[Turtle]

Mmmmm...eizer tock, oder eat zie verms. Better yet, have the worms eat your garbage! Even eat your pet poo if done right.
I have no pets, but I have lawn debris which I usually compost & more recently attempted to convert to charcoal in a solar oven. Enter the worms. Having recently moved I needed to establish a new compost setup & in turning it today I noticed quite a healthy worm population. I have seen shows on verminculture & so now I have established a little worm farm for kitchen scraps in a large plastic planter lined with plastic.
Plenty on the web, just search 'vermiculture'. Here's a link to get you started.
http://www.earth911....wormcompost.asp
Anyone else doing this?

By the by, did you know Charles Darwin's last major work considered the lowly worm in great detail?
http://pages.british...ould/mould.html

[Racoon]

but of course, enlightened one.

I haven't actually gone to the trouble of "adding" worms, but rather they appear.

I mix in the compost and worm castings into the vegetable beds every year or so.
I would like to buy a nice pre-made fabricated device, with bottom trays to simply remove the "end product" without having to dig, and move everything.

Sounds like with Vermiculture and Terra Preta, you have the makings of some seriously killer dirt!

nice link by the by.

Racoon,
an equal opportunity carnivore

[UncleAl]

Even Roman Catholicism had its Diet of Worms, 1521. It choked, followed by a fatwah on Martin Luther. Luther survived to skim the profits of locally franchised vulgate religion. The multi-level sales territory rush was on.

[ronthepon]

AAAH! Vermiculture! Green Manure!

This is the most natural and pure way of fixing up good plant chow.

Around here, I've seen this procedure give much more efficiency than any other process!

Truly, earthworms ought to be used on as much a scale as we do silkworms!

PS: Hey Turtle, you make the earthworms seem a little backward.

Turtle said:

the lowly worm

I mean hey! they have hearts for the first time in the evolutionary family tree!

[Turtle]

UncleAl said:

Even Roman Catholicism had its Diet of Worms, 1521. It choked, followed by a fatwah on Martin Luther. Luther survived to skim the profits of locally franchised vulgate religion. The multi-level sales territory rush was on.

I'm in no rush to the Rhine and as a chapman I have little need of a diet. My cousin Johnny favored Swedenborg & Johnny is said to have once thrown away his shoe to punish his foot for having stepped on a worm.

ronthepon said:

Truly, earthworms ought to be used on as much a scale as we do silkworms!

PS: Hey Turtle, you make the earthworms seem a little backward.

Turtle said:

the lowly worm

I mean hey! they have hearts for the first time in the evolutionary family tree!

The term 'lowly' in this context I meant to convey a humble condition which is often overlooked for its value.
Many of the articles say the 'red wiggler' variety of worms eats more & reproduces faster than other species. Fo rnow I am going with standard issue earthworms from my yard & compost piles.

[ronthepon]

Turtle said:

The term 'lowly' in this context I meant to convey a humble condition which is often overlooked for its value.

Oh ofcourse. I was joking.

To what extent can vermiculture be carried out? I mean, where ever we have a decent climate, vermiculture works out.

Question is: Why is it not in as much a use as cows, hens, pigs etc are?

[Turtle]

ronthepon said:

Oh ofcourse. I was joking.

To what extent can vermiculture be carried out? I mean, where ever we have a decent climate, vermiculture works out.

Question is: Why is it not in as much a use as cows, hens, pigs etc are?

Oh...it's OK. I often don't get the jokes.
So the extent I think is up to the person. Some of the links show how to make a setup that even can stay indoors in an apartment. I think in climates with very cold Winter the worms must have protection from freezing.
From this link I gave earlier, it says

earth911.org said:

The rule of thumb for bin size is two square feet of surface area per person, or one square foot of surface area per pound of food waste per week.

http://www.earth911....wormcompost.asp
I do not know of any use of kitchen waste to feed cows or chickens, but pigs yes. Keep in mind in most cities in the US domestic farm animals are not allowed. So far they have not outlawed the worms. ( That is my joke;) )
Are you going to try this at home? Keep us posted.

[ronthepon]

That's a useful link. I might try it out in the remainder of my vacation.
I guess that it should be more efficient in that manner, with the red wrigglers (I don't know where to look for them)

I've just found out that worm compost has been used at quite a good extent around here for a long time. The thing is that climatic conditions do not help the worms a lot. Only recently have we got the resources (almost ∞ water) for keeping the worms alive through the hot summer.

Still, I think that the reason worms are not much used now is that our ancestors never had a chance to figure out the worms worth. Still, we can do that now.

[Turtle]

I made multiple & relatively small compost piles to keep things manageable. Today I completely turned & sorted through a near finished pile & harvested over 150 earthworms which I added to my vermitorium (vermitarium? ). Updates to come as the worms turn.

[anglepose]

He He
We got a compost heap when ever i open it to dump the garbage in the lid packed full of literly hundereds of worms and loads of centipedes and wood lice and if i want more worms i just rake the leaf littter out from under the shed and the are hundreds of them. there like theese dwarf hamster some one i know had they have like 5 babies a month they went on holiday came back and poof! at least 50 dwarf hamsters.

[ronthepon]

anglepose said:

He He
We got a compost heap when ever i open it to dump the garbage in the lid packed full of literly hundereds of worms and loads of centipedes and wood lice and if i want more worms i just rake the leaf littter out from under the shed and the are hundreds of them. there like theese dwarf hamster some one i know had they have like 5 babies a month they went on holiday came back and poof! at least 50 dwarf hamsters.

Loose the centipides and wood lice!

[Turtle]

ronthepon said:

Loose the centipides and wood lice!

I definately agree! Vermiculture is concerned with constructing artifical habitat for worms that excludes the flys, bees, centipedes, etc. while providing ideal earthworm conditions.
Your wormified compost pile means you have starting stock for the vermitorium.

[anglepose]

OK so i have to go out in the rain with fly swat to swat loads of centipedes after i hand pick them out from the worms. Are the maggots i found in the bottom anygood for my heap of goo

[Turtle]

anglepose said:

OK so i have to go out in the rain with fly swat to swat loads of centipedes after i hand pick them out from the worms. Are the maggots i found in the bottom anygood for my heap of goo

No need to swat anything. I get the sense you have in mind using an existing pile, which is fine but not the containerized vermiculture I mean to promote. This link I gave earlier in the thread outlines vermiculture in containers.
http://www.earth911.....ormcompost.asp

Web Search ResultsResults 1 - 10 of about 17,806 for vermiculture

[anglepose]

alas i have crated a worm farm and an experimental worm farm just like it described however it is my firstt day and the farm may not look complete since it is not

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above is a photo of the main worm farm layer 2 bedding (i found by layering the beding with the compost you get a better finish


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above is my experimental worm farm with its cover taken off as you can see there are a few layers to see wich they like best