The Journey

Update on my little farm

Posted in A day in a worm farm on Jan 03, 2017

I just went for a round counting and measuring all the vermicomposting systems (including vermiculture and vermicomposting) I have and it is totalling 5.75 sqm (62 sqft) of surface area. I'm currently stopping expanding the vermicomposting but need more breeding trays for the bait worms. That can potentially consume 124 lbs (56 kgs) of scraps/manure/etc... per week with a potential average worm population of up to 124 000 worms. I'm currently under feeding my systems...

Here are the details:

• 9 breeder trays of 38x27 cm (6 are for ENC, 3 for reds)
• 1 grow out tray of 41x56 cm (blues)
• 2 grow...

The Worm Swag review update

Posted in A day in a worm farm, The Worm Swag, Product Reviews on Dec 17, 2016

This is a follow up on the Early Worm Swag Review.

No long after the previous review of the Swag, I started filling it with shredded cardboard, Worm'ditioner and food scraps. I have not added the worms yet to let the food break down and give time for bacteria to colonise the system.

Getting the food ready with some bedding material. Some of the bedding and Worm'ditioner has already been mixed into the scraps

6 inches of bedding material and then the food scraps is added on top

A bit more Worm'ditioner

I then covered the whole thing with more bedding material

2 days later, I could see that ...

Early review of the Worm Swag

Posted in A day in a worm farm, The Worm Swag, Product Reviews on Dec 12, 2016

Worm Swag Review

A little bit of history

When I decided to get more seriously into worm farming, I was researching on various models of worm farms that I could use. Not knowing anything, then, about the importance of breahability, depth, surface area etc... what I was after was the look... Then I read a lot of good things about the Worm Inn and found the Red Worm Composting blog and The Worm Dude (the manufacturer) where you could see the product under tests and it was amazing. Jerry "The Worm dude" Gach was throwing all sort of scraps without chopping, like whole pumpkin, never torn or shred...

Starting a Can-O-Worms bin

Posted in A day in a worm farm on Dec 08, 2016

Tonight I needed to start a Can-O-Worms for a customer so I took the opportunity to record the steps with some photographs.

This is a 2-tier model (one leachate collection and two active trays) and I will be preparing one of the two trays which will be the current feeding tray. The second one can be either removed and added later on when the first is full. Or you can leave it below the feeding tray and it will be an intermediate level for the worms to fall in before reaching the leachate tray. Another option is to fill it with moist bedding material, this will create an neutral area for the wo...

Compost tea quality control - part 3: AACT microbiology assay day 2

Posted in A day in a worm farm, Microscopy in worm farming on Dec 07, 2016

Yesterday was a very long day for me. The travel home from work took me an extra 15 minutes on top of my usual 1h50 and had to go shopping first. So I got home at around 7:40pm and had dinner before stopping the compost tea brewer and take a sample for checking it under the microscope.

Keeping in mind that I still need to apply the tea to my garden, I tried not to take too much time looking at microbes.

Nothing spectacular, I just noticed more visible mobile microorganisms even at 80x where I usually see nothing. There was a large amount of both flagellate and ciliate Protozoa and lots of bac...

Compost tea quality control - part 2: AACT Microbiology Assay day 1

Posted in A day in a worm farm, Microscopy in worm farming on Dec 06, 2016

AACT microbiology assay #1 I realise my agenda is pretty busy for me to do proper assay of my AACT and record and update the blog while learning how to do the assay properly. So just to keep this going I will be making short updates until I'm getting comfortable with the process.

Initial assay

Today at around 6.15am I started a new batch of compost tea. For food, I was using kelp and alfalfa meal in the hope of getting a fungal rich tea. I took two samples, one of the rainwater itself and another one after adding the vermicompost and waiting for about a minute. Being a bit late for work, I did...

The food scraps problem

Posted in A day in a worm farm on Dec 01, 2016

From the various forums and Facebook groups on vermicomposting, I often see the same issues popping again regularly. One of them is related to the amount food scraps.

For the worm farmer who just started with vermicomposting, the issue is he/she has too much food scraps and not enough worms and finds it a shame to through away the resource. So what happens is he/she will start freezing the scraps and not long after will fill the freezer. I too started like this and soon was running out of space for hoarding food scraps for the worms. There is no real solution here but more a state of mind to a...

Compost tea quality control - part 1: microscope test

Posted in A day in a worm farm, Microscopy in worm farming on Nov 29, 2016

After receiving my microscope all the way from India, I mounted it in one of our spare rooms on my formely computer desk. It was quite easy and fast to assemble. Few memory refresh was needed to recognise all the parts and what they were for but it was all good.

I decided to involve Thien-San, my 5 year old boy, by having him check at leaves and then compost tea micro-organisms. Underneath are photos of my boy, a sick leave, a club moss and a springtail:

As I went along I wanted to record more photos and videos but the microscope camera that came with the product did not work on my Mac so ...

Compost tea quality control - Introduction

Posted in A day in a worm farm, Microscopy in worm farming on Nov 29, 2016

Sooner or later an avid worm farmer and gardener will be interested in making a liquid fertiliser off the vermicompost created by the worms. Most beginners will be using the worm tea/wee which is actually the leachate from the worm bin. The leachate contains good stuffs but also potentially bad stuffs due to the presence of non composted material and the possibility of anaerobic condition especially when the liquid has been sitting for days in the collection tray. Anaerobic condition is to be avoided in a garden which is why we try to aerate the soil with worms and stir away from compacted soi...

Expand your vermicompost reach with aerated compost tea

Posted in A day in a worm farm on Nov 18, 2016

There are times when don't have enough worm castings for your next garden project:

• your garden is too large and you don't have enough vermicompost
• you have just split your bins and have to wait till next harvest
• you have used all your vermicompost recently but have a new project that needs some more

One solution would be to use a traditional compost if you have some, go buy some quality vermicompost from the local garden center or make your own compost tea from the little bit of finished vermicompost you have at hands. The latter is what I wanted to explore and this is what I will cover in t...