Script to use on 5/24/2011 at Deer Island
With Amanda Poyant’s
4th and 5th grade Garden Club
Sponsor: Island Institute
I decide to type up a script to use on 5/24/2011 at Deer Island with Amanda Poyant’s Garden Club. First I just made a list of the things I didn’t want to forget to mention and then I wrote the script.
Vocabulary: Vermiculture, Vermicompost, Vermicast, Worm castings, worm tea, worm bin, moisture control, fruit flies
Last Update: 5/24/11
Start with the harvesting of a worm bin and the making of worm tea
Dump one of my working worm bins so the students can see the worms etc.
Talk about the moisture content of the castings and show them how important it is to be at the right moisture for screening and for aerobic decomposition
Let the students weigh some vermiculture
Make tea
Screen some castings and separate the worms
As I take apart the worm bin talk about the layers and the features
Fly trap, vents for air, screens for fruit flies, plugged holes for fruit flies, layer of dry newspaper for moisture control,
Let them dig in the vermiculture to see the worms
Step One: Remove top layer
Mention the screened vents for moisture control and fruit fly control
Mention the newspaper for moisture control
Mention the fly trap for fruit fly control
Step Two: Dump the worm bin, Separate contents
Let the kids turn the bin upside down into a larger bin
Take the base off the top of the pile and put it back in the original bin
Add dry folded news paper to the base if vermiculture appears too wet. Talk about how the dry newspaper absorbs the excess moisture from the vermiculture and prevents it from getting muddy. Vermiculture needs to have air mixed in to keep the decomposition smelling “earthy”. Without air it smells stinky. Muddy vermiculture can get stinky.
Take the layers of wet folded newspaper and put them in the first bin until the bedding is exposed. Remove the bedding and put the bedding into the original bin.
Now pick out the larger pieces of undigested material and put them into the original bin. Talk about whether the worms are eating the stuff or not.
Take out pieces of plastic or stuff that it doesn’t look like the worms and microbes will eat. (This is a good chance to talk about how plastic needs to be recycled.) You can wash it in a bucket of water to make it easier to identify.
Talk about how some things decompose quickly and other things take longer – eventually – all plant matter will be decomposed and eaten by the worms. The worms with help from the microbes also eat the newspaper.
Step Three: Let the kids dig in the vermiculture to get a feel for the nature of it, its moisture and consistency
Let them see the worms
What has been eaten and what hasn’t – some things take longer to decompose but eventually it all is decomposed and eaten by the microbes, bacteria and worms. I will pick out some stuff and indentify it for them like avocado skin, corn cobs etc.
Step Four: Take a sample of the vermiculture and start a batch of worm tea
Fill the five gallon bucket with water and put in the vermiculture.
Mix well by pouring back and forth between two buckets.
Put in the bubbler. Talk about how worms breathe through their skin so they won’t drown like we would.
Talk about putting in molasses at the 12 hour mark. We are growing a liquid culture of microbes (very small animals) and dissolving the plant nutrients in water. This is a liquid plant food that you can use to feed your plants directly – spray on the leaves and water the soil. Plants absorb the food through their foliage (leaves) and through their roots. It also helps plants to fight disease.
At the 24 hour mark strain the tea and put the worms and undigested compost back in the worm bin. Use the worm tea right away – it is a living culture and is best for the plants if used fresh.
Strain the tea to show them how, even though 24 hours hasn’t past.
Making tea is easier than separating worm castings and you can make a new batch every week to feed your plants. My wife feeds our garden plants with worm tea every two weeks and she feeds her house plants once a month.
Step five: Remove a Gallon of vermiculture and weigh it.
Explain about the weight of water and the weight of vermiculture with water in it. Target weight is 5 to 6 lbs compared to 10 lbs of water in same volume container.
Step six: Screen the gallon of vermiculture to remove the castings
Set up the feeding dish and flat screen
Let the kids take turns trying to screen the castings out of the vermiculture. Have them dump the flat screen into the original bin if they can or just demonstrate it if they can’t.
Show them that some of the worms go through the flat screen and will have to be separated from the castings.
Pick the worms out of the castings, use the light method to separate or use the cylindrical screen.
Put castings aside for the kids to use with their planting. Tell them to mix the castings 20% with potting soil to plant seeds or seedlings.
How much did we get from one gallon of vermiculture? By volume? By weight? We screened out 2 1/2 lbs castings from 5 1/2 lbs of vermiculture.
Return worms and unscreened vermicompost to the original bin.
Step Seven: set up their worm bin with unscreened vermiculture:
Take one of the constructed bins and put folded dry newspaper in the bottom on top of the base to a depth of ½ inch. This is to sponge up excess moisture that would otherwise accumulate in the bottom of the bin and turn the lower level of the vermiculture into mud.
Add six to eight inches of shredded DAMP but NOT SOAKING WET newspaper. This is called worm bedding and gives a place for the worms to live before the vermiculture develops.
Add a gallon of vermiculture.
Add some damp newspaper strips to the top of the vermiculture – enough to cover but not more than an inch deep.
Add several layers of folded dry newspaper.
Make, bait and insert the fruit fly trap in one corner. The top of the trap should be above the level of the newspaper.
Step Eight: feeding the worms, weighing the worm bin, keeping a log
Bury one pint of food in one end of the bin. Call this end position 1. Start a log and write down the date and weight of the bin and how much you fed the worms. The kids called position one the West end and position 2 the East end.
In three days bury another pint in the opposite end. Call this end position 2. Update your log.
Update your log each time you take an action or make an observation with your worm bin.
At the start of the second week check position 1. If the food is pretty well digested so that it is mostly unrecognizable then add another pint. Repeat in position 2 in 3 more days. On the other hand if there is still plenty of food left from the first feeding then postpone feeding until the food is pretty well digested. Be patient. Do not over feed your worms. If you have more garbage than your worms can eat then consider buying worms – put in one pound of worms per bin and/or add to the number of bins. One bin full of worms will digest about 1.5 pounds or about 1 1/2 quarts of garbage per week. Your worm population will increase to about 2 pounds of worms per bin through natural reproduction. This doesn’t happen overnight. In four to six months your worm bin will be full and ready to harvest. Which brings us back to where we started – Harvesting the worm bin.
Moisture control:
The worm bin will collect moisture over time due to the moisture in the garbage and the fact that water and carbon dioxide are released as plant material decomposes in the bin. The moisture will build up in the bin if it doesn’t escape through the vents. The dry news paper in the bottom of the bin will get saturated and will need to be replaced with dry news paper. About once a month it is a good idea to check how wet the bottom of the bin is getting. This requires that you dump the bin as we did in step four. If the newspaper in the bottom is soaking wet then replace it with dry. If it is damp then just add more dry newspaper. Also, replace the news paper on the top of the vermiculture with dry shredded news paper and dry sheets of folded news paper. Also add strips of dry newspaper to the food you add each time you feed. Together all the methods will keep the moisture level the vermiculture from getting too wet.
How wet is too wet? I use a container that hold 10 pounds of water when full – a little more than one gallon. I fill the empty container with vermiculture and weigh it. If it weighs between 5 and 6 pounds the vermiculture is in the right moisture range. If it weighs more than 6 pounds then I need to add dry paper to reduce the moisture. If it weighs more than 7 pounds, it is probably muddy and action must be taken to dry it out. A wet bin is not a healthy bin. I haven’t had a situation that a bin was too dry but that can happen in which case the vermiculture would less than 5 pounds and adding some water would be appropriate.
Fruit Fly control:
If you are starting from scratch with a new bin you can put the fruit fly trap in as a precaution or later if they show up. If they do show up then do all the following:
Make sure that all the vents are screened and all holes plugged so the fruit flies can’t enter o or leave your bin.
Keep the lid on securely at all times except when feeding or working with the bin.
Put a baited fruit fly trap in the corner of the bin baited with two TBS of apple cider vinegar, one TBS water and two drops of dish soap. Other baits work well too.
Be sure to bury all your food in the bedding – not on the surface. Fruit flies will not burrow to feed or lay their eggs.
The adults in the bin will end up in the trap. Fruit fly larva in the bin will eventually hatch and turn into adults that will end up in the trap before they have a chance to mate and lay more eggs.
Flies outside the bin will not be able to enter and won’t be attracted if you bury the garbage.
After two or three weeks replace the bait in your traps and check the number of adult flies trapped. Repeat for another two weeks. At the end of the third cycle the fruit flies will be gone.
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/mainelywormbinbuddies
This is a group of people that all have worm bins similar to the one you have that I made. They are using these bins at their homes. You can join this group and ask questions. Someone in the group will answer your question. I am also a member of this group so it might be me that answers or someone one else. There is already a lot of information to read at the site. This group is private in that you have to email a request to join and be invited by me or my daughter Alice to join. You also have to have a Google Account to join. I thought maybe Amanda might want to set this up for the Garden Club to join. She could set up an Gmail address and send me a request to join by email.
This is my blog which is a public site. I put information on this that I want to share with the general public. Anyone can access and read this material. I plan to put the outline of the presentation I make at Deer Island on this blog. I am running this site anonymously in that I have not revealed my own identity. It is a site where the public can gather information about building worm bins, setting up and maintain worm bins, access notes from my presentations etc. They can post questions and comments and I will reply so long as the volume is manageable. Present volume is zero which I can manage very well – just my speed.
