Is it all 100 vermicompost, or is it a mixture of VC and lots of other stuff?

Is it wet or not wet?

Is it the results of feeding all dark black stuff or say, white cotton, rotten underwear?

Chuckiebtoo

Mine is sometimes dark brown but with time it turned to black.
I thought the brown came from the huge amount of carrot pulp I fed them. But then they turn black afterwards. So, I think it will be black at the end once it's really finished, not too wet, no clumps except pieces of wood, real nice and crumbly.

My well-composted vermicompost is a sort of tan'ish-grey. The newer, but still usable stuff at the top, is more of a black-brown.

I do regularly rinse my active bin to collect the lovely brown liquid though, and the difference between tan-grey and black-brown is possibly the color in my 'rinsate'. I suspect that the brown is related to the humic acids produced when various microbes repeatedly work over a given nutrient source. Brown, like some other colors, appears black at high concentrations. The grey compost seems to work very well without it's extra darkness though. It just has very little structure from being re-eaten so many times, and needs some well-rotted wood chip fines and a little sand so that it can drain and hold water.

I suspect that if I hadn't repeatedly rinsed it, the worms would have stopped short of eating it down to nothing because of waste toxicity. This could have given me a better product at the time of harvesting it, but with rain and all, I suspect that this is what VC turns into in the dirt. It becomes dirt without organic material. Arguably good dirt though from my observations.

Mine is nearly always a mix of fruit/veggie scraps and shredded newsprint. Never wet but is moist and crumbly with a soft texture to it. It is usually black when all I put in is used up , but sometimes it is a brown/black. Is it possible I have not put enough in even though my herd is growing shouldnt it always be darker?

Castings (worm poop) are very dark/black. Vermicompost is a mix of castings, bedding, and food. It will vary in color depending on bin management, and food and bedding added. If you mix-in and bury food, or stir up the bin contents, you get more colorful vermicompost. If you top feed only, black casts are left below.

buckstarchaser Interesting humic acid info. It is a topic I have not quite gotten a handle on.

mendopete Interesting. I will not be able to reproduce this because I like to grab a tool and claw through the bin a bit to see what is going on.

Mine is not black. It looks the color of dirt. I judge the quality by if it looks like instant coffee. Maybe that is black but that is not what I am looking at. I am looking for individual "crystals". They should have a calcium coating. They should flow like instant coffee.

It depends on what material you use as bedding. For example if you use leaves your castings will have more fungi an mold n be darker if you use shredded junk mail as bedding you will have a lighter color because the white paper has been bleached and because of that it will be lighter in color and keep mold and fungi from developing even if you soak it first. Checkb out this YouTube video from north west redworms.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v5_1kBGSGxk

I think there is a stronger argument for the color in the leaves to be concentrated in the product, whereas the paper has little color to be concentrated.

The initial and final colors of the feedstock may be altered by bleaching, but if there is enough residual chlorine to keep fungus away, then there is more than enough to kill bacteria and worms.

As far as household cleaning of mildew fungus, chlorine bleach is described as the least effective option. In the linked article, Clorox even responds by saying that its bleach is only effective on removing mold from hard, non-porous surfaces, which doesn't apply to a worm bin.

Of course "bleach" does not imply chlorine bleach, and many things are bleached with more agreeable things such as hydrogen peroxide, but further investigation shows that chlorine compounds are still used to bleach paper.

I use a considerable amount of paper in my bin, though I think it's good practice to also feed the worms more than just paper, and I have all sorts of molds and even mushrooms growing in my bin. When I was a young lad, my father took me to a paper mill to hunt worms in the waste paper pulp lot. I think this has some bearing on the suitability of paper in worm bins, but I think it's a bit short sighted to only feed worms paper when there are plenty of other good feedstocks to add.

I don't understand how the author of that video could have even jumped to such a wild conclusion.

Here is a link that might be useful: Spor-Tech mold investigations article on bleach

Almost all of us will harvest "finished" VC before it's completely finished. When I harvest, I leave it in a small container for a few months so that cocoons and straggler wormies can mature. During that time, the biology and worms will survive off that "finished" VC and during that time the color of it will continue to get darker (almost black).

Right side of the pic was harvested 3 months ago, left side, 2 months.

If your VC is various shades of browns and dark browns, it is in various stages of completion.

chuckiebtoo

M, D, P, Poop Analization

I think the added darkness has something to do with with the formation of humic acids and elongation of them. It seems to fit the variables of eating less and less food while the mix gets darker and darker.

I'm yet to find another explanation for this, but humic acids are 'the good stuff' anyway.

I've found that repeated rinsing of the compost seems to extract this color and leave a more greyish result. The grey stuff seems to be structureless, having had its worm slime washed out, and mostly resembles silt. I'd really like to know what it is, as it seems to work very well in potted plants when mixed with rotted wood fines, sand, and rock dust. Without the added textures, it's just mud that doesn't drain well at all.

After watching the video my vermicompost is the color on the right. I use egg cartons and paper towel tubes for bedding. I guess I should add leaves.

Yes this stuff mixed in for plants does tend to work better if its more silt like for drainage but either way it tends to hold moisture rather than letting It drain well. I like to keep my vc moist for this use rather than dried out too much.

I have used a lot of different materials such as empty toiler paper rolls and paper tower rolls and find them just wadded up in the bins come harvest time. I like shredded newsprint and standard cardboard best. The shredded newsprint works best for me as I cant seem to keep enough in there or Im not keeping enough other foods in there. Its an experience to say the least.

Upon blow-up review, I see my casts are dark brown with white speckles. This is from the soil that gets attached to horse poo in our paddock. Interesting to me is how it concentrates. The horse manure shrinks to about 10% of its original mass while the soil does not. These casts have been aging for about 18 months, and there were still a few worms present.

Happy wormin'

Pete