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Winter is comming

winter is coming, what I would do,,,,,,,,,,

may sound crazy….
get some castings, just a few pounds would work. put about 2 cups in a 5 gal. bucket, ad rainwater(i use water from my tilapia tanks) add about 4-5 tablespoons of molasses or honey, sea kelp if you have some—-can grind up oats if you dont……
 
use a paint mixer on a drill to stir it up and work it for a few min’s. let it sit while you get your sprayer ready, then mix it again……..strain it good, and spray your beds with it…….anything else is fine as well….but make sure you spray your beds well…woops, I forgot to tell you to dilute the 4-5 gal of tea.
 
one 4-5 gal container will dilute into 10-1, meaning you will get 40-50 gal, of microbes, they do best in 70-80 deg temp…..I know that sounds insane….but it works best if you have compost of some type in the beds.
in the spring. same thing, but side dress your plants as well, there is no need to mix wheelbarrows full in the beds, you get the same result, but no waste. spray your fruit tree’s now, with the tea, and it will help kill off the worms-before they go dormant.

 

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Worm Castings and how much do I need, A Ton, A Yard, or a pound

I am always tickled by the people that call and ask for the price on a truck load of worm castings. Most of these people are well educated people, great gardeners and just looking to save money………

Problem is, I then have to spend about an hour or more, explaining why they don’t need a pickup truck full. Let me try to explain, please overlook the typo’s and spelling as I am not a journalist.

For starters, most “real” worm farms in Ga. may produce a yard or even two per year, of castings. If they claim to have tons and tons of castings(worms crap), red flags and sirens should go off. Didn’t they use any on their own yard and garden, why not.

I am not saying they are ling to you, just do the math….if you have 60 beds, with 10,000 worms in each one about 600,000 worms, and you harvest them every 30 days. You will get at most 30 buckets of castings………..that is a pretty good bit, maybe even a 1/3 of a yard, providing you don’t use any or sell any then logically in 3 months you would have a yard. But that’s only one sale of one yard, once it is gone you wouldn’t have any left. There is only about 6 good harvest months out of the year in Ga. because of temp. and weather.

60 beds full of worms is a fair size, lets double it to 1,200,000 worms and I only know about 6 in Ga. that have that many or more. The math would say you could possibly in a perfect world, under perfect conditions, not selling any worms or castings for 6 months, you might get 4 yards of castings.

Keep in mind, with that many worms, and that much harvesting, feeding and watering, you would have to have at least 2 and likely 4 people or more helping with the up keep.

Don’t get me wrong, there are a few worm farms that aculy have a yard or two for sale, but you wont find them on Craig’s list for 100 per yard.

So, you are asking, how or what are the doing…….well there are lots of things, basically sifting compost. And or uneaten vermicompost.

I prefer to see the GLOW on a persons face, when they show me pictures of their, huge and bountiful crops.

and another thing…………………………………..the magic of worm castings…………………..is………………..

you only need a pound, one pound of castings will make 50 gallons of (fertilizer/tea) And that is alot of tea……………………

Fertilizer is the wrong word, when you apply 10-10-10 or other fertilizers, you kill all the live organisms in your garden, raised bed or yard and give them a synthetic vitamin shot, when you eat the fruits or veggies, that is what you are eating, but what is worse…..the soil is dead and lets in all the bad micro organisms, organisms, bugs and other bad things.

When you use worm tea made from worm castings, you are doing just like 03-03-03 and can do it over and over with out burning, organic, so when you eat your bounty that is what it is. and the soil is ALIVE, with millions and millions of micro organisms killing anything bad. That is their food…..that’s just the start……next year will be even better, and the next even better and so on. not at all like a fertilizer that you must apply over and over. Yes you can re apply tea over and over, but once your yard and garden comes back to life, it will maintain itself. this is the first year I have had so many tomato s, not one had brown spot, the list is endless.. I have only be totally free of all synthetics for 2 years.

back to the point, you dont need a ton of castings. that is the magic…….and there IS, a difference in castings, type, age, worms used, feed used for the worms and more……

This post is copyrighted, feel free to copy and paste as long as you include my name and webpage.

Tim Herron http://www.herronfarms.webs.com 

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Earthworm or Worm Tea 101

The way I do thing’s is generally to simple for most…..the best way that i know to try to explain it just came to me…

any chance you remember your mom making bread, and using part of a (“culture” as a yeast) the concept is similar to making wine and beer with out a yeast powder…..

 

imagine you have a packet of yeast, just add lukewarm water and what happens……….fermentation——or better known as growing organisms right. thats why the yeast rise’s…….

 

now, take a pack–Lets say a pound of worm castings…………….we will use it like a starter, or “yeast”…..add some lukewarm water—-80-90 deg, and stir it up good, just like we would kneed bread…………………..what happens, same thing, you just cant see it “rise” but the “yeast”is growing and spreading…………….millions and billions, if you dont feed them something they will die of starvation……………..

 

with bread, we give them sugar……..with wine we give them sugar, with mead we give them honey. and so on………..add some honey, or molasses to it to feed them as they grow, keep them stirred.

worms eat bad,old moldy food, and transform it into a micronutrient we will call “yeast” when activated with water, the micro nutrients, better referred to as microbes grow, and multiply dramatically, and constantly eat. they will eat up all the bad fungus,mold,and all the other “bad”stuff in your yard,garden,raised beds,farm or field, insects dont like it, as it breaks down compost, the worms will come to eat the compost and the cycle begin’s. birds will flock to the worms, leaving more to eat, the bee’s will come and you wont be killing them. Your garden, “will become alive” just like it was, before we started killing all the good microb’s with fertilizers and pesticides. If you don’t kill “the yeast” it will keep growing and growing. until nothing bad can live long in your soil…….I was sceptical for the first year, till a few educated people came and bought worms from me. one was a microbiologist, and traded me some worms for a testing on my tea and she was very impressed….it all started making sense after that. she named lots of different microbes, some good and some bad, even showed me pictures of them, blew my mind. This is the best year for my gardening I have had in about 30 years, and have spent zero dollars on fertilizers, pesticides or other things…..one pound of worm casting will make 4 gal. of worm tea…..

dilute that 10-1 that is 40 gal. of foliage spray……….you can spray every day if you want, or once a week, or even just every now and then………just not in the heat of the day.

too simple, I know………

unbelievable, yepppp

all I can do is tell you what I know. and that is what I did, not one tomato had brown rot,

copyright tim herron farms 2013….can only be reproduced if acknowagement is given to tim herron farms dawsonville georgia. 706-531-4789 http://www.herronfarms.webs.com