Organic Garden Fertilizer ” How to Worm Compost
Organic is widely becoming the most desirable way to garden and eat food. Using an organic fertilizer relieves the stress of worrying about chemicals contaminating your vegetables and fruits. One organic fertilizer is worm excretion or Vermiculture. Using worm compost will bring you a hardy, healthy crop. Here are the simple steps needed to create your own worm compost.
Purchase a Container
The most recommended material for a worm compost container is wood as it absorbs moisture and insulates the worms. However, there are some who prefer a rectangular plastic container, although these tend to make the compost soggy. The optimum size for your container is eight to twelve inches deep.
Aerate the bottom
After choosing your container, you must now drill holes for release of excess moisture as well as for allowing air flow. Each hole should be at least two inches apart from the last and spread across the entire bottom. Once this is completed, place the container on some bricks to keep it off the ground. This step allows for the air to flow around and through the container. Another bonus to this step is that a tray can be placed underneath the container to catch any excess fluid which can then be used as liquid fertilizer. If you notice your compost seems excessively wet, simply add more holes to the bottom.
Line Bottom with Shredded Newspaper
Shred newspaper into one inch wide strips. Dampen the paper strips with water in a spray bottle until damp. Add about a cup of sand for the worms digestive tract.
Collect Kitchen Scraps
Just as you would save leftovers for your home composting, you will need to save your kitchen scraps for your worm compost. This should be started at least one week prior to purchasing your worms. The best foods are egg shells, used tea bags, coffee grounds and raw fruit and vegetable leftovers. The foods you want to avoid are meat, bones, cheese, milk or mayonnaise and salad dressings.
Buy Worms
The best worms for compost are red worms or red wigglers as they thrive off of organic materials such as rotting vegetables. The standard amount of worms you will need is about two pounds for each day of food waste. This works out to be approximately two thousand worms.
Cover the Container
Worms like it dark and moist, so cover with a wooden board when outside. This will also keep away predators. Inside, heavy plastic will do.
Collect Worm Excretions
It takes about 4 to 6 weeks to notice the bedding is darker and in 2 to 3 months there will be little left to the original bedding. To collect all of the castings or compost at once, empty the bin on a tarp or old shower curtain into piles. Shine a light so the worms go to the bottom. Scoop the castings off the top until only worms are left. Start your bins over with some of the castings in your new bedding.
Compost Kitchen Scraps
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Duration : 0:3:19
Liquid Fish Emulsion Fertilizers: Effective, Organic, and Sustainable
Organic growers are more careful about what and where their liquid organic fertilizers come from. Hence, this article discusses how liquid fish emulsions are made. First of, they are mostly made from the Menhaden fish which is not considered a human food source. However this fish is used for making oil and animal feeds. The waste from the production of this fish into oil or animal feed is the ingredient used for making liquid fish fertilizers.
The first step is to cook the fish and to squeeze its juice and oils by pressing. The oil is removed while the leftover solids can be ground and baked into protein meals and fed to animals. The juice of the fish is brought to a boil until it becomes more concentrated and results in a fish emulsion.
A small amount of phosphoric acid is added to the fish emulsion to lower the pH. Lowering the pH makes the liquid fertilizer more acidic, which prevents it from decaying and fermenting into gas. Before phosphoric acid was added in the manufacturing process, containers of fish emulsion were known to burst from fermentation. Because the amount of added phosphoric acid is so small (less than one percent by weight), the product is still considered organic.
Standard composition of organic fish emulsion fertilizers is about 5% Nitrogen, 2% Phosphorous, and 2% Potassium. It also contains micronutrients that are vital for promoting plant growth.
Depending on their proximity to the sea or fish waste sources, many organic growers are daring enough to make their own fish fertilizer emulsions to cut down costs.
Many organic fertilizers are slow acting. Not fish emulsion. The nutrients in fish emulsion are released almost immediately. That’s why it is particularly good for seedlings and transplants–it gives them a jumpstart. Gardeners either water the diluted liquid fertilizer into the soil or spray their plants for a foliar feed.
As with the use of all fertilizers, application instructions should be followed strictly. Remember to dilute it in the recommended percentage to prevent damaging seeds and young plants. Only mix the amount you are going to use that day because after it has been mixed with water its potency will be lost when stored. And keep the mixture away from heat to prevent deterioration. Since its made from fish, brace yourself for the pungent odor but this will disappear in a few days.
Production of liquid fish emulsions fertilizers is environmentally sound from start to finish. Only fish parts that are unused or are considered as waste by fish and feed processing companies are used. Thus, the use of fish emulsions organic fertilizers thus decrease toxins in our food and helps make zero waste possible.
Worm Bin
So I have had these bins now for over a year, it seemed like a good time to check in and see about harvesting the compost out of them.
I feed the worms about once a month, but you can probably do do it more often than that depending on how many you have, they will eat the waste in direct proportion to how densely population they are.
The compost is deemed black gold by garden enthusiasts and is rich mixture of worm castings and organic matter that I don’t even consider using as application for individual plants. I prefer to use the vermicompost for actively aerated compost tea which is a process I will cover once I’ve finished harvesting the compost. The worm compost is ideal for this process because it is rich in microbial life that nourishes the plants and provides them with the symbiotic relationship necessary to imilate nutrients from the soil and in turn, nourishing whomever consumes the plant.
Today, I took the contents from one bin and put them into the other, having emptied it and refilled the empty bin with bedding and new food scraps. This will attract the worms from the lower bin filled with the compost into the upper bin since they are hungry and I will be able to use the compost without worrying about the little wormies..
It is a good experiment for little kids, and is a fun and interesting way to get rid of your kitchen waste. At least for someone like me, I’m sure people can think of better hobbies.
Duration : 0:6:3
How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : How to Plant with Compost
Using compost in your garden can make your flowers and plants thrive! Get tips on planting with compost and mixing compost with soil in your garden in this free organic composting video.
Expert: Gale Gassiot
Bio: Gale Gassiot makes her own organic compost or “gardener’s black gold.”
Duration : 0:0:59
How to Make a Worm Compost Bin – Cheap and Easy
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Obtain a worm bin.
* These can be purchased from many online vendors or your local gardening or farm supply store.
* You can build your own. Use rubber storage totes, galvanized tubs, wood, or plastic.
Material: Rubber is cheap, easy to use and durable. Galvanized tubs are somewhat costly but will last forever. Wood will eventually be eaten, and plastic cracks easily, but either will do in a pinch.
Drilling holes to ventilate a rubber tub.
Ventilation: Your bin should be well-ventilated, with several 1/8 inch (3mm) holes 4 inches (100mm) from the bottom (otherwise the worms will stay at the bottom of the bin and you may drown your worms). For example, you can build a worm bin out of a large plastic tub with several dozen small holes drilled out on the bottom and sides.
o Size: The larger you make the container, the more worms it can sustain. Estimate 1 pound (0.45kg) of worms (1,200) for every square foot of surface area. The maximum productive depth for your bin is 24 inches (61cm) deep because composting worms will not go further down than that.
o Cover: The bin should have a cover to prevent light from getting in and to prevent the compost from drying out. Choose or make a lid that can be removed if your compost is too wet. Use a canvas tarp, doubled over and bungee-corded on, or kept in place with wood. Burlap sacks also work well, and can be watered directly.
* Use 4 old car tires: To make a four-tire wormery, create a base from old bricks or flagstones (must be flat and with as few cracks as possible). Place a layer of heavy newspaper on top of the bricks. Stuff four old tires with newspapers. Pile the tires on top of each other, with the first tire on the Sunday newspaper. Put some scrunched up paper or cardboard in the bottom to soak up any excess liquid. Fill the tire wormery with organic material (semi-composted is best). Add the composting worms (tiger or brandling species are best). Use a piece of board weighed down with bricks as a lid. The lid must be big enough to stop rain getting in. Harvest a tire’s worth of fertilizer roughly every 8 weeks (during warm months).
Shredded newspaper for worm bedding.
Prepare the box for worms. Fill your bin with thin strips of unbleached corrugated cardboard or shredded newspaper, straw, dry grass, or some similar material. This provides a source of fiber to the worms and keeps the bin well-ventilated. Sprinkle a handful of dirt on top, and thoroughly moisten. Allow the water to soak in for at least a day before adding worms. You can also use Canadian peat moss, which is more expensive but yields a loamier vermicompost.
Worms arrive.
Get worms. There are several varieties of worms that that are bred and sold commercially for vermicomposting; just digging up earthworms from your backyard is not recommended. The Internet or local gardening club is your best bet for finding a worm vendor near you. The worms most often used, Eisenia foetida (Red Wigglers), are about 4 inches long, mainly red along the body with a yellow tail. Another variety to consider are Eisenia hortensis, known as “European Night crawlers.” They do not reproduce quite as fast as the red wigglers, but grow to be larger, eat courser paper and cardboard better, and seem to be heartier. They are also better fishing worms when they do reach full size. However, with any non-native species, it is important not to allow them to reach the wild. Their voracious appetites and reproductive rates (especially among the red wigglers) have been known to upset the delicate balance of the hardwood forests by consuming the leaf litter too quickly. This event leaves too little leaf letter to slowly incubate the hard shelled nuts and leads to excessive erosion as well as negatively affecting the pH of the soil. So, do your best to keep them confined!
Feed your worms fruit and vegetable scraps and refresh the bedding as necessary.
Duration : 0:4:2
Beginners Guide to Composting!
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Duration : 0:1:26
How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : How to Tell when Compost is Ready
How do you know when your organic compost in your compost bin is ready to be used as fertilizer for plants in your garden? Find out in this free
Duration : 0:0:53
How to Compost : Learn Organic Garden Composting Online : How to Add Carbon Matter to Compost
When adding yard or kitchen scraps to your compost pile, make sure it is broken down into small pieces. Learn more about what organic materials you can add
Duration : 0:1:17
worm composting
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Duration : 0:3:18