I am in commercial worm and casting farming, we all learn from our set backs and by sharing practical knowledge with each other. Thank you for sharing your experiences precisely and without wasting time in stories. Very helpful, good work and good luck, keep it up.

Exactly... The young baby worms will do better around the adults because the adults are talking to them in worm language...

Very interesting and thanks for sharing. Only thing I found odd is your experience with protein poisoning, aka "string of pearls" disease. I did a bit of an Internet search to see what people are saying about this because in my over 15 years of vermicomposting, I've never experienced the problem. This is my personal conclusion based on my experiences and practice... 1. Possibly a main reason why I don't ever experience "protein poisoning" is because I don't feed my worms anything with protein... At least intentionally. Because I use my vermicompost for crops intended for human consumption or sell/give my compost to others, I don't put any meat, meat by-products or green manure in my bins to ensure 0% chance of e.coli or salmonella. I don't give my worms anything with vegetable protein in great amounts, either. You could say my worms are 99% vegetarians. 2. Sometimes I do feed my worms enormous quantities of food at a time. When I feed them kelp hand-picked from the ocean, I'll give them an entire month's worth of food at a time. Maybe others have seen worms over eat but I haven't... I don't know that worms are like goldfish and burst because they don't know when to stop eating. 3. Judging from the pictures posted of worms that are dying supposedly from protein poisoning, I wonder how many of them are actually dying from asphyxiation instead of poisoning. I see all the time in KZfaq videos people feeding their worms in ways that can kill them. When any food is given to worms that will decompose rapidly by aerobic bacteria, the bacteria will consume all the oxygen in that area if the bacterial population is high enough and granulated, powdered and blended foods have a very high surface area to mass ratio which will create an enormous bacterial population explosion. Well, guess what... worms need oxygen, too so if all the air is consumed by bacteria, the worms will die... and in mass numbers. This is why all food should never be sprinkled across the surface of the worm bin or mixed into the bedding. Food should be buried in a hole dug in a bin corner or edge (or carefully in the middle) to allow the worms to approach the food you're giving them or retreat to the safety of uncontaminated bedding to avoid anything toxic. 4. Unless and until someone actually does a necropsy on a worm and determines it actually died from indigestion(of protein), I suspect the whole thing is a myth. I instead highly suspect they died from respiration or more exactly suffocation because of the toxic chemicals in that part of the bin. Such things as the smells of ammonia and alcohol are typical of anaerobic conditions that would occur when there is lack of oxygen... When the aerobic bacteria die because of lack of oxygen, then anaerobic bacteria can take over for as long as suitable conditions exist. I find it a bit incredible that as hardy worms have proven to be ingesting and even mitigating toxic chemicals as well as every malignant virus or bacterium known so far that worms might somehow die from protein causing toxic gasses in their digestive tract faster than those gases can be excreted. There is only one major rule to always observe to be a successful worm farmer... Give your worms choice. That's all it takes. Give your worms choice to move towards what you offer and away if they don't want it. Warm half your bin and keep the other side cool. Make one side of your bin wet and the other drier. Use your imagination to envision how to give your worms choices for everything and your worms can decide for themselves what makes them happiest.

I did many experiments when I had my warm business almost 20 years ago and the results were amazing your veggies are bigger and sweeter your flowers are larger and more colorful. I also started all my seeds in straight warm compost it retains moisture much better and gives the plant more aggressive root growth. It's really amazing stuff.

I've had my red wigglers for 6 years now. I blend egg shells for their grit in a little coffee blender . And I bought crushed oyster shells from Amazon . My little coffee blender was taking a beating. Lol Then a few months ago while going to order more oyster shells I found Powdered oyster shells. Made from the same company 100% oyster shells. Made my life easier, my blender life longer .. 😊 Cheers from Toronto 🇨🇦

This video is a game changer. We are huge fans of eco gardening here... worms is our next step. Thanks for sharing.

This is an extremely good synthesis of what way more than 10 months of “passive” learning have taught me. A must watch for anybody into vermiculture and great inspiration to get hands on again!

You've created one of my 5 favorite youtube videos on worm farming. Great job! Highly informative and very helpful. Wish you the best in your vermicomposting and flower farming.

Thank you for this video. Your presentation is great; just enough of being human, without all kinds of time-wasting chatter. I am preparing to start a commercial worm, casting, and casting tea operation, and your video has provided much inspiration. I plant a fairly large garden every year. Aside from tomatoes and peppers, everything goes from seed. I raised European night crawlers for a while, and had quite a bit of pure castings. For two years, I covered every seed with a handful of castings, at planting, and the production literally doubled, both times, in comparison to adding nothing to the soil. Just sharing an experience.

10 months.!!!! That is some operation you have there. I bet people will want to buy the castings too.

I breed worms and I find that if you put a couple adults in the bin the cocoons seem to hatch better because the biological life of castings or bedding stays active.

I really appreciated this video. I've kept worms for years now, but recently moved out to a farm and decided I need to up my game a bit as far as vermicompost goes. Really great seeing the lessons gained from your experience.

I could listen to you talk about anything almost as much as Morgan Freeman. Thanks for the info! You definitely seem incredibly knowledgeable about these little guys!

It's a learning process, every day!

I decreased the number of worms bins I have, but back when I had a lot, I had my neighbors keep their fruit & veggies scraps for me, & I had a couple gas stations & donut shops saving their coffee grounds for me! Really helped to save money on feed!

Hey Sarah, just discovered your channel and I love it! Your open mindedness, experimental nature, honesty, plain speaking and delightful little talks are a pleasure And your orientation to regenerative farming is exciting for without that changed focus, we're all doomed as a species, yet with it, the future is very bright indeed! I'm more focused on fruits & vegetables but what's good for the goose is good for the gander, eh? Heh. Good luck with your channel. It's going to be a rousing success and looks to be getting there already! Anyway, I wanted to share an amazing little thing I recently discovered relating to vermicomposting. I've been keeping a worm bin for a couple of years now but still consider myself a beginner because I haven't brought a huge focus to it... yet. So many new things to learn and master! My wife and I started juicing a few months ago which is an excellent way to get all of those bulky, fresh, organic veggies into one without having to eat the whole cornucopia. (just got a new Nama J2 too and it's a game changer and very exciting!!!) I juice in bulk to last a week and so produce a lot of pulp. I usually just compost it because the chickens don't really like it so much but I decided to try it on the worms. Most of the pulp they liked ok and ate. (no citrus!) But when I fed the carrot pulp to the little Wiggles, I thought my worm bin was going to EXPLODE! I didn't really know that I had THAT many worms! They all ERUPTED up to the surface like a mountain or volcano and simply devoured the carrot pulp! So, that's really useful for a few reasons: If you want to gather ALL your worms to the surface, feed 'em carrot pulp! Then just scoop 'em all up off the top. Of course that won't bring up the eggs but it is one less step. Then of course it is great nutrition and makes for very healthy worms and it makes them extremely HAPPY! You do get emotionally attached to the little squirmers too, doncha? So it makes YOU happy also. It's really hard to over feed carrot pulp too. They just eat it too fast for it to spoil! And if you have a juicing store nearby maybe you can make a deal with them to get their pulp. That would be an incredible and free source of excellent worm food! Turn free juice pulp into great big healthy flowers! Cheers Sarah & Hubby!

Well done lass, nice setup. Quick tip. One of the biggest improvements I've had (I've been keeping worms since 2016) was when I started grinding up a small amount of oyster shell into their feed, it's cheap and lasts ages. The fine grit helps the food pass through their gizzard, they eat more and grow faster.

Yes I have been raising worms a home for my garden as for my fishing. I love your channel & subscribed. You are doing a great job of explaining your process.

Thank you for sharing. The ‘positive & perfect’ stories are great… But we learn a lot from our mistakes too. Happy worm farming!

My worms absolutely love teabags😂 I never used to give the teabags to them because I read that the bags had micro plastics, but pj tips now has compostable bags and the worms cannot get enough of them. I find that I don’t need to water them since adding teabags in

Thank you for such a clear and thorough update on your worm farming side of your business. We’ve all learned from our early mistakes, so I really appreciate you sharing what works and what doesn’t. Wishing you all the best from Vancouver Island, Canada! ~ Sandra

Thank you for the update! Love you are heavily into regenerative farming and creating related content.

This is great. I’ve never seen string of pearls in my worms or was aware of it before. Very informative

Great information and glad to see your worm farm and system. We had a very successful indoor worm farm, but had to move our worms outdoors when the pandemic hit and we lost all of our worms due to neglect and other homestead priorities. We had 150,000 + worms at one time. We are starting over and have learned a great deal from out past experience and your video. Thank you for sharing!

A really confident, comprehensive and knowledgeable report. I learnt more from your one video than I have from watching dozens from other people. I lived in Yorkshire for 16 years so it was great to hear the Yorkshire accent once again. I look forward to your future videos.

I am happy with the time I spent on the video .... From heart to heart talk... Keep going ma'am

Congratulations on your successes I’m sure you’ve had much more since releasing this video. I’m about 1 month in on my first system and found this very helpful, thank you!

Brilliant video. Very interesting and well spoken by you Sarah. I'm just starting to make little worm bins so Thank you as I learned alot. Keep up the fantastic work

I love your concern about "warm's happiness"! Well done in showing appreciation and care for even small creatures.

In many municipalities, the chlorine is formulated to *not* off gas anymore. Use rain water or untreated well water. Some filters will help too. I found my tap water suddenly started inhibiting my sour dough starter, and my veg ferments started to fail. Called my water utility to find out what changed.

The best food for worms is damp leaves and coffee grounds, not much else is needed to feed them. Every once in a while you can throw kitchen scraps in too, Maybe once a month, of course the cardboard is great for Moisture control. Also they shouldn't be WET, worms breathe through their skin. So when you see them coming out of the ground after it rains, it's because they're drowning. So only keep them damp. Not wet. A spray bottle works great for this. Good luck hopefully my tips helps you. Remember no chickens Feed in a forest, so don't feed them that, all natural food, they like things that are dying. Leaves and wood. Good luck.

EXCELLENT VIDEO! Very informative and to the point! And edited nicely to keep our attention! 🙏🏻 ❤. Hello from Morgan Hill California

I learned so much from this video! Many thanks. Cheers from Tulua, Colombia 🇨🇴

When we lived in Southern California we had a worm farm course fishing is pretty much year around out there this was probably 1968 to 1972 my dad was in the Navy at that time and then we moved to Alabama I don't know why we didn't start another worm farm but we didn't and like I said we used tires for packing for fishing but we didn't do any sifting or anything like that we packed out of a bed and usually we would take 50% of what was in that bed and put it in a new bed we use peat moss as a fiddler in there for the worms but the other thing that we did cuz my dad was in the Navy no shortage of coffee grounds he had metal cans all over the base like 5 gallon buckets and he would bring that home in my brother and I that's what we would put in the worm beds they love coffee grounds I guess we had some kind of meal that we fed him I don't remember what that was but the other thing we had was my dad would have and I'm pretty sure I'm right about this ground up walnut shells and he would get those from a feed store there and Otay outside of Chula Vista California I don't know about the watering thing with chlorine cuz I'm sure our water was terrible out there where we lived but we watered them just with a regular hose pipe so there was no kind of doing anything with the water our beds were probably I guess I'd say 6 foot by 8 foot and we had plywood on top like an A-frame with with the light inside we kept burning all the time and we just raised the piece of plywood up when we packed out of the beds we also had another place in San Ysidro but we packed out of both places what was in our backyard and what was down there interesting what you're doing

Pack with wire wool first then expanded foam. Rodents hate it. [ Maintenance operative on the railways in the U.K. but branching out into allotments just before I retire!] Lol

I just stumbled over your channel when I was looking for more info on wormcastings. I want to start my own wormcasting opreation for my veggie garden. The information you provide in this video should be enough to get me going :-D Thank you very much for all the usefull information!

The way I do my breeding bins is to add breeding age adults, let them breed for 3-4 weeks and then move them, rather than the eggs, to a new bin to start again, leaving the cocoons to hatch where they were laid. I'm not sure why the babies aren't doing so well when the cocoons are moved, but when the worms lay the cocoons it's often in a food and castings rich area (I find loads in banana skins!) and covered in worm mucus so maybe that's removed when they are relocated? I'll have to read up on it, interesting question! Looking forward to the next worm update!

For UK viewers B&M are currently selling a great grey tote 33x60xm ht 40cm for just £9. I got it for my eiseniae who have outgrown their washing up bowl. It has a lid but I've found the worms are more settled if I leave the lid off. I put a piece of card over the bedding so that they can crawl back under if they go exploring. Worms had no trouble squeezing under the lid on my other bin but then couldn't get back and made for the bottom of my fridge!

I really enjoyed hearing about the things that are going well and the bad things that have happened.

Thank You for sharing so much of your time.

Thank you for sharing your experiences concisely. Very informative and very helpful. You've gained a new follower.

I'm new to all of this. The advise given will be priceless. Thank you. Stay safe everyone.

Great video! Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Thank you for sharing your worm knowledge. 🪱

I bought my first worms when uncle Jim's was a 3 line add in organic gardener. I bought them for koi food and a 40' × 100' garden on sandy meridian soil..very sandy and needed compost etc. I faithfully followed instructions and continued that for almost 10 years. Then I decided it was a pain...after that I started testing out different ways to handle them. I soon landed on a system that was much less mess and work. The channel on you tube that is most like what I settled on is A V wormery. Good luck to all newbies.

Great update. I’m following what you’re doing with interest. I’ve got 5 bins in my garage (the same Wham Bam boxes as you guys), but stacked vertically, and running independently of each other. It’s been a learning curve, but lots of fun, and so much rich fertilizer for my plants! Keep up the great work👍🏻

Very good presentation, thank you.

I was really looking forward to this and it didn't disapoint 😉👍 totally fascinating 👍 looking forward to the next one and how you make the tea 🙂👍 ... 🤗❤👵🐾🐾🐾🤠 xxxx

Very nice thank you for sharing your challenging experience

Fascinating stuff! ❤

I have been feeding my worms Bokashi compost with ground up eggshells to balance the Ph.Bokashi is acidic.The worms seem to love it and break it down quickly quickly

Mine do well in tubs about 14in deep 8-10 in of soil, I feed them banana oatmeal mix most often and not much, I burry it a few inches, also throw some used tea and coffee grinds on top of soil, keep tops open so they can breath and don't try climbing out been doing it as a garden and fishing hobby three yrs now plus the fish are great for the garden, the worms do much better with old leafs in the soil and they love melons n mangos also sand helps them reproduce if soil is to much clay or muck

What a lovely accent 😊

Very nice set up

The differerence I've noticed between dendrobaena and eisenia Foetida in my 2 bins, one of each, is that the dendrobaena bury themselves a bit deeper in the bin. Dendrobaena are more prone to protein poisoning as you've seen than the eisenia so I give them a higher ratio of card. I pocket feed them, putting the food and a bit of casting into small cardboard boxes or toilet rolls with one end stuffed with newspaper. I use scissors to poke holes in them but the worms often congregate under the boxes. That way, if food starts to ferment I can easily pull it out. I found that just using the indirect lighting of my undercupboard LED lights that was enough to keep the worms inside. After only 3 nights the dendrobaena no longer tried to escape even with the light off. The eiseniae took 7 days but they are still prone to climb up the sides when I fluff the bin

what size are the poly boxes plz and where did you get them from. Great vid all the best,

Where and how did you source your polystyrene bins? Why did you choose them versus any other type of bin? Is it because you're using that to help regulate the temperature or just because they were the cheapest option?

To transfer the worms from one bin to another we use to give then watermelon it was the fastest way for us and just left the capsules to develop in the old ones for a week or two

really good tutorial and well explained

You are a great teacher with simple and direct honesty. Kudos from 🇰🇪 as I subscribe to your channel too to promote you👏🙌

Hi Sarah, very good video. I have found if I mix the chicken feed with warm water the worms love it and it makes it easier for them to eat

Very good teacher thanks ❤

I learned a lot, thanks

Nice idea!, one thing I did not hear or maybe skipped it..was the juices or fluid coming out of the bedding, You could use that flower bed box thing to collect the juices from the worms, That is a highly rich organic fertilizer as well. Just tilt the bed to one side and let the juices flow down. I think it is fluids from worms besides castings. Also instead of grains maybe all of your left overs from food might be a better choice for food as well as kind of recycling and not wasting. worms can eat just about anything you give them, I wish I had the space for this and some farming, Aquaponics, you already have the food for fish, the fish have nutrients for anything farming, all you need is water!! and some extra nutrients but not much!!

Greetings from San Jose California GREAT! information on worm farming we were looking into starting a farm next year I'll keep watching your videos for the up-to-date info and We will post comments after we begin ours to hopefully get schooled from this page of well-informed wormers :) Cheers

Very informative. Thanks very much, woman.

I started keeping worms inside in bins a few months ago to have castings next year for the kitchen garden. I got my worms from my outside compostpile. To multiply the worms I sift once a month with the 1/4 inch mech so I have the biggest adults worms ready for breeding. I put them in new bin with new bedding and the big sifted pieces. That way there's more space again for them to breed and they multiply easier. What's left over from the sifting are the cocoons, tiny worms and youngsters in there original bedding so they feel good in their known environment. The youngsters grow easier and cocoons hatch easier. For now it's most of all multiplying so I have enough bins to get enough castings in springtime. Then in spring, when it's warm enough outside, all bins are sifted and all adult worms will go to my outside bin. Curious to know if it will work...

great video

Your information is amazing 🎉

❤i was wondering how the worms were doing! Fantastic!

Thanks for sharing

i always thought the worms created the compost. When ever i put a layer of fresh horse manure on my compost pile the worms are all over it in a frenzy.

great practical information

I had a few bins on the go and asked someone for rotted horse manure, I hadn't realised that this would contain brandlings, eggs, and baby worms. So my Dendros were mixed up, and I wasn't sure if different worms would interbreed. The larger worms always seems to be the banded native worms. I lost a bit of interest after that. Your video might have convinced me to have another go. I noticed when you were sieving it, the compost seemed quiet dry. Do you reduce wetting prior to this process. How long does it take for a Derdro to reach maturity, and does it then stop growing.

Many thanks for sharing your fruitful information. How do you keep worms in winter and protect them from the frost

That's a great setup. Well thought out. Kudos. I have considered going commercial with my own colony of worms, but I'm not so sure there's any profit to be made. I noticed worm-castings being sold in bags for almost the same price as regular compost, and the only way to make that profitable is when you produce it in bulk, by the truckload. I also don't think there's enough people buying the worms to keep that going in a steady pace. I suspect that all customers will be one-time customers. There are no follow-up sales in this business, and frankly most people who are into organic gardening realize that these worms can be found anywhere if you just know where to look. I hope your experience will be different though, but these reasons always kept me from starting my own business. I strongly suspect it will be a huge struggle for very little result. - Whenever I see people mention their worm business, they always talk about the techniques, the mistakes, the learning process, but they never seem to mention that they're succesfull.

Every time the worms hear her talking by them they’re like “buckle up boys here she comes!!”

You sure did heavily invest is shelving for your bins. You could have built your own racks (see Meme's Worms) and saved a ton of money. Nice operation on the whole. Great job, good video.

They LOVE coffee grinds and watermelon! I know it makes them have some relations and make more eggs which are yellow. Yes, their bedding will come to need changing at every 3 weeks for me, is that the same for you? I do have rabbit poo that they are good with along with egg shells, watermelon, carrot peelings, banana peel, and strawberry tops.

Hi Sarah just found your posts like you i have been vermi composting for just over a year now but not on the scale you are doing, i have a compost bin in my back garden i purchased worms from yorkshire worms and feeding them my kitchen /garden waste along with crushed/powdered egg shells that i steralize and dry they are doing well this next year will be the first time i use my castings in my veg beds no chemicals or plastics going to soil block using wool seed compost and coir with some casting in the mix going to back track now on your posts stay safe ATB 👍

Great info, thankyou so much....from another worm nerd!!

Ascorbic acid works for chlorine as well

Awesome. We have been experimenting with worms for our duck manure on a large scale. Duck bedding is generally quite wet, so we've found the worms love it. Plus we are giving the ducks layers pellets, grits and oyster shell which the works apparently also love

Very cool - I'm excited to see what you'll be doing/learning with the microscope! This is super interesting. I have a bunch of worms in my garden and compost - wondering if I should start a small vermi-compost system in the garage for a more controlled use of worm castings (e.g. for seed starting mix as you mentioned). A friend of mine had a small thing going with a couple of 5 gallon buckets which might be a good size for me to start with.

Will worms neutralize any medications from the horses and alpacas?

If you want to try Red Wiggler worms they are the ones that live in the dung pile on farms they are great at eating food scraps and reproduce quickly. I am just starting my worm farming adventure. I live in Canada and most of the worms we use hear are the Red Wigglers. Best of luck with your plan.

Great video. You are obviously not afraid of work but you may consider building / buying a trommel to save some time sifting.

Thank you Sarah I learned so much in this video. Had never heard of the protein imbalance and string of pearls until 2 days ago when I watched a worm video by Bare Mtn Farm. Now, with your video also; it must be a common problem. I'm so glad you could save your worm farm. Can't wait for the compost tea video. thx again.

Great video. Can you please tells us the rate of growth of your farm? How many did you start with and about how many do you have now after 10 months?

Thank you for a great video. I tried to find your video you mention on the worm tea. Did you end up making that video?

we also feed the with lots of fruit & veggies scraps - what do you do about the myriads of fruit flies?

Great video. Can you expand on what temperature environment they like? Would an outdoor screen porch where the temps fluctuate with natural weather patterns work?

How long can you save the worm casting before you have to use it and how do you store it

beAuTiFuL

I wanna see your microscope observations!

A great explanation as to your swift progress with your worn farm, Sarah. I had a period of worm 'explosion' in August just around the same time as that super-hot spell and I lost 2 bins in my shed that were on a high self but my third bin was on a table at least 1.2m below my shed roof and that one was perfect - no deaths at all. All 3 bins were being fed quite rich diet at the time and at first I put the upsetting deaths to the diet, but then it didn't explain the third, larger, bin I had low down, and I guess cooler. I am in York, (UK) so not too far from you and so we get the same sort of climate. I read that worms really cannot survive above 35 deg C and that hot spell took outside temps well over 40 C. In the same article, I learned that at those temperatures the bacteria and fungi go into overdrive and handle the rotting process less efficiently, giving off more methane which in turn then caused the worms to explode. So the issue might well have been temperature related as opposed the richness of the food? Now of course, in October I am worried that ambient temperatures could very well be falling below the recommended minimum for your (and my) worm species of 16 C and I am worried that I could end up having deaths due to cold ! I imagine the worms and micro-organisms will slow down and go into a sort of hibernation. Currently, I have combined all my worms into one bin so any heat generated in the bin will stay within it and placed it into another shed which has a fridge freezer turned on, so it might add a little background heat to the environment and I have been thinking of having 2 new small worm bins in my kitchen over the winter to be sure that I do not lose any 'inmates' during the cold months. being retired, money is tight, so I cannot afford to heat the shed sadly. I was wondering, since you started out in about January 2022 with your worm farm, how you managed over January - March please since I cannot imagine you heat the barn in which you house your worm bins or DO you provide some background heating?

I wonder if feeding the egg beds would help with hatching? Maybe the microbes or the PH level breaks down the egg sack to hatch them? I wonder if manually breaking them after a month or two would work?

I'm starting to learn bout worms so ignore me if this is wrong or whatever... soooooo I've noticed in worm chow recipes that rock dust is added, like basalt, helps them [digest], an its only a small amount added. Thanks for the video. :)

I wonder if the seive might be damaging the worm eggs. I have no idea how tough they are but it might be something to consider.

Save a lot of work and make your soil worm friendly by no dig and adding compost on top and chop and drop..