Just thought I would leave a tip on filling these bags: two 10- foot half inch PVC pipes on the inside of the bag running Kitty corner (holds the bags up and open perfectly). Have a great Day!

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Amazing idea. Thanks worms for life - excited to try it!

I have been doing this without knowing it was a good thing. I built my bed, two months ago, using sifted compost I made last year starting with double mowed leaves, grass clippings, and food scraps. I feed my worms mostly a dry food made from a recipe I saw on the Epic Gardener channel. They love it. I add egg shells and give them frozen, thawed vegetable scraps once or twice a week. So far, so good.

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Funny how we stumble into good things sometimes, Kathy. Thanks for sharing!

@lauriebareham4200

Жыл бұрын

Hi Kathy, could you possibly share that recipe . Thanks

@creative227

Жыл бұрын

@@lauriebareham4200 Worm chow * 2 cups rolled oats * 1 cup yellow cornmeal * 1/2 cup alfalfa meal * 1/8 cup dried and powdered eggshells (bake these first to eliminate the risk of salmonella) * 1/8 cup azomite And I use a couple cups of organic chick starter feed! Ground in the food processor.

@SheilaG971

Жыл бұрын

@@creative227 , thank you for sharing. I make up something very similar and they devour it! And if I put a piece of watermelon rind on top of that I think they would snatch it out of my hand before I could lay it down. 😂😂

@creative227

Жыл бұрын

@@SheilaG971 it interesting how when you pull the cover back you can immediately tell they are very content with their food! Mine seem to really like the worm chow, I also have some crushed shellfish exoskeletons I add that really jazz them!

Awesome . I wish I had as nice a shop as you do to do worms in , but i do my best with what I have . I love castings for house plants and gardens . My wormery and gardens are my happy places .

@NanasWorms

Жыл бұрын

Me too! ~ Sandra

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

That's the way, Dee!

I've raised worms in worm bins for over 20 years now.I smelled the burning coffee and decided to change my operation. I had my neighbor ( which is a carpenter) build a continuous flow compost bin.It took him about 4 hours to build did an outstanding job.The cost was close to $150.oo. The only problem I have now is fruit flies.As soon as the leaves fall this fall I'll chop them up and add them to my new bin.Thank.you for your help.

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Great to hear, David!

You ought to be the spokesman for the brockwood shifter seriously

I am building a flow through bin. Thanks I have learned so much from you!

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Can't wait to see it, Michael!

I like your idea, its worth trying. God Bless you and your family

Thanks Captain Matt!

Great idea 👍

Hey, I'm a 72 year old gardener and Worm 🪱 👩‍🌾🪱farmer, too👍 Great job and be safe in the heat. We are in the mid 90°s all of July and August. 🪱💓🪱💓🪱

Hope this works out great. Sounds like a brilliant idea. Work smarter not harder.

I love this concept!

I think that is a fantastic idea!! Have the worms do their job in the container you ship them in!! Brilliant!! Stay in that worm box while thinking outside of it Capt Matt🤣😂🤣 Keep those awesome ideas coming!!! Excellent video!!🪱🪱🪱

אני מישראל. אני עוקב אחרי הערוץ שלך לומד ממך המון על גידול התולעים אדומות. בזכות הערוץ הזה למדתי להגדיל את אוכלוסיית התולעים שלי ואני מחלק להמון אנשים תולעים ואת יציקות אני מפזר בגינה שלי שניראת מעולה בזכות ההומוס גם הנוזלי וגם הגרגירים אז תודה רבה לך קפן 🤗🤗

@CaptainMattsWorms

10 ай бұрын

So great to hear!

Love the idea keep it going

I do this a lot. It is also the easiest way to keep an active and productive Canadian night crawler bin. Works great for the ENC also.

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Hey Jacob... great to hear - are your bins for bait or for castings also?

@Jaqob76

Жыл бұрын

@@CaptainMattsWorms The Canadian night crawler bin is intended for fishing though I haven't gotten out too much this year. Just recently transferred my european night crawler bin into a new urban worm bag. I pretty much loaded it up with garden scraps and cardboard. (Didn't really do it intentionally this time.) They seem to be living the life so far. They would do great for trout fishing, but mainly get used for the castings.

Great idea Captain, you say it'll save you work but I'm sure you'll find other stuff to keep you busy. I also love the fact that you get your hands dirty. I had to wear gloves all the time at work and it's great, especially when working with soil and compost, to get a little dirt under my nails and actually feel the soil.

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Hey William! My kids keep telling me to wear gloves (and I do sometimes) but there is something about dirt under the fingernails that connects me to the soil.

@funnysods

Жыл бұрын

@@CaptainMattsWorms Me too.

Great video! One day we will make a good setup for screening like you have. It gets tiring using a little handheld one for our bin

@SheilaG971

Жыл бұрын

Yes it does get tiring. 🙈 I love the sifter he uses. Maybe if we incorporate the one ton system successfully, we’ll need to invest in a pro sifter!

Interesting idea. Good luck!

love your videos!! I hope that works!! I'm just below you near Hudson. I have been vermicomposting for about 3 years. 3 totes and a new Urban worm bag. :) I have learned a lot from you and Steve Churchill! And I might have another friend interested in starting a bin!!!

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Hey Neighbor! So cool to hear. That's how it spreads best... friend to friend!

I did this about 20 years ago when I had a large rabbitry, and had problems with pests, and moisture control under the cage rows. It really did work well. The one thing I had to do was to wrap bubble wrap around them to keep the temps consistant. I happened to get the super sacks free from a warehouse that did tapioca imports. I had around 5 or 6 that I had to leave on pallets outside because of room, and a couple had armadillos tear into them, but that could of been remedied quick enough. I had no time though, due to having to butcher so many rabbits on the weekend. Never pre sifted however. just alternated mats of kudzu to keep compaction down. I like your spirit Matt.

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Hey Christopher... thanks for sharing your story.

That's great

You know it's going to work

This will be a very interesting experiment. I use large cement mixing tubs (32”x20”x7.5” deep inside dim). I don’t cover even w plastic, but do use an LED shop light to keep worms in. It seems to work well. Been worm farming only 3 months & started with 2 lbs red wigglers … so a newbie. Like your vids. Very helpful. I started sifting my bedding inputs (like your experiment) after a recent complete harvest of 20 gals of castings. In a short period of time, I’ve notice greater compaction when I “fluff” the tubs to even out moisture n add oxygen. Obviously, I am not using a flow through system like your large red boxes. It would be interesting to know the following when you complete your experiment: A) Is the microbial activity the same at the bottom of the tote sample as the top sample given compaction n less oxygen n being older at the bottom? B) Total weight of tote at full level given that the castings aren’t sifted n have less air as compared to a sifted full tote.

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Good questions, Doug. Sounds like experiments waiting to happen. Great to hear about your progress. Your inquisitiveness and keen observation is the key.

Hey Matt, I did something similar to this that worked great. I live in Maine and wanted to know if euros would make it through the winter outside in a chest freezer. In oct or nov I filled the large freezer with bedding. In the middle i added a good pile of veg. scraps for heat and added no more than 500 euros. March April I opened it up when the weather started warming. After a few days of thawing I was able to loosen all the bedding and to my surprise I had live worms. I have no idea how many survived but I haven't bothered harvesting any castings yet even though it has lots. Turns out this thing is a breeding machine and I Haven't been able to bring myself to bother them too much. I leave the door open 24/7. I installed a solar light that stays on at night and I cover the bedding with heavy black plastic. The morning sun hits the plastic for a few hours and the worms love it. I'm just waiting for them to tell me when they are finished before I harvest the castings. This thing way outperforms my smaller bins in my shop. P.s. I have not given them any other food since day 1. I think your 1 ton sack idea will work great if it hasn't already. I'll let you know how this works out when they are done. I'd be curious how filling up a 1 ton sack with bedding first would work. Good luck, Bill

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Thanks for sharing, Bill. Worms never cease to amaze me.

would love a link to the one ton bags! thanks - always inspiring!

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Hey C... link is now in the video description!

What are you adding for worms to the bags

I just took some of my worm tea to my local farmers market. I managed to sell one bottle. Not a big start but a start none the less

@crystalsmith5330

Жыл бұрын

Well done. Better than nothing. Don't forget to advertise on your local gardening and BSS pages

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

You took the step, though Shi-Thead! Castings have sold better than tea for me at farmers' market... and very good in the spring planting season - not so well later in the year.

@shi-thead5958

Жыл бұрын

@@CaptainMattsWorms I've figured that out, I'm trying to advertise to some dispensaries since they grow indoors, same thing to their customers if your in a medical or rec state.

What do you get for a ton of castings? Great video!

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Hey Michael... I prefer to sell retail at $20 for 10 lbs. Bulk castings can sell for $700-$800 for a ton.

Awesome idea! Just wondering, will the bedding not dry out a lot quicker in a bag like that? Do you just water it more often?

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Hey Ryno… likely yes - I’ll be monitoring moisture and adapting.

Can anyone tell me where I can get the 3/32 screen for my sifter please thank you

The large bags you are using fit nicely in an IBC frame. Makes them easy to fill, helps the bag hold its shape, can easily be lifted/moved with a tractor or pallet jack, and come out of the frame easily when you need to empty them IBCs are not hard to source and inexpensive to purchase or if you know a farmer that purchases liquid feed supplements or the like( just know what was in them so you can decide if they will come clean enough for your use. Food stuffs are generally best but some fertilizers or solvents can be rinsed away and make the tote safe to reuse) they may be free for the taking. Cut the top off and maybe use it for compost or stored dry bed material?

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

That sounds like an experiment waiting to happen!

Just on my way out to go do the same. Well sort of, it is for buckets. For me it is not reverse but normal operating procedure (the screening first). Got to go get the first steps done. Which is to go and sift through a 1/8" screen then what does not go through the screen goes through a shredder/pulverizer and then that gets sifted through the 1/8" screen again. Then it is time to mix in the lime and D.E. and then add the worm chow and mix again then add in the worm casting tea (with BTI) and then mix again. then the prepared bedding can sit until Friday when it is going to be needed. Have a wonderful Day!

Captain Matt, have you tried a barrel-shaped sifter? There's a good video on KZread of one made with a Harbor Freight concrete mixer as a motor/rotater. Imagine hardware cloth of various hole sizes formed into cylinders which are attached to each other (Each barrel of screen is a successively larger hole size) and then attached to the concrete mixer. It's a LOT quieter than vibrating sifters, doesn't require you to squeegee the castings over the screen as vibrating sifters do, handles a lot more volume than a vibrating sifter, and reduces your manual labor to just filling the cylinder as it turns.

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Hey Michael… I haven’t, but would like to explore DIY sifting further sometime. For ramping up the volume of my business, the Brockwood Shifter really fit my needs and was already a proven solution in production worm farms.

Looks like it’ll be a success. Just saying this because I care, but you should be wearing ear protection when you and your family are sifting. If you have to yell over it to be heard, it’s damaging your hearing. Stay safe.

To me this seems like a large ready to sell bucket system. I love the idea and I'm curious how the castings will be at the bottom vs the top if they might get a bit muddy in parts. Either way I think this is a great experiment and I hope it works out. Also you are right worms love carrots I did a time lapse of them chowing down left over carrot from my juicer! kzread.info/dash/bejne/dqCWs5p_dKiymZM.html

I just started a bin bout 2 months ago, when shld I collect the castings cap??

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Hey There... you could likely harvest at three months.

I have a question for the Captain, so you take worms out prior to selling, by the lure method? I see these retain for about $600, correct?

Do you think excessive leachate will be an issue?

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Hi Nicole... likely not as the bags are porous.

Keep big chunky woodchips out of your input stream & you will cut down the decomp & sifting time enormously (inc. bending, shoveling, heaving...etc.) That being said, I use finely sifted worm bed material with less than 1/4 diameter inch wood chips to innoculate new worm beds. Then I add cold leaf mold material going forward to boost fungal population. I never put any woody/scrubby material in a worm bed that won't fall through a 1/4 in screen...and that material only makes up small amount of the total. Start with a superior Worm bedding mix up front to save grief on the back end.

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Makes sense. Thanks for the validation!

What's the lowest temperature in worms can handle

@juliandarch9278

Жыл бұрын

As far as i know they can handle near freezing but will go on strike once its below 40

Why not make the castings in the bags you sell them in ?

Did you say The screen sizes are 3/16 and 1/8

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

I might have been miss spoken. 3/32 and1/8

Are you still using this method? If not, why not? I watched your more recent videos with the wedge system so I'm wondering if you stopped using the 3x3x3 bags. As cheap and easy as it seems to be, I'm hoping this will be a good solution especially for someone like me who is on disability so every penny counts. As many different ways, you've raised them, it would be good to see a video that compares the pros and cons of each different system

@CaptainMattsWorms

8 ай бұрын

That’s a great video idea. Bags worked great - just adapting to the ground level wedge trying for less lifting.

@jmajick4415

8 ай бұрын

@@CaptainMattsWorms Thanks for that. It also seems better to do the wedge because you're able to get to your castings as soon as they're made. Sure do appreciate all that you've shared!

I'm just thinking about the cocoons?

Ever think of using an aquarium so we can see the worms below the surface?

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Sounds like a great experiment... I'll be looking for an aquarium at yard sales!

Interesting idea. No sifting, nothing but getting your worms back. Sell the bag. Easy

Its a shame you cant stack a empty pallet bag ready to go on top and let the worms move up to the next job.

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Love the innovative ideas, Julian. We have to take ideas to the extreme to find out where the edges are!

Can we really get 1 tons of worm casting if doing thay way? From what I read, if we feed 1kg of food to 1kg of worm, we maybe will get 600gm of casting since the worm will absorb the rest as nutrient in their body. So maybe take time to get 1 tons.

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Hey Ahmad... yes - more food will need to go in bags than just the bedding.

Thank you so much for all of your great IDEAS. As I watched your sifting of the compost , you were sifting on the ¼" screens and saying that you will be selling it as a finished product. I was under the impression that you always sifted your final product on the ⅛" screens?? Take care you're greatly appreciated.

@CaptainMattsWorms

Жыл бұрын

Hey Ron… we’ll have to see how fine the final product is. My hope is that it will get finer through the vermicomposting process.

@roncote1147

Жыл бұрын

@@CaptainMattsWorms Thanks for the reply, I hope that it does turn out finer as it makes sense that it will have been processed through the worms. "Tinkering makes us Wiser" Keep up with all your GREAT IDEAS. I've started some cocoon production with your new suggestions, thank you so much again for your shared PASSION & hi to your family.