Juice from a worm farm

[Marielski]

Hi everyone

I am new to this forum and have a query about my 2 month old worm farm. The worms seem happy and are feeding in a reasonably damp environment. However they do not appear to have produced any 'juice' yet as the run-off liquid in the bottom tray is always clear. How long before I can expect to see some juice appearing?

Thanks, Mariel

[gardenlen]

g'day mariel,

are you feeding them enough, have they enough space to multiply?

the worm wee should be a tea coloured liquid, and usually you pour some more water through the farm to flush out some more of it when you need it. for us we do all our worm farming in the garden beds now so the wee and castings go right where they are needed.

len

[eco4560]

I cycle the worm wee through the farm a few times before I use it to concentrate it further. I just add extra fresh water anytime I want more.

[Tulipwood]

I also make the food I give the worms quite watery. I blend the kitchen food scraps with water - it's like a thick soup when I give it to them, though not as pureed. And, like eco, I recycle the worm juice through the worm farm, usually 3 times. They're busy little blighters at the moment - I'm having trouble keeping the food up to them.

[purplepear]

I wish to add that imho it is not the leachate that you need but the castings so worm wee (though great on the compost heap) is not as important as castings made into a tea and used to feed the soil
hope this helps

[Tulipwood]

Purple Pear could you please expand on how you make and use worm casting tea?
Thanks
Tulipwood

[purplepear]

Sure tulipwood
I put about a handful in ten litres of water and mix it up than use this to either foliar feed through a watering can or pour on soil as past of bed preparation.

[gbell]

Wouldn't water trickling through the bed be picking up castings anyway?

[permasculptor]

I think this is fascinating ,I would love to know the differences (if any) between worm tea- compost tea or even bd 500,and does the effect of stirring - aerating transfer between the different mediums.Id guess that a refractometer would give an indication of potency has anyone tested this?

[purplepear]

Wouldn't water trickling through the bed be picking up castings anyway?

I believe it is the humus in the castings that does the trick gbell but it is a great question and deserves some thought.


I would love to know the differences (if any) between worm tea- compost tea or even bd 500

A scientific approach would be fascinating permasculptor - but imo there are - though worm and compost do a similar job in soil conditioning, BD 500 has a more profound effect on humus build up on degraded soils.


the effect of stirring - aerating transfer between the different mediums

Stirring is similar for each though I have only stirred the compost tea for twenty minutes and not an hour the act if the rhythm and the potentizing effect of the form to chaos method - I believe it binds the compond to the water similar to coloidal minerals so they become more the one thing and no more seperate.

Not very scientific but it fits my intuition well.
regards