Turning A Wicking Bed Into A Worm Farm, Nothing Else Like It

Hello Bob Paul, here with a healthy

farm

video and I have to tell you that this is probably the most important video I have made to date and I would ask you a special favor. Please share this with everyone you can. All gardeners. At least they can send an email. on Facebook Twitter Pinterest whatever this is important I want to show you today a revolutionary way to grow

worm

farm

or have a

worm

farm so that you can have worm castings for your garden. This is

nothing

like you've seen before. I've been doing this for a year and a half and I've had tremendous success and now it's time to show what we can do and I'm telling you this is a game changer.

Consider sharing this video with everyone you know, especially those who garden because this is that important, we would love to see this video go viral, but eliminate all the mess, all the work of growing worms, make it so easy, three, three, four years, they can do it, so watch the video, what we're going to do. What you should do is if you've seen some of my videos on absorbent beds and I'll put one here. We've turned an absorbent bed into a warm bed and there's

nothing

like it so the first part of this video will be I'm going to show you how to make an absorbent bed if you've already seen it, fast forward and then in the second part I'll show you We will show how we turn that absorbent bed into a warm bed.

I think it changes your whole gardening method because it's so easy and worm castings in the garden are so powerful that everyone should do this. Here's the bag I was talking about. Look how big it is. This is the shade I use for Boston. You can see the. The size difference is much bigger so I'm excited to try this as an absorbent bed doesn't really need the lid but if you just want to make a pot out of this you can place the bag on the lid and this collects the excess water, but that's something you can do with it now.

For an absorbent bed, you need four inches at the bottom as a reservoir and no more than 12 inches of soil or whatever you're going to put in here to grow it. And one thing I noticed is that it's 19 inches tall, so we don't want to go any higher than 16 inches because if you go over 12 inches then you're not going to get the absorbency that you want, so on this one I don't. I know if you can see on camera, but this has ridges for added strength. Here where these ridges are, they're about 15 and a half inches from the bottom, so the first thing we need to do is have some paint here and this.

It's enamel paint that I bought for $4 a can. You can buy cheaper paint for $1$2 a can, but I found that it doesn't stick to the classic and some of these containers have been around for five years. Basically, you want to use an enamel paint and I'm going to paint the first four inches or so on the inside and the reason we painted this with a white enamel and this is matte, not glossy, is because I don't want reflections. The black of the bag is absorbed absorbing heat in the summer, that is just a death for your year plants, they feel their temperature from the root system, so if this bag is absorbing an immense amount of heat when there are hundreds five on your plants.

They're just not going to survive, so this way I found out that we haven't had any problems growing into these bags, so I'm going to paint the outside as well, but this way I just put my mark on there. fingerprints, but this way I can prevent the sun from overbaking the roots and the rest. I'm not going to paint because it will be covered in dirt and the reason I'm doing this is because I can only put dirt up to about this level, 16 inches up, so there will be about three or four inches exposed around this new bed, so which painting it white will reflect the heat and not absorb it, so I'm going to go ahead and paint this, you don't need to look at it.

I guess I could fast forward it, but I'll show you the finished product anyway and then we'll go from there. Our black bag is now white with polish that will last. I have one like I said it's lasted about five years now and one can of paint did it all and I ran so I bought two cans in case you didn't know but you can get away with one can. I'll let this dry and then we'll put the rest together. I'll probably do it tomorrow and I'll show you all the pieces that are needed to put in here, what kind of soil to use and I'll give you. the cost of setting up something like this up and down I'm really excited about it we'll see how this all goes well it's the next day our paints dry and we're ready to continue making this absorbent bed so the next step is to make it the drainage is fine, so we're going to have a four inch reservoir here and at four inches we want to put a drain.

I've seen people put in bulkheads and valves and all kinds of pipe, but you know, the cheapest thing is to just get a little piece of 3/4 inch pipe, it'll squeeze in there and it works great because if too much water gets in here, We wanted to drain it anyway, so we put it in. The tube I have here is 7/8 inch, a little bit undersized, a little bit because you don't want to oversize it, so even though it's only a 3/4 inch tube, you don't want to oversize it and the easiest way to do this is this. I have my marker here.

Now I'm going to put it last here because I want to stack them in a row and that way I can put the pipe in and put a cover on. on top of them because they're almost four feet wide but you can also put it in the middle if you're putting them on a lie you can put the drain and it doesn't really matter where the drain goes but what matters is that it's four inches from the bottom and we should be able to squeeze in there we go nice and tight no that's our drain so the next step is we need to put in our fill pipe and that's what it is. and I use a two inch pipe so we're going to snap fit it, there's no point in gluing it because if it leaks we don't care, that's where we want the water to go anyway so we're just going to sit here. here and this is nineteen inches tall so I cut this pipe to 20 inches just to give us and with the elbow give us a little bit higher so it's high enough so we can stick a garden hose in here and fill So far You can certainly be cheaper and use a smaller diameter pipe, but you will live to regret it, which is why I use a two inch pipe because as you fill it, it will drain and there will be enough volume for it not to drain.

The water will recede and overflow from the inlet. If you use a smaller pipe, you're going to get frustrated or you're going to spend a lot more time trying to feel like if you were to go a lot slower anyway, so let's put a cap on this end, let's put this in there like this, just feel it there. and we don't need to go all the way, so I just made it 36 ​​inches and that's the whole point. Now you have to drill some holes. Yes, I'm going to put this at the entrance where the drain plug is that we just put in so that when I fill it I can see where it drains, but I want the water to come in and mainly through the other end.

So I'm only going to drill about half of this pipe and you just take a little bit and you want the drill bit to be smaller than the rock that you're going to use and you just go through all of this back here now. What I like to do is have it so that these holes are not all the way out, but they are more inclined towards the bottom and that way the water will start to drain faster, just like I have done. I set it up and I always put a lid on it, don't press it hard, just leave it there so leaves and debris don't get in because once you have this tube put in there, all the dirt and rock and everything is going to be here, you don't want to try take this out and take it out of your pipe because I'm going to ruin everything, so I cover it lightly now before I go out and set it up.

Above, I want to tell you the cost, so the tap was 20 dollars and with the pipe and the rock, now the rock that you use, you want to make sure that you have a neutral pH rock, so you can't use just any rock for the test. . because that's where you get your rock now I'll tell you, although River Rock is usually pretty good, gravel is pretty good if you can get shale, which is a neutral rock, but to know if you take a glass jar with a little vinegar and you drop a handful of rock in there if it bubbles like it's boiling, it's not a good rock to use, you don't want to, you don't want the rock to cause problems because it absorbs and creates problems for you in the soil, so you know.

If it only has a bubble every now and then or no bubbles at all then that's a neutral pH you can use so anyway now that this is basically done we'll go and set it up in the garden just realizing no. I don't think I've finished explaining the cost, so you have twenty dollars for the bag and with the tubing and elbows and caps and stuff, you have less than ten dollars. I have three cinder blocks there, 70 dollars each and then you have to put your rock and that's where I went off on a tangent about how to choose your rock, but the rock can vary a little from where you get it, you will have a weak barrier that low, so you'll have to buy a bigger row at first, but once you have it, you'll produce tons of these beds and then any medium of dirt you can fit in, so now it looks like every bag can be made for somewhere. between $65 and $75 in materials, which you know when you think about landscaping, that's really not as bad as I said.

I've had one of these for about five years and a few others for years and I've been adding more to it, so I really like these bags, they seem to hold up really well as long as they're painted, so the material cost is sixty-five to seventy five dollars. They are pretty easy to make and now this one is a little bigger. but you know you have two guys here, you can't move them if you have to, we're here setting up the new bedworm farm and we put up some old political signs and a rug just to protect against weeds and we level. the cinder blocks so that it's perfectly level and it's really critical, probably the most critical part of the whole process is making sure that it's level, that way you'll get even water absorption.

Now let's create the repository, all four of us. inch reservoir and to do that, as we showed you earlier, we built our pipe, so I'm going to put it on this side because we're going to water here and then I have the overflow pipe that comes out and it's back here, so we put water in until that we see come out and then from then on we put a bottle down here and you know, like you put tomatoes or watermelon or whatever it rains, the excess was not juice, this will fill up. with lemon juice and it will come out the side and you can pour it right into your garden so now what we need to do on this end is fill it with four inches of rock to create our reservoir and just fill it up to four inches so you can see here that we have our shell, it's a shell, it's actually lighter than the rock, about 50% lighter, which I like to use in these bags because then you can move them if you need to. also its neutral pH and it is very important that you use a neutral pH rock so that you can know if it has neutral pH when you go to buy the rock, carry a glass jar or something with a few centimeters of vinegar, put the rock If it bubbles, it is not a good rock to use, that means it is not pH neutral.

If it doesn't bubble then you can go ahead and use that rock if you can find shale, that's really good because it's light but it's not necessary. Granite is a neutral rock so we use it in aquaponics anyway now that we have the reservoir built and this rock will be absorbed and like water it will be absorbed into our environment and usually if you have seen and generated examples of my absorbent beds that we use we just use potting mix and compost or maybe what's it called can you send me light up these things we're sitting by the front door hold my feet.

The peat moss bosses are good to use anyway, now that we have this weed cover to put in and I made this little slit, I want it tight, so I'm working with it here. I put a small enough pit, we go and do this because, when it's an absorbent bed, we want to keep the roots from growing down into the rock, in this case we were going to want to prevent the worms from coming down and clogging up the rock, so we started with this end and then you put this in there and see how it looks on the sides So what we're going to do is we're going to start with a little bit of peat moss and we're going to put it here and we're going to put it around the edge so that it's really attached to the side and then that It should help keep the worms away and the water can be woken up through this no problem now let's get to the good stuff this is a revolutionary new concept for raising worms it's so simple that anyone can do it here in an apartment and you only have a patio garden or a regular backyard or even a larger operation, this will work for everyone.

It's the most exciting thing I've ever found and we've been doing it for a year and a half and haven't had any problems. I have to tell you how this came about about two years ago. I did a class out of beds for my meetup group and a friend of mine,Frank, he made one, took it home and installed it just like we have it now. him because I gave him all the materials except the means to put inside and then he put the gravel, he prepared everything but he had nothing to put inside and you know, one thing led to another and time passed and next door he had his worm farm which he has had for years in a Styrofoam cooler and over time and it started to crack and break and it didn't work anymore then because they didn't have anything to do with it, he just threw it on the absorbent bed and discovered that this is what We discovered through the absorbent bedding process because Mother Nature can't wake up, you know, soaked, she just absorbs a perfect amount of moisture, it was perfect for worms and One of the problems is various ways of raising worms and they all involve a lot. more work than I wanted to do and some of them are complicated so one way is to put them in a container and feed them but you have to be real.

Be careful because if you put too much humidity you will kill the worms, if you don't have enough humidity you will kill the worms or they will crawl and leave, so it is a balancing act, another way is to pile on. You've probably seen the stackable towers but then again you have a filler tower, yes, remove it and fill another one, it's a mess and at least it's more work than I want to do. The third way I've seen is what they call a step and you build a frame in a box and you have to scrape the bottom.

The commercial ones have a rake that goes through and scrapes and then you have to get everything out of the bottom and that's a lot of work. when we discovered here that if you place your worms in absorbent bedding because it absorbs the perfect amount of moisture, you will never have to worry about your worms getting too wet or dry; It's just a perfect amount of humidity for them, I just have to go out and feed them from time to time and make sure they have food and as long as they're happy they'll stay inside. This is what happens in the summer, when it's very hot here, at least in Texas, when I have to 105 or 106 because we painted this bed white and because of the absorbent action, the material inside stays cool enough for the worms are still happy in the winter.

It's the same thing, in fact, they come with a nice yellow lid. in winter, if you want, make a small hole right here and you can put the lid on top to keep ice or snow out, but you add a little more food to compost, which will generate enough heat so the worms will know that you don't run it through it all you just put it on one end and let it warm up a little bit more and it keeps the worm going so we've been through a winter and...almost two summers now we're on our second summer and the worms haven't I have had no problems, it has just been beautiful and the worms multiply, they double every 90 days and you cannot exceed it because they will regulate themselves if there are too many worms which will slow down production or you could end up in a second bed.

Now I have a video. I will post that about the benefits of putting worm castings in your garden. It's absolutely amazing if you watch that other video. You will see my plants. I put a four ounce scoop in each hole when I put the plants in and the difference between this year and last year and this is terrible soil on your hands. The difference is like if you know Pop Warner vs. American football. NFL or you. I know a great school soccer team versus the World Cup. We're going to go ahead and show you how to make one of these, so I'm going to start with some peat moss because it's a good bedding for worms and it absorbs moisture really well, yeah.

I want to show you that I'm going to do everything, but if we take it, I'm going to put it on the edge. I'll also put some in the center, but I want to shore up this weed barrier very well so that the worms don't come down to the rock. I'm sure they find a way but as we fill this in I want to try to keep them inside as much as possible but anyway this says we are going through our second summer in a winter and our worms have recovered fabulously and due because these beds are bigger, what we will do when we want worm castings, we will load one side with food, let the other side eat and the worms will migrate and then I will take this out of here and use the waste now, maybe still There may be some undecomposed compost left, but for our garden purposes that won't be a big deal and there may even be some small worms left over and over again. that won't be a big deal because a worm is produced very quickly and having a few extra worms in your garden won't be anything to worry about so that way there's no and I'll probably build a sieve but there's no sieve there's no most of work is gone there is no mess to take care of the basic things you will need to take care of here is just to make sure there is food for the worms to eat which shouldn't be a big problem and there is always enough liquid here for an absorption to occur because in the winter the absorption helps because the water moves, it doesn't freeze and it will help keep the worms a little bit warmer too, but again because it's and oh, I want to tell you that if it rains, you know , people say, well, what's up with that?

That's the beauty of it. Can it rain and fight? It rains three inches, the water will just pass through and come out this side. Can you come here and like that? you have this tube here at the four inch mark and we'll put a gallon bottle down here and we'll just stick this tube in there and when the warm juice comes out and starts to fill that bottle, we just take it and we can pour it into the garden, put it back in here and you will always have hot tea to put in your garden, so I'm going to finish filling this, fill it with some peat, well, not fill it, but put a couple. of inches and then I'll go get the worms and we'll put them in well, the other thing I should mention is that we have this here between our shed and the barn because it will get more in the shade, get a little sun in the afternoon and there will be shade, so we don't want to try to shade this if possible, if you put something on the field, you can put them that are wide enough, you can put four foot hoops. about them and I have a video on how to make trash rings.

I'm showing you how to do 12 feet but four feet the same way and then you can put some shade cloth over them and then daylight saving time that helps too right now I'm going to show you I'm going to fill this with water that's how ago and somehow the low water will filter through the rock I have the water coming out of there end, so it has to get here before the water coming out of the hose penetrates, which means our tank is full . Well, we have rabbits now too, so I have some rabbit pellets to put in. here that's good for the worms and then here on the farm we know a lot about Oh also on this, the lid just feel it lightly, don't push it down because everything is loose, if you push it down you're going to pull it If you lift it up, it you'll pull everything out so that's just to keep bugs and weeds and stuff from getting into the root system so there's a little bit of worm and you can put your grass clippings all kinds of stuff in here. and by the way, I tried to get worms locally, there is a place here in Georgetown that does worse, but I have tried for weeks and they don't answer their phones and they don't respond to messages or emails, so I went ahead and the I bought from Uncle Jim, he is very popular, he makes all kinds of bugs and worms and right now he has his summer, he has a sale, you can get 2,000 red wigglers mixes for about 40 dollars, so now the By the way, this is so important.

I want to reduce the cost we bought this year, 30 pounds of worm castings in our garden. By the way, just a side note. I have worms and all my aquaponics; that helps aquaponics, but our surrounding land. here, Texas A&M has done a study and the soil around here has 0.5 organic material and to be healthy soil you need 5.0, so our soil here is extremely unhealthy because of years and years of farming and you know, the organic can produce, I mean synthetic chemicals. and it's just not like that, this is a way to start reclaiming the soil because this is the good thing about worms, you know, what comes out of the south end of a worm heading north, food for worms, so to that We call excrement and the interesting thing about worms. it has all the nutrients, it's extremely, I don't know if it says it here, but it's higher in potassium and phosphate and some other things, even organic fertilizers and science doesn't even know how a worm can do that because it takes decaying matter and it strengthens it in some way and everything breaks down, so when a root touches the worm castings it can absorb all those nutrients and minerals and everything that is in that castings and once it is done, that castings are sterile and there is a word that We ask for a sterile cast it's called soil, that's how we make soil, so worms are a vital part of our ecosystem and anyway we make it ourselves.

Anyway, we bought 30-15 pound bags of worm castings that were $80, so very expensive. Now, if you don't have time and you don't want to mess with it, okay, you can buy marm castings, but this way makes it so simple that anyone can do it even with a busy schedule, because I mean, you are you. Record the worms again, not even five minutes a week because you're just adding some food and maybe record and make sure that when you come out you just open them up, oh yeah, I can see water down there if you don't. just add a little until it comes out at the end and I mean really fast and the worms will do all the work, they will stay here, they will be happy, they will keep working and nature will absorb it. a perfect amount I mean, this is a revolutionary way to make worms like I asked for, please share it with everyone, email it to every gardener you know, put it on Facebook.

We would love for this video to go viral because it is unique and so beneficial to gardeners and it is so easy to make. I mean, little kids can get involved with this. This is the best option after sliced ​​bread. I think this is going to be huge, so anyway now I'm going to put it up. the worms I bought them a few days ago, but I didn't have them quite ready, so I put them in this five gallon bucket and we've already been feeding them and you can see this is all worm droppings over here that started: there you go, look at all those worms, yes we will make sure that these worms you do not add to your aquaponic system because worms cannot transport ecoli and you are not sure what these worms were not. bred to be put in aquaponics, so they sell worms, or it's much more expensive to put them in aquaponics or find someone like me who already has it and puts them in, but look at these worms, let's go down and hide. the water will wake up and just to make them a little bit happier I have to put some newspaper down but I'm going to put some peat moss on top of them just because they don't like the sun anyway.

There's the start of your worm bed, now the thing is with the bag and the materials and everything and the $40 for the worms. We have about a hundred and ten dollars invested in this and I can tell you this will probably produce somewhere. between 120 and 150 pounds of compost a year, so figure 40 dollars for every 15 pounds in your first year, this will weigh more than it will pay for itself, so I said it's so simple, so easy, now that We filled it, we have done it. this we don't have to worry about this again for a while we get some scraps we can pick up in the kitchen throw them here normally we throw all these things to the chickens but now we will share them and put them with the worms, you can put a watermelon here.

They love watermelon. If you have a watermelon that is starting to rot or isn't ripe enough, the worms will just go after it and all that extra moisture will just suck it up. and it leaches out like worm castings, so anyway, I hope you share this with people. I hope you found it useful and you do it, please, if you leave comments, tell me how you are doing it, how successful you are. I would love to hear from you if you have any questions please go ahead and comment. I will be happy to answer them. If you like what we are doing here on the farm, please subscribe to our channel and we thank you for watching.