Hi Flanna, Hope you get some ideas from people because I would like volume also. But I settle for compost which has redworms working in it also. I'm not sure a screen will do it you want to shake it to make the castings fall. The worms life cycles are in a wetter state than that which you could seperate easily by dropping through something. The layering systems work by adding layers and the bottom can eventually be taken when they are full and the worms move up, kind of like a bee hive colony with honey.
You mention you could buy alot of worms with the money you saved. I would tell you the way I would tell my wife. You don't save money by getting something cheap on sale or something in exchange that would have costed more if you don't need it. Saved money is in the bank. LOL sorry for that. it's the glass half empty or half full I guess.
Anyway I started a lasania ( OK you can get me on my spelling!) garden bed and as I layered up the stuff I have it full of worms now. I am hoping to keep feeding them in the corners to keep them going.
Do you have acess to all the food these worms will need if you want a wheel burrow full each month?
I would probably get some wooden crates, like they put fruit in and ship them on the big trucks and use several of them to handle all those worms. I used to pick and count redwoms when I was a kid and they used about 30-40 of those wood crates 4X4X4 and they were full. Plus they fed the worms chicken egg layer pellets. we would did with a pitch fork to about 6 inched deep because that was where all the worms were and count out 55 worms to a can. I think we got 5 cents a can.
Have you already been raising worms. I would still start with a bin plastic or wood or a old paint bucket and first get to know how to keep them alive and happy before you get such a large volume of worms. I would get all the bins set up several weeks before the worms arrive to get the beds worm friendly if you know what I mean. Good luck to you! BillC

Thanks Bill.

More Info. I'ts looking like i'm going to make three bins out of 2x8's three layers hi. Measuring 18 inches by 36. Which is 13 spuare feet of surface. and 24 inches tall when they are stacked. Of these 9 squares I plan to put a screen one the bottom of each and doing the stacking thing as they fill up. I plan to put greenhouse heating cables in these bins for the next few months and keep them in the garage untill it heats up a little. The cables turn off when the temp hits 70.

Is there any type of wood that would hurt or bother the worms. What are your average home depot 2x8 made out of? this is what I plan to use. DO you see any problems with this?

This is my first time farming worm castings but I have never been one to jump in with just one foot. However I have been reading and learning no less than three to four hours a day for over two weeks now. Although I have no practicle experiance I think i'm off to a good start with knowledge thanks to people like you.

How many worms will occupy this area when it is up and running? I plan to start with 20 to 30 pounds 10 pounds a week for the next three or so.

In terms of having food for the worms I have unlimited horse manure mostly green but some past the heat stage. Just for grins I stopped by our local health food store and walked out with 30 pounds of free vegetables. Plus I have a compost pile that due to cold temperatures is probobly only 25 to 50% composted. I plan on letting the worms finish that job. Feeding them about a third of each plus house scaps each feeding.

33% manure
33% partially composted compost
33% fruits vegies etc.

So what do you think?

Hi Flanna:

My advice to you would be to start off small in order to deal with any problems, once they happen. The experience you'll gain will be well worth it. You wouldn't want to loose your 20 - 30 pounds of worms due to some problems popping up down the road.

I started off with a pound of worms and one 18g Rubbermaid bin almost 2 years ago and I've run into a few problems, which I quickly resolved by reading the advice from the more experienced folks on this forum as well as others. I'm now starting my fifth 18g bin and looking back, I'm glad I started small.

If you start with say, 5 Lbs of worms and everything goes right, you'll be well on your way to having 30+ Lbs after a year. Good Luck!

mataka4

I agree that getting a starter bin (or we could call it a prototype bin) going to figure out if you need to make any design changes before you drop too much time/money/effort into any one design.

As for the wood, it should be fine so long as you avoid pressure treated lumber.

My bin is 2' by 4' plywood on legs (so that I can put the feet in containers of mineral oil to keep the ants out!)

I was just thinking about your idea and wondering if those plastic stacking bread trays would work well for a stacking worm system. That might take some of the effort out of the sorting castings and be lighter than 2x8 lumber.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Bin

Thanks for the replies.

Mataka if you saw my clay soil around here you would probobly agree a year is too long as I have big gardening plans this summer.

And buying ammendments just doesent sound as fun as making 30,000 new friends. :-)

Tclynx I to grow indoor hydroponics. I also like the looks of your Bin setup.
I was wanting to go with wood instead of plastic trays for insulation reasons. (Slower to heat up on hot days and slower to cool down. I also just got back from Home Depot checking out thier heating cable. People use this to keep pipes from freezing. THat with a Soil thermostat hopefully will keep the worms happy. Anyways hopefully my mind will slow down enough to sleep tonight. Lol

Hi Flanna, I admire your guts, you will probably do fine. I almost killed my 1 lb of worms the first time trying. But you will have this place to ask advice. You will want to make sure they don't get over fed and too wet, that is the biggest problem I think with beginners.
Redwood seems to rot the slowest for me around here. but any wood that is hard and untreated will work. You said your bins will be 18X36 and 24" high. that sounds good if the layers will be 8" thick each time you layer on top with a wire screen divider.
I would start with mostly compost and add some horse manure on top, one or two rows depending on how many worms you put in each bin. They might not eat right away when you get them since they will be stressed out and need time to acclimate to the new surroundings and new bedding and new feed. After putting in the horse manure or vegetable ( get a blender or food processer from a thrift store and blend the vegetables up to a almonst liguid and maybe soak the moisture in some shredded news paper and feed that to the worms. remember this stuff needs to almost rot before the worms will eat it or the bacteria that eats the rotten fruit. You will be able to work at your own pace and impravise as you see necessary on the feeding. It's hard to say just how much when we don't know how wet or dry the bed is. But it will start slow and pick up as the worms beging to be comfortable and thive. I would put 2" layer of shedded news print or wet cardbaord on top of all that. The worms seem to like being on the top soil if it is dark and moist.
You said you will get aprx 20-30 lbs. I would get them from different places. Say 5 lbs here and 10 lbs there make sure you ask them if they have the worms on hand. I would not tell them you want 30 lbs or they might want to sell you all of that QTY. One guy had ordered 5 lbs and he didn't get his worms until three or four months later. You might find one place sent you small and not a good amount for the money while the next guy or gal sent you a real healthy group of worms that just look ready to eat. Then you can get the rest of your worms from the person who delivers the goods in good time and good shape. Make sure you get your bins ready a week or more before you get the worms. It sounds like we can't talk you into just two pounds to start with to gain the knowlege SO I tried to answer your questions as best I can. Oh except the amount of worms in those boxes. Think of a pound of hamburger that is the worms you should get. Some people say they will shrik in shipping but it should not be that noticeable in weight. I am sure you will find some close to you right. I would probably put three pounds in each 18X36 but others may say more? I would not want to over crowd them as they will breed if they have room for growth. I am thinking of three pounds of hamburger spread over the top of that bin. and picture that as the worms. 20 to 30 lbs is a lot. you might try that and see if you need more bins or more worms. What do the rest of you recomend Flannna to get for her three bins 18X36 that will eventually go up to 2 feet high? Need some help here folks. Thanks Bill Good luck Flanna and have you got the book "Worms eat my garbage"? I have not yet but I keep thinking I will. It would be a good help to you or check out a book at the library. Bye BillC

Thanks Bill That all sounds good to me accept deciding on how many worms per sq foot. Here is where my thinking is coming from. When I was thinking about the worm wigwam they recogmend seeding it with 15 to 20 pounds and it is only a little over 7 sq feet of surface area. This comes down to 2 to 3 pounds of worms per sq ft? I am going to build 3 bins which has a surface area of 13.5 sp ft. 3' by 18" = 4.5ft each So going off of WIgwams conservitive estimate at 2 lbs per sq ft I would need 26 pounds.

I do plan to get them in tree stages first order today next in two weeks and third perhaps one to two weeks later. And I do think getting them from differant sources is a good idea thanks BIll.

Ok so my main question is how many worms can be happy per sq ft of surface area? Remember my goal is casting not producing more worms.

P.S. I can't find how to post pics. I would love to post pics as this project goes along as it is part of everbody's experament to see if this over ambitious person can do it. LOL

What Do you guys think?

Hi flanna! I have two worm-Wigwams and the recomended # (pounds) of worms is based on cubic feet not square feet. The initial setup the area above the harvesting grid is 24 inches and you fill that up with semicomposted bedding 4-6 inches deep and layer in 2 inches of food with another 4-6 inches of bedding and 2 inches of food. layered until its full and layer the worms in also so they are in all areas of bedding and food. Then wait until that is all worked down then you feed on top and layer bedding, on top to control the pest like flies. It recomends harvesting each time you feed to make room for new food and its covering of bidding. You should be able to harvest an inch at least when its running correctly. I made a huge mistake and only put in 5# of worms and it has been a year and three months and still am building the hurd(Squirm) in the two I have. I finally seem to have enough worms to work thru 4-5# of pumpkin in a day or so. So Good Luck on whatever you try. They are a very expensive unit but I like mine and next summer I am going to try an outdoor bin. I have every type of bin except the small wood box type. I have Efs(Esenia fetidia)Red wigglers and Ehs(Esenia hortense)European Night Crawlers,and some wild worms picked up in hay chaff decomposing and some Lts (Canadian Nightcrawlers).

larry

10-30# of worms to start!!! You'll run out of kitchen waste!

Hope you figure out how to post pictures and good luck with turning your clay yard into something workable!

Nell

Flanna,

When you find out how to post pictures it is worth keeping a couple of things in mind.

Make your pictures small so they load quickly and are easier to view.

Make the photo interesting. Don't post pictures of empty bins or piles of black rotting stuff; we all see those things every day.

Better way is to post a link to where your pictures are stored.

When you post huge photos with your posts people will just avoid anything you write.

Regards,
Marshall

Flanna - you can't start on a scale that would yield a barrow a month, and that [or any] volume would require inputs at least 4 or 5 times as much .... I do both hot and worm composting, and I can feed 4-500# a week into 3x3x3 bins indefinitely without them ever really filling - working back and forth between 2 bins, I don't take out a barrow full in a couple months

don't worry about volume, just start something suitable for the amount of material you have and work out the details as you learn, and expand as you find suitable [free] inputs

Bill

Here is a link that might be useful: my composting

Hi Flanna, It's billc again, sounds like you are right about the worm QTY. I have two bins one wood 2X2X4 and a rubber bin with another bin on the way.
When you do your bins I would suggest to put some kind of metal brace across the bottom of each layer. I am thinking ( picturing 4X8 wood in squares 18X36" I think you said earlier) anyway if you put say, 1/4 inch wire mess screen and nailed that on the bottoms so when you remove the bottom layers you might need extra strength for the weight of all those castings, so it wont fall through on you when you pick them up. You might need two people to pick them up? Also pre-drilling the holes would be good for the side of the bins where they meet at the corners to prevent splitting the wood. I would put in deck screws because they wont rust and screws will hold better than nails. Except the wire on the bottom, staples or something but make sure they are galvanized to prevent rusting right away. I would put 1" metal straps on the bottom , two of them centered on the bottom of the box just for extra support. I don't know if you understand me the way I wrote this? I also don't know how to put in a picture but I think there is a section above to explain how? I will get my wife to do it for me. I just have to ask here when she is not mad at me. She punishes me by not helping with those complicated computer stuff since I just email and read stuff that I have interest in, like redworms.LOL Good luck. BIll C

I have a rather large bin (5x20x2ft), as well as a number of smaller bins. My large bin is just 2x8's, three high, with 4x4's as side supports every four feet. I used to try to protect the wood with plastic on the sides, but I find that there is not a need for me to do so. Even pine takes quite a few years to rot (my oldest wood is over 5 years old now, and in great shape), and it is much easier to work the bin if there is no plastic on the sides. I often have huge amounts of garden and kitchen waste to dispose of, and I try to get as many free materials as I can. In order to reduce my work load, I have gone to a simplified method of loading and harvesting the big bin. I process material in the bin once a year in a given part of the bin in the following manner. I start by removing some one year old material at one end of the bin, and loading with fresh material to compost. I try to pile the new material about two feet above the bin. As I put in the new materials, I also mix in about 4 gallons of the old material, complete with thousands of worms for each square foot of the bin. This material is sprinkled through the new materials as I layer them. As time goes on, I slowly remove old material futher down the length of the bin, and continue to add new materials in their place. Over the course of a year, I eventually remove all the old material, and have filled the bin with new materials mixed with worms. I then repeat the process. At the end of a year, the piles have shrunken quite a bit; and most of the material is very fine castings. Since I don't disturb the bin for a year, I have both red wrigglers and nightcrawlers that work over the materials. They seem to work well together to get the stuff at all levels well processed. Even though I put almost 400 cubic feet of materials into this bin each year, I only get out at most about 32 cubic feet of castings. I don't bother removing the worms from the materials I am taking out; there are so many thousands in the remaining materials that they quickly reproduce to bin holding capacity. I remove the finest materials from the bin for my other uses. The materials I use for layering in the new areas are those that have some course stuff left in them. Since I use a lot of garden materials in the bin, there are some large pieces in there; I rarely use a shredder; the worms do the work for me. One advantage of my system is that I can periodically take out a five gallon bucket of partially processed vermicompost, replete with worms, as a gift to those who wish to start bins. This way, they have lots of worms to start with, and bedding that we know the worms like.

Renais

Wow Thanks For all the replies. Spueeze YOur probobly right but i'm going to put my seatbelt on and go for the ride to see what happens.

Bill Great looking pics. If I die I want to be reincarnated and be a worm in your bin that worm chow looks better than my cooking.

Bill C I think i'm on the same track as you. Going to start building those bins tomarrow.

Renais thats less than A cubic yard ouch. Then again Its gold. I guess turning 400 cubic feet of waste into one cubic yard of gold isen't bad.

Kittle you should post your story. I put hours into trying to get information on the Wigwam from someone who uses it as I'm sure other people have. Not much info out there/

Ok with another day under my belt here is what's going on.
Went to home depot and that heating tape I was talking about has a thermostat that is just above freezing. So that idea is out. Maybe I can disconnect the thermostat i'll think more aobut that one.

Meanwhile I got two pounds of worms today that I ordered before the big plans started. I will use these as test subjects to try differnent stuff. I have them split in two Identicle ten gallon tubs so I can experament to find things that work better give one tube something and the other something else.

I now have a total of 15 lbs of worms ordered from two differant supliers that should be here next week After seiing what two pounds look like i'm going to get a less than i planned. i'm now leaning towards 1lb per square foot of bins. My bins will be 13.5 sq feet and i'll put in the 15 I'll bive that some time before deciding if I want more.

I'll keep you updated.

Thanks everyone for replying I appreciate the time.

Test pics