvest

Posted in Gargantua the CFT worm bin, A day in a worm farm on Jul 30, 2017

Woohoo, today is a big day for my little worm farm! Gargantua, my homemade CFT, is finally ready for its first harvest. It is now full and I can start a regular harvest.

Just a quick reminder on how you harvest a CFT of this style. There are CFT worm bins that have a grid and a blade that cut a slice of vermicompost VC off the bottom. Gargantua however uses a simple false bottom made of PVC pipes. To harvest it you need to rake the bottom and the VC falls down.

In a commercial CFT weekly fed with horse manure, the manure loose about 25% of volume when it is converted to vermicompost by the wor...