Today, among other things, we harvested some vermi-compost from the bucket bins. Harvesting the FT is going to be a bit different.
First off gotta make a sieve. There are a great many ways to go about doing this, but for this time I just built a frame out of 1×2’s and stapled 1/4 inch hardware cloth on the bottom. The frame was sized according to the bin I was working over, in this case it was a sled. Sleds are great for dealing with compost. You can mix in them, drag large amounts of material around, put under a FT to catch compost, sort worms, etc.
In a bucket vermicomposting system, the easiest way might be to take the lid off and shine a light in to the top of the bucket. Although UV light kills microbes (something we are trying to avoid in the compost world) the sun is free so I do this outside when I can otherwise I like to use a incandescent bulb or better yet LED. Also, luckily, I have dogs to keep the birds away (the birds, of course, would love to come eat your worms if left open outside, lol).
When you first take the lid off there will probably be some worms hanging out on top. Wait for 1/2 hour or so and they will go deeper in to the bucket and away from the light. Take a few inches (or until you see worms) of compost material off the top of the bucket and sift it in the sieve over and into a bin.
Place big material and worms, that have been left on top of the sieve, in to a separate bucket. This will be the start of the new worm bin.
Dump the seived material from the sled in to a separate bucket. When full, set aside and let sit. After a month or so it will be finished VC and all the babies would have hatched and the juvies that originally fell through the screen will have got bigger and easier to separate.
Keep repeating this process in order to drive most of the worms to the bottom of the bin. When you get down to just a few inches of material In the bin, decide whether you are splitting the bucket (ie making 2 bins from the one) or if you are going to keep it as a single bin.
If you decide the latter, dump the large material back in to the bin without disturbing the worms that had dove to the bottom. If you decide the former use both buckets as described below.
Now fill the buckets 3/4 the rest of the way with some worm food. In this instance I used kitchen scraps that had been frozen and sitting in the garage for a few weeks.
Then fill the bucket with in a few inches of the top with peat moss, coco coir, shredded paper, sheet paper, leaves, well any type of dry bedding actually. Add the bedding dry though so that it can absorb excess water and discourage wandering worms, since they don’t like to be dry.
Put the lid back on loosely and put the bin back where it goes. After an hour or so, examine the bucket to see if the worms are trying to escape, if so you might have to leave the lid off and shine a light down on them for overnight or so. Also make sure they have plenty of bedding material on top.
Happy vermi-composting !
Grass Roots Organic Lawn Care 