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Daniel C Merrill. Raising Composting Earthworms for Fun and Profit
About the Author
About this eBook
1. Why Grow Earthworms?
First, because it’s fun!
Second, because it is the right thing to do!
The third reason to raise earthworms is because they produce a valuable organic fertilizer
The castings from earthworms, of course, can also be used to fertilize the garden and the lawn. If you want to have the greenest lawn in the neighborhood, worm castings are the answer!
WE MUST PUT A STOP TO THIS!
TOGETHER WE CAN DO IT!
Commercial Vermiculture
2 Earth Worm Biology
As suggested above, for efficient mating to occur earthworms should be crowded, not widely separated from each other in the bedding. Peter Bogdanov recommends that you begin with a ratio of worms to bedding of 1 to 1. That is, there should be a minimum of one pound of worms per cubic foot of bedding to encourage satisfactory reproduction rates. However, for efficient composting you will require several pounds of worms for every cubic foot of bedding. In any case, a great many earthworms can be accommodated in a relatively small space. This is especially good news for home owners and apartment dwellers who want to compost their household wastes and newspapers, since they can accomplish this goal using stackable worm bins that take up little more than two square feet of floor space
3 What do Earthworms Eat?
So, what can you feed your earthworms?
Larger Scale earthworm farming
The leaching process, of course, wastes a lot of water which is not very attractive from an environmental or economic point of view. Thus, if at all possible, it is best to get the manure in the fall and let the winter rains do the leaching for you
What should not be fed to earth worms?
The importance of Carbon Nitrogen Balance in the worm’s bedding and their feed
4 Organic Fertilizers Derived From Red Wiggler Composting Earthworms
Earthworm Castings
Worm tea
Leachate
5 How to Build a Home Wormery
Commercial stackable bin home wormeries
A Simple cheap outdoor in ground home wormery
Supplies needed to build a 4 x 8 foot worm bed 2 feet deep
6 How to Make an Inexpensive Stackable 3 Bin Indoor Wornery
7 Monitoring the Environment of the Worm’s Bedding
8 Trouble Shooting
Mass escapes
Hunger strikes
9 Where to Get Your Earthworms
10 How to Harvest Earthworms
11 Growing Earthworms For Profit
12 About The Mount Diablo Worm Farm
Отрывок из книги
Dr Merrill’s families were pioneers of the Seventh Day Adventist Colony in Eel Rock, California in 1933. Eel Rock is located in the center of the redwood empire above the banks of the majestic North Fork of the Eel River, about 20 miles upriver from its’ junction with the South Fork at Dyersville.
Because of the educational limitations of this sparsely populated rural area, the Merrill’s ultimately moved to Myers Flat on the more populous South fork of the Eel River in 1948. Dr Merrill was one of only 72 graduates from the South Fork High school in 1955. He subsequently graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with honor and a degree in Physiology four years later. When Dr Merrill graduated from the University of Southern California Medical School in 1963, he became the first graduate from South Fork High School to become a MD.
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At present we pay a huge price economically and environmentally, for the disposal of human generated waste. The local garbage trucks which collect our wastes and the long haul trucks that carry it to the increasingly scarce landfills, contribute greatly to the destruction of our local streets and highways. More importantly, these trucks make a significant contribution to the noxious gases that are polluting the earth’s atmosphere. Once deposited in our landfills our decaying organic wastes continue to produce methane and other atmospheric pollutants for centuries. Even the most well managed garbage disposal landfills will be unfit for housing developments and other similar human endeavors for our life time and the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren.
Commercial Vermiculture, the composting of organic waste with earthworms, already has made a significant positive impact in large farming operations such as dairy farms which employ earthworms to compost the manure produced by their cows. Several municipalities, including most notably San Francisco, have initiated programs wherein the organic waste collected by their waste management trucks is collected in separate containers so that it can be composted locally rather than hauled to distant landfills. This process, of course, is a very labor intensive and expensive. More importantly perhaps, is the fact that the organic wastes to be composted must be collected by the same garbage trucks that are presently ruining our streets and polluting the atmosphere we and all other living creatures’ breath.
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