by Neal Nesbitt
Worm Farm
5:39 pm in Getting Started, How-Tos, made from scratch (without a kit), Nutrients, Nutrition, Other Cool Urban Ag. Stuff, posts with pitcures!, Projects in Process, R&D-I-Y by Neal Nesbitt
So I’m chopping dovetails for the frame to my worm farm. Made of 6ft 1x4s chopped down into 12 and 18 inch sections. Dovetails are 1/2 in with an 1/8 th in deviation.
Going to have four layers once it’s said and done. Yes, I know my dovetails suck, I’m doing everything freehand and I’m a bit rusty. I’m also using a chair sitting at an angle as a sawhorse for now =| Have a 6ft Live Oak log I’m going to turn into a sturdy one once it dries out. (Maybe a week left now)
Need to get some more wood for a lid, and something for collecting excess water from the bottom. A watertight container with a spigot the layers can sit on should do, maybe a filter to prevent clogs. I’m going to probably just end up making those from wood too and seal the gaps with wax to waterproof it.
Going to tack nails along the bottom edge of the frames to support 2 crisscrossed layers of 1/2in screen. Bought at local hardware store, kind you use to keep birds out of your tomatoes. When it’s double layered it should hold back the dirt but have holes large enough for the worms to crawl through.
More pics to come =)
Here’s the rest of the process: Completed Worm Farm
If it were me I would have glued and screwed it, so the fact your attempting a dovetail is +1 for you.
Is this going to be a worm tea + windowfarm kind of setup?
Hopefully this turns into a worm tea setup. Grocery bag full of paper scraps; hope that will be enough bedding for a layer to start. I want to understand the process a bit better and have some nutrients from it stocked up before I start the window farm going though. I’ve got a little over a dozen cleaned 1 3/4 L orange juice bottles to prep and an aquarium motor I’m going to use for the farm itself.
Need to get some tubing and valves, and I think I’ll use fishing wire with grommets for the structural part. Not sure what to use for the filler though. Pete moss? Gravel? I have a whole bunch of vermiculite that’s normally used to aerate the soil in gardens. I think might make a good, neutral medium for the plants to grow in; not sure.
Hi!
A wormfarm -> Wormtea to supplement a windowfarm sounds great!
But how do you do it?
If you live in a flat won’t there be also a production of fertile dirt-> and what to do with that?
How do you then extract the ‘tea’ and what good things are in it?
Should one boil it before using it with plants (source http://our.windowfarms.org/tag/worms/ Comments)
And somewhere i read that one needs to be careful with worm farms and breathing
(especially if you mesh it or something)
Because there can be quite some bacteria which can make one sick. If they get in the air or if you touch it.
I’ve been watching a bunch of youtube videos on the process. This is just going in a corner in my kitchen, and it seems pretty simple: Sift the castings from the bottom of the farm with a screen, put them in some type of filter bag (say pantyhose), then put them in a bucket with water and an air pump to aerate, plus whatever other nutrients you need (molasses, kelp solution, etc…) and there you have it! =)
Haven’t heard about the bacteria thing. Not so worried about it as I’ve heard the worms are actually eating the bacteria that grow on the rotting food, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got a good immune system. I doubt the dirt would be worse for me than working in my grandma’s garden.
But I’m about finished with my prototype, so pictures are coming. Have some pre-composted material for food and peat moss/paper scraps for bedding. Worms are on their way. Another post to come by the end of the week.