Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Anyone wanna send me some

If not anyone wanna tell me where i can buy them in Syd?

Google "Worms Sydney" and there's about a dozen places that pop up.

Just saw you can get it from the big B, might pop down and get some

Better stop at the bank on your way to the big 'B' store, someone posted here (or may have been over on the PAP forum) a few weeks back, I think from memory they quoted $55 for 500 in their post.

If you've got a local classified ad paper (like the Quokka here in WA) people sell them in there. I got 1000 in a 9Ltr bucket half full of castings for just under $20, from memory I paid $18... $35+ dollars that's better off in your pocket!

Help out the school kids rather than the big 'B' store:

http://sydney.gumtree.com.au/c-Stuff-for-Sale-other-stuff-for-sale-Compost-Worms-1000-worms-250g-W0QQAdIdZ288298681

Its a bit of a drive from me but might be worth it

They could probably post them to you, in a HD plastic bag in a small, sturdy box, you'd probably have them the next day... also less carbon miles etc.

Hey guys, say i get a bucket, i chuck the worms in, i chuck in the vegetables in, how do i harvest the worm cast / compost without digging it out and getting all the worms with it?

hey zman

you dont...but they lay heaps of eggs to replace the ones lost... worms will keep multipling while there is plenty of food.. and the eggs dont seem to hatch while food is low..

the worms you dig out will start breeding up in your garden. so it is a double win.. but you can take the lid off and let the sun light on the soil an hour or so before digging the vermipost up..and dont dig it all out..the eggs are laid in the deeper soil..the suns uv rays will encourage the worms to go deeper into the soil..

alhough as composting worms are usually imported..i have alwys feared they will become a pest....but a pest that does good!!

i treat my worm farm with complete contempt... feed it about 1 a month or so.. water as needed..well whenever i think about...usually when i feed them...and although when i have left them for ages..they still breed up to devour the food.

I want to find a way so i can collect all the good stuff without removing the worms.

I know i can get the worm juice but i want to see how say worm breeders separate the castings. Also with the worm farms that you get they are always "stacked" on top of each other. If you were to get the bottom stack you will need to remove the top and such.

I want a system which is kind of self harvesting if that is possible,

Worms run away from light, so if you place the good stuff and worms in a pile, then let the worms run away from light to a pile of new fresh food/newspaper for their new home, you will be left with the good stuff.

And the worms will be happy with their new home.

Hope this helps, I read that book: Worms Eat My Garbage (available on amazon for cheap.) I would send it to you, but I lost it at the moment...?

later,

jeff c

Yep, multi tiered worm farms work this way, you get to harvest out a tray full of worm castings after the worms migrate up to the newer layer following the food source..

Fairly straight forward the way it works swapping them around, we do it with just 2 tiers and the bottom juice collector. So, as the worms eat through a tray of food and it's building up with worm castings, running out of space to put new fresh feed in there for them and stick the lid back on. You take the second tray, put it on top, put fresh food into there. The worms come from the tray underneath which is now pretty much all castings and work their way up into the top tray following the fresh feed.

Keep adding more and more feed into the top tray, as this fills up fully with worm castings as well and becomes hard to fit more new feed in, remove the bottom tray full of castings, empty out castings for use, then fill with fresh worm feed and stick on top of the other tray, worms make their way into the top one following the feed..

Repeat

Repeat

Repeat..

You will generally have a few eggs and maybe a couple of stragglers in with the castings, but thats cool, most of the worms travel up fairly quickly following the feed source....

edit, like Jeff says, you can do a similar thing just in a pile, making the worms go sideways to a new food source.

Thanks guys. What do you guys use for the bedding? Most people seem to use paper as the bedding. Say when the first bin is full they climb up to the second bin. But wont they get stopped by the bedding of the bin above them?

Don't use bedding once it gets going, you just whack the tray on top and add scraps to it...

OK, so basically you have the following.

1. Bottom bin/lid/worm juice catcher.
2. Tray with holes on the bottom for the worm juice to drain then a bed layer so the solids dont drop down then all the food for the worms.
3. have next tray with holes on the bottom for drainage but no bed so stuff straight into the tray?

EB how do you know when the tray has been all turned into compost?