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Aallonharja's recommendations for trouble free wormy diet
Plant-sourced material only. Wastes from fruit, vegetables,berries, tea bags, paper/cardboard/tissues. Not only do these contain alot of nutrients like P and K, but it seems to me that worm castingsmade with this kind of feed make for sweet vivid taste and hightrichome content!
Know your limits! Experiment with 'new' foods.
Do earthworms need a complete diet, or can they survive (and beproductive) on a single unbalanced source of food, very high in N, P,or K?
I think that composting earthworms can survive on a singlefood source, BUT that food source must contain at least minute amountsof the minerals they need.
For example, only paper or only cardboard would support a wormpopulation very well. But they do need a bunch of minerals just as wedo to survive. I'm guessing nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus and magnesiumwould be the most important ones just as they are for us.
Earthworms do not actually eat the food materials themselves, butthe BACTERIA that are feeding on the materials. These bacteria do thework of extracting the minerals and making more complex organiccompunds for the wormies, like amino acids and vitamines and what not.
What foods need to be avoided?
Salt. Salt kills worms. Do not add any foods with high salt contentinto the bins. Often breads and processed foods contain high salt.
Cat and dog manure. Humanure. These can act as a vectors for humandiseases, such as toxoplasma, the brain cell parasite, and thus may notcontribute positively to your health in the long term. Manure fromlivestock should be safe to use (ie. horse/cow/sheep/poultry manure).
Generally it is thought that worms can process ANY organicmaterial, given enough time to adjust. From pH 2 wineyard waste toactively 'hot' decomposing horse manure - but they will need time toadjust to the conditions, and the worm farmer will need to createsuitable conditions. Experiment carefully.
Does the material have to be partially decomposed already?
Not at all. While in commercial operations the waste material isoften 'pre-decomposed' or 'pre-composted', it is perfectly ok to addundecomposed organic waste such as fresh vegetable peels in a worm bin.One just has to watch out not to create a thermophilic compost thatheats up and cooks the worms.
While the earthworms can only 'eat' material that has alreadystarted decomposing, usually adding fresh veggie waste, for instance,poses no problems whatsoever, especially if buried in the bedding.
My question is should I run my kitchen waste through a blenderbefore adding it to the bin, or can I just chop it finely with a knife.
If you run the kitchen waste through a blender it will be consumedmuch faster - but chopping with knife would work quite well. I thinkblending the waste might halve the time required for decomposing.
I dont process my veggie waste, just throw them in there. I have 3main bins with 8 month cycles, 6+ months of feeding and 2 months orless of settling. Once the cycle is through, the worm caste is darkbrown muddy pudding that sticks to everything.
Whatabout adding sand? My kitchen waste contains no sand!
Sand - and grit - important, but also not a absolute must in myhumble opinion. It helps the worms digestion, and it helps breakingdown the organic matter.
For sand one can, in my opinion, substitute eggshells, perlite ordolomite lime. Sand is basically broken down inert, hard, rock-likematerial, so I suppose anything inert and hard would work. Do not usemetals or plastics.
One doesn't need that much grit, and note that sand willconcentrate on the bottom of the bin due to weight, so the top layerwouldn't have that much sand. I would say that sand content of onepercent would be just fine.
There are all kinds of critters in there!? Can I harvest or should I wait?
A worm bin or a worm farm may support many kinds of creatures,mostly useful ones. But the fact that you can see that otherdecomposers are present usually means that the feed/waste has not yetdecomposed very well, and needs some more time to become worm castings(unless worm compost is what you are after).
Usually critters like mites, springtails or tiny white Enchytraeid'potworms' are feeding directly on the foods present. Unlike compostingworms, they cannot survive by eating the bacteria present in the wormcastings, and thus they will die off as soon as the foods have beendecomposed.
Could I possibly add my soil fertilizers like kelp, alfalfa, andguano to the worm bin to up it's NPK. That way, my worm shit would bethe only thing I needed to use for fertilizing, make a tea for everywatering. - Bobby digital
Yes, very much so. But with some ingredients its best to only usethem for the final soil-mix because of their cost or composition. Kelpand guanos are both very very costly to be used as worm food.
As to using worm bins to process different food-wastes intodifferent nutriens like veg or bloom nutrients, it works quite well,but often nitrogen and magnesium supplementation seems to be arequirement.
Worms like alfalfa meal, but one must not use too much at once asthe high nitrogen content might cause heat-composting or evenfermentation.
I think perlite that has spent some months in a worm bin would havelively bacterial cultures on its surface - yet another benefit..
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