Vermicompost- Worm Farm

[Jimboo]

@@Jimboo I'll report back mate, I'm currently trying a layer of used coffee grounds on top....the battle continues

i thought you were ready to use the castings mate,and wanted to get rid of before you added to your compost.But its your bin you need to de-gnat? I saw all the usual stuff on youtube to de-gnat a bin ,sticky traps along the lid,vacuum cleaner vinegar traps,

Edited May 22, 2016 by Jimboo

[Fragg]

@@Jimboo yeah the bin is the main source I think but also have them in houseplants too. Use/d all of the above and also hypoaspis miles, I'm controlling them but would like to eradicate if I can

[Biglee]

Hi there just started my wormery and was hoping someone would know the best amendments to feed my worms all help will be appreciated

Thanks in advance

Biglee

[Teeth]

Superb thread - thanks to all who've contributed.

Just wondering - I set up my wormery about a year ago and have been gently building up the worm population and only really used the vermicompost on a Japanese maple as I was still unsure how what I fed the worms would affect the make up of the compost. Feeling braver now so thinking about mixing about 20-30% in with plant magic compost (i've found PM pretty much without any nutes as am feeding within a week of repotting and been having what I think is pH problems too which I can't say for sure but think its the compost) anyway - over the year whenever I've suspected the immature compost in the wormery is getting a bit too moist I've been trying to amend with calcified seaweed - just a sprinkle or two over the top of the layers (think about an epilectic putting sugar on their cornflakes whilst having a seizure) anyway I'm wondering if this calcified seaweed is good to enough to think of as replacing dolomite/lime? If so does it also contain magnesium?

The box has melted since my shed's roof is like a teabag so all the packaging was disposed of and the remainder of the seaweed was put in tupperware so have no idea what brand or its make up is.

Been pondering trying Biobizz All Mix/Plagron Batmix for the next lot of ladies but then I keep reading that the canna specific brands are a bit of smoke and mirrors. The first batch I made my own with farmyard manure (approx 15% ish, multi purpose (the bulk), a mixture of perlite and vermculite (about 15% ish) but I didn't add any fish blood and bone or vermicompost or amendments really but ran into what I thought was calcium deficiencies (soft water).

So my long winded post is - will adding the vermicompost add the calcium magnesium I've been lacking?

Hopefully this makes sense!

Edited November 23, 2016 by Teeth

[Magic M]

Hi @@icki I'm glad more growers have an interest to grow the natural way.

I've been using bottled organic feeds and shop bought soil for years but it never really gave me the flexibility I wanted.

I learned about living soil and how plants feed from an Adam Dunn Show podcast (also on YouTube) with Jeremy Silva from Buildasoil. He explained the work they'd done with Clackamas Coot in the organic section of IC Mag about self sufficient soil and real organcics and it all seemed to make perfect sense. He explained the basic nutrients and how you can get them from organic natural sources and how actually it's better in every way once you build the right soil mix.

Have a look on the buildasoil.com website, Jeremy share all of his ingredients, ratios and research - fantastic guy.

I've been eating organically for a while now and will never look back so I want to grow my Cannabis the same way. With a healthy living soil food web your plants have every micro and macro nutrient available to them all the time so they are always at peak health, fully nourished, bug free and happy as possible, which means insane vigour, quality and yield.

I'm only going into my first full notill set up on the next run, 4x 15gal pots under each 600. I will put 4/9 clones in each fabpot and flower immediately so can still run my sog style with my sats.

The bigger the volume of soil the better, I wil have three times the volume I currently use. Beds would be ideal but would be impossible to move far.

RR

cootz is my organic HERO !!! there is also alot of great info from him on the ' no till gardening' thread on grasscity. that info has changed everything about the way i grow & i will never go back to bottled nutes

[Fragg]

@@Teeth the short answer is yes seaweed will contain Mg but not a lot and for Ca what I do is feed my worms crushed eggshells which they love, into the bin and also as a topping whilst growing as it encourages them to the surface for a munch and that way I'm washing their goodness through the soil when I water.....that's my theory anyway

HTH

[Jimboo]

@@Teeth the short answer is yes seaweed will contain Mg but not a lot and for Ca what I do is feed my worms crushed eggshells which they love, into the bin and also as a topping whilst growing as it encourages them to the surface for a munch and that way I'm washing their goodness through the soil when I water.....that's my theory anyway

HTH

@@Fragg iS all calcified seaweed equal mate? I have an Analysis of a brand Falmouth calcified seaweed that says its .....Calcium 42%. Magnesium 4.2% also It would depend on what amount of vermicompost he added the seaweed too ie he says a sprinkle but a sprinkle per 200lts isn't a lot ,Maybe he would be better adding a sprinkle to the final pots,@@Dodgee is the bloke to ask about calcified seaweed he uses it

@Fragg sorry mate I just saw you were talkng about seaweed not calcified seaweed

eta

http://www.railwaysleeper.com/KFseaweed.htm

Analysis

Falmouth calcified seaweed contains ALL the essential elements that are not applied with compound fertiliser. The Public Analysts report on the 15th July 1998 shows that the sample of calcified seaweed contains:

Calcium 42%. . Magnesium 4.2% . . Zinc154mgs / Kg . . Copper 9.6mgs / Kg . . Sulpher 0.22% . . Iron 31mgs / Kg . .

Manganese 121mgs / Kg. . Cobalt 1.5mgs / Kg Boron 2.5mgs / Kg . . Cadmium 1.9mgs / Kg Chromium 0.1mgs / Kg . .

Lead 14mgs / Kg. . Nickel 2.2mgs Kg

All of which are trace elements and minerals which suplement the soil, and help biological action to condition and enrich the soil, which in turn releases trace elements and minerals to nourish produce, cereals, corn, fruit and flowers, lawns and pastures.

Edited January 2, 2017 by Jimboo

[Teeth]

Thanks for the repies @@Fragg and @@Jimboo,

I've been adding crushed egg shells too as part of the their normal diet, I'd seen Dodgee's comments previously about what excellent stuff it is which reassured me I'm going in the right direction , I'll try and find it and read it again.

Just had a look on the auction site and from the look of the packaging think it was Vitax. Not sure what the capacity of the wormery is, it's a stacking three tray number and guess the trays hold about 10 L each. I suppose the only way to find out is try it and see and have equilibrium on standy by.

I need coffee intravenously please

[Jimboo]

@@Teeth mate Im not growing as much now as I used to so not bothering so much with my worms but ,I used to give mine loads of nettles and feed my plants nettle teas,Look at the breakdown Analysis of the calcium in a nettle

and im sure its going to be more readily available than eggshell ,I just collected nettles from the wild nuked them in the microwave for a min to kill creepies and my worms loved them

Common Nettle

Plant

Urtica dioica, often called common nettle or stinging nettle, is a herbaceous perennial flowering plant in the family Urticaceae. It is native to Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and western North America, and introduced elsewhere. Wikipedia

Nutrition Facts

Stinging nettles, cooked

Amount Per 100 grams

Calories 42

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 0.1 g 0%

Sodium 4 mg 0%

Potassium 334 mg 9%

Total Carbohydrate 7 g 2%

Dietary fiber 7 g 28%

Sugar 0.3 g

Protein 2.7 g 5%

Vitamin A 40% Calcium 48%

Iron 8% Vitamin B-6 5%

Magnesium 14%

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=nettles+calcium

Edited January 2, 2017 by Jimboo

[Teeth]

Thanks again @@Jimboo,

I'd heard in a regular gardening context that nettles are a bit of a misunderstood plant, that aromatic culinary herbs really benefit from having a patch of nettles near them but this is an eye opener. Got a neighbour who's French and his garden is completely different from most of the others around here in that its a hectic beautiful chaos of what looks like plants dumped everywhere, there's more than few nettles too. He's getting on so always appreciative of a bit of manual labour so think that'll be the next port of call when things start growing again.

I reckon the bag of soil supreme I had must have been sitting about for an age, as they were getting sold on the cheap, the structure is lovely but expected a wee bit more nutrients especially going on what everyone else seems to be getting out of it before starting nutes. All the trim from the gals is shredded and put in the bin too so I suppose there must be the goodness from that too.

I hope you're only cutting back on your growing cause of your own choice and not enforced health reasons mate.

Anyway love this advice - got to love anything that's got so much benefit and more importantly FREE

Take care

[Fragg]

@@Teeth agree 100% with @@Jimboo nettles are my fav natural food source for my plants especially in spring when they are babies as they are full of growth hormones at this stage so I go around just taking the tips off all the nettles around the parish They are great in ACTs too once blended and left for a couple of days to brew alongside EWC, always fantastic results from these. The other point to make is that the nettle and cannabis plant are v similar so everything that is in the nettle can be used for the cannabis plant . The other plant I actually cultivate is comfrey(Bocking 14), more for the flowering stage and its P and K though

HTH

[Jimboo]

@@Fragg mate did you ever try nettle root tea,ie pull the rootball including soil nip of just about ground level add the rootball + soil and just brew it the way you would a compost tea,I got some really good results with it.But I stopped using it for fear of bringing creepies into my growroom

[Fragg]

@@Jimboo I did mate a couple of years ago and did introduce disease but I got them from a bit of a shit place and told myself that was the reason so havent had the balls to try again

[Jimboo]

@@Jimboo I did mate a couple of years ago and did introduce disease but I got them from a bit of a shit place and told myself that was the reason so havent had the balls to try again

Nah mate not worth the risk Ive been very lucky with pests over the years.But when i read the trouble other people on here have with them I decided not to take any more chances,Thats why i even nuke my comfrey and nettles before making teas,No point nuking the roots and killing the microherd defeats the purpose of it,

Edited January 2, 2017 by Jimboo

[Fragg]

@@Jimboo yep my thoughts exactly Speaking of pests my battle with sciarids seems to have finally been won plus I did say I'd report back on how I got on with my various attempts at eradication so here goes...

1. Mosquito dunks (bacteria thuringiensis) - worked to some degree especially when I bubbled some up with molasses to increase the population but didnt wipe them out totally so gave up.
2. Hypoaspis miles (predatory mites) - put them in my pots and in my worm bin and around all the house plants - didnt work that I noticed and problems continued so gave up given the price of the wee buggers
3. Diatomaceous earth - Works very well as a barrier and a very good way of stopping them reinfecting the medium. The only problem I found is that it turns into a cake when you water, I did consider watering from the bottom but its not ideal for cannabis imho. This did however lead me to my final free solution......
4. River Sand - I live next to a river and when its low I simply grab a bucket full and then bake it to sterilise and then apply on surface to a depth of 2/3 cm and that acts as an effective barrier to the fuckers and I can water easily through it - problem finally solved

One final point - Sticky Traps these are only useful to see how many flies are about and how effective any treatment you give may be, they are NOT going to help stop them and shouldnt be used as such. If your traps are picking up sciarids then something else will be required to stop them! Its not the adults you really need to worry about but the 200 larvae each they lay that eat the roots and then secrete something that stops further root development, basically screwing your plant

Anyway thought I'd stick this up as I had promised ages ago to report back on it all but ummm I forgot Hope some peeps find it useful

Happy pest free growing all