I have been reading a lot about worm compost tea on several interesting sites recently including Bentley Christie's Redworm Composting and Duncan Carver's Worm Farming Secrets, and now have finally got round to installing power in my greenhouse I can run an airpump with an airstone (a type of diffuser) to create my own worm compost tea. The theory is that you use the worm castings to innoculate well aerated water with mollasses added with beneficial micoorganisms including harmless fungi, bacteria and protozoa. These both help with nutrient cycling in the soil and add a protective layer when applied as a foliar feed, either attacking pathogenic microorganisms or occupying their potential niches. I'm not entirely convinced yet but I'm certainly prepared to try it out...It's quite good fun!
Worm Castings: note the numerous worm coccoons - I don't like the idea that they perish in the process so I spent ages picking them out at first. I have given up on this, but I am looking into ways of removing them. Who knows , maybe they can survive? Another experiment perhaps...
Bundle of worm compost tied up in a square of muslin, with a piece of holey flint as a handy weight.
Dropped in a bucket of tap water left to stand for a couple of days (rainwater is too precious - it hasn't rained here for two months and I need every drop for my blueberries!) to remove the chlorine etc with a 6" airstone and an airline from the cheapest airpump I could find. I also mixed in a few spoons of honey as food (all the online resources recommend molasses, but that appears to be hard to come by round here...).
Result after 12 hours of bubbling!
I have read that this will only keep for about 8 hours so I have been using it straight away, which means I can only use it in my garden. What I really want to do now is get a decent microscope and see what is going on in the resultant brew!
Now I have power in my greenhouse I can also pursue my plans for growing my tomatoes hydroponically, and maybe use the wormcastings in a vermiponics system. Not sure how yet, so I might just try a standard aquaponics or organic hydroponics set up. It also means that I can heat the greenhouse to seriously extend my growing season. Of course this will also require some additional insulation, but I can worry about that later.
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