February 7, 2010

First vermiculture project

A friend from high school agreed to start a vermiculture project with me. This is our first time to take care of worms. The type of worms used is the African Night Crawler.

We prepared the vermiculture substrate from kitchen waste and garden waste.

Daily, we collected dried tree leaves that were chopped to small pieces (less than 5cm x 5cm) and placed in a sack for storage. In another sack, we layered the kitchen waste with the stored leaves. Chopped, dried leaves about 10cm thick were spread at the bottom of the sack. Kitchen waste was spread over it and sprayed with Biolant solution*. We added another layer of chopped leaves on top of the kitchen waste. We thoroughly covered the kitchen waste with chopped leaves.

The procedure was repeated until the sack was full. We covered the filled sack and allowed it to decompose for two more weeks.

After two weeks, we spread the substrate in an outdoor bin located under the shade of a tree, sprayed with Biolant solution up to 60% moisture content, and introduced half a kilo of worms. We covered the worm bin with chicken mesh and topped it with tarp.

The worm bin is watered every two days to maintain moisture.

We plan to harvest the worms in sixty days and use the castings for my friend's herb garden.

* To prepare biolant solution, add 2 Tablespoons(30mL) of biolant bm concentrate to 1 gallon (approx. 4 liters) of chlorine-free water.

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