Subject: Worms
From: "Peter Wibberley" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 15:54:32 +1030
Newsgroups: alt.permaculture

>Mine have been
> successful - albeit at times - starved somewhat (therefore they are
> smallish most of the time) cause the bathtub is full of vermiculture and I keep
> meaning to use a whole heap of it and then top her up again.

Get into it ... I would take about half and leave the rest as bedding ... if
you don't want to take worms with it... keep scooping the top 5 cm's off,
that way the worms will keep burrowing down leaving the top as just castings
(well and some eggs).

when you have taken as much as you need... the worms will be ready for a
good feed, and because there will be more worms per kilo of castings they
will get into the food that much quicker.

> But alas, never got enough time to do more than feed my plants with some.
> I would love to hear about someone else's setup\experiences.....

I only have two (proper) beds now with a third new bed close to one of the
main beds, this new bed is just a pile of manure which is kept wetter than
the old main bed, this encourages the worms to migrate across to the
newer,wetter area.

I have scaled down my beds to make them more manageable, and have only
harvested from one (the first) bed for the last 6 or 7 times, the second bed
(the one the worms are moving out of)  now has pumpkins and cucumbers
growing along the top, this means I can use the castings without having to
move em, plus I can water veggies and worms at the same time.
(time will tell if this actually works or not)

The 2 main beds are about 15 metres long and about 1.5 metres across and
about 50 cm's high in the centre (just windrows on the ground covered with
carpet underfelt) .... thats a lot of castings to move, so The grand plan is
not to :-) just to keep making new beds alongside and using the old beds.
I do use trays of castings to start seedlings off ..... I wouldn't say it
promotes faster germination than any other soil types I've used, but the
seedlings (once up) seem to be very healthy and grow quickly, which is the
aim in veggie growing (quicker and sweeter).

see ya
Pete