Worms-Bait or garden buddies?
Worms- Bait and /or garden buddies?
How worms work.
Worms consume rotten vegitable matter along with small grains of rock to help digest the food(just like birds). the worm manure or castings as they are called are incredibly rich in nutrients. The fact that worms eat their way through soil, creating tunnels for air and water to get into, make them the most valuable addition you can add to your garden or flowerbox. They eat almost their weight in food every day. They never harm living matter. They are bi-sexual and need an
other worm to reproduce. As long as the food supply is good they will reproduce alot. last year I started with a pound of worms (about 1000) as my breeding stock. I now have 2.5 bins full of worms. I estimate about 5000-7000 worms in those bins.
My girlfriend has been saving her compost stuff to feed them and I have been putting my food scraps and coffee grounds to good use. I have been slowing down on feeding them during the winter because I don't have the room to let them expand too quickly. I have 4 more bins I have to convert over then I will be ready to start splitting up the stock, I'm just waiting for the weather to get warmmer.
Since both my girlfriend and I are avid fisherpeople, we will have all the bait we need. My girlfriend is also a great gardener. Since she has given up her compost scraps, I am going to give her most of my worm castings and worm tea.
What is worm tea you ask? When I make the bins I drill tiny holes in the bottom to help it drain and to add air to the soil. When the worms consume the rotten matter, there is a lot of liquids released. It flows out the bottem of the bin and I collect it in recycled orange juice containers. this liquid is highly sought after by gardeners who want to add nateral fertilizers to the soil. From what I have read, it is too strong to add directly and needs to be diluted. I have not had enough to experiment with to see what the dilution factor would be. I will have to do more research on that. Worm tea looks like strong tea and it has almost no smell.
I am suprised that there is very little smell coming from the bins. Since I don't have my garage set up to house the worms through the winter, I have them under the kithen table. I have an old freezer I am going to convert. I may be able to get away with leaving them in there, if I find a few bales of straw to put around it.
As bait the type of worms I am raising(Red Wigglers) are known to stay alive along time on the hook, attracting more fish. They are smaller that the big Night Crawlers, but they are livelier. Since they are related to manure worms, they don't get illnesses bunched up in clumps like some other worms do. Since they are hand fed they are are tasier to the fish. I have tried a few last year compared to the big dew worms I dug up in my garden. The Reds did better.
Ants and other insects are their enemies. The ants can attack and they steal their food supply. I will have a longer list when I have read up on it more.
I will be selling them for bait , a bakers dozen for $1.50 -$2.00, depending on the local trade. This year I will not have enough to sell pounds or 1/2 pounds, but I will next year if all goes well.
By getting the word out that worms are good for your soil and good for the environment, I will be promoting a good cause and make ethical money doing it. that is a win-win situation.
So ... how about some worms?
Michael J. Kaer
How worms work.
Worms consume rotten vegitable matter along with small grains of rock to help digest the food(just like birds). the worm manure or castings as they are called are incredibly rich in nutrients. The fact that worms eat their way through soil, creating tunnels for air and water to get into, make them the most valuable addition you can add to your garden or flowerbox. They eat almost their weight in food every day. They never harm living matter. They are bi-sexual and need an
other worm to reproduce. As long as the food supply is good they will reproduce alot. last year I started with a pound of worms (about 1000) as my breeding stock. I now have 2.5 bins full of worms. I estimate about 5000-7000 worms in those bins.
My girlfriend has been saving her compost stuff to feed them and I have been putting my food scraps and coffee grounds to good use. I have been slowing down on feeding them during the winter because I don't have the room to let them expand too quickly. I have 4 more bins I have to convert over then I will be ready to start splitting up the stock, I'm just waiting for the weather to get warmmer.
Since both my girlfriend and I are avid fisherpeople, we will have all the bait we need. My girlfriend is also a great gardener. Since she has given up her compost scraps, I am going to give her most of my worm castings and worm tea.
What is worm tea you ask? When I make the bins I drill tiny holes in the bottom to help it drain and to add air to the soil. When the worms consume the rotten matter, there is a lot of liquids released. It flows out the bottem of the bin and I collect it in recycled orange juice containers. this liquid is highly sought after by gardeners who want to add nateral fertilizers to the soil. From what I have read, it is too strong to add directly and needs to be diluted. I have not had enough to experiment with to see what the dilution factor would be. I will have to do more research on that. Worm tea looks like strong tea and it has almost no smell.
I am suprised that there is very little smell coming from the bins. Since I don't have my garage set up to house the worms through the winter, I have them under the kithen table. I have an old freezer I am going to convert. I may be able to get away with leaving them in there, if I find a few bales of straw to put around it.
As bait the type of worms I am raising(Red Wigglers) are known to stay alive along time on the hook, attracting more fish. They are smaller that the big Night Crawlers, but they are livelier. Since they are related to manure worms, they don't get illnesses bunched up in clumps like some other worms do. Since they are hand fed they are are tasier to the fish. I have tried a few last year compared to the big dew worms I dug up in my garden. The Reds did better.
Ants and other insects are their enemies. The ants can attack and they steal their food supply. I will have a longer list when I have read up on it more.
I will be selling them for bait , a bakers dozen for $1.50 -$2.00, depending on the local trade. This year I will not have enough to sell pounds or 1/2 pounds, but I will next year if all goes well.
By getting the word out that worms are good for your soil and good for the environment, I will be promoting a good cause and make ethical money doing it. that is a win-win situation.
So ... how about some worms?
Michael J. Kaer
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