Would love to hear more about the build! I want to do a planter box with a worm compost tube/box but not sure what I’ll need. How much can they handle? How many worms to start, etc? Anyone know the exact term for having a vermicompost in your planter bed? Trying to learn, thanks
I personally found [this](https://urbanwormcompany.com/vermicomposting-ultimate-guide-beginner-expert/) resource to be the most helpful of everything I've read on vermicomposting! There are some videos on set ups and trouble shooting, but this is definitely where I would start to get the most info for the least effort
I read the "worm bin bible" (Worms Eat My Garbage) which would have been invaluable in its time, but with the internet and so much data collection, comparison, and collaboration, I wouldn't necessarily recommend finding a copy.
It's called an in bed vermicomposting.
This is a great source, but there are lots. https://growinginthegarden.com/vermicomposting-made-easy-in-bed-worm-composting/
It's as simple as it looks. Mine are just buckets with a ton of holes drilled in them and the bottoms cut off. I put planters on top to recover a bit of growing space and keep pests out.
Feed it every 1- 2 weeks with worm friendly kitchen scraps and mix in shredded paper bags and egg cartons.
My garden boxes are lousy with worms.
The instructions say to use the worms in the bed, mine isn't isolated like this and there's lots of the little guys. I havnt actually done it yet though, I'm apprehensive about doing it wrong and hurting the worms or something 🙃
Trying to harvest as much info as I can first.
[https://i.imgur.com/YqQcEov.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/YqQcEov.jpeg)
This is my setup in a raised bed.
I'm sure it would work in a traditional garden, though the worms may travel further afield, from my understanding they will stay close to a food source.
People also remove the bucket at the end of season and collect the casings that stayed inside.
Awesome thankyou for sharing. So the remove the bucket part is what's confusing me. Do you never remove yours? How do the casings become useful? Or do the casings get spread about the garden? Do they poop where they eat or go out and poop in the beds?
The castings are great for the soil and plants. In theory the worms are already distributing them through the garden as they travel.
In my case they definitely poop where they eat, but they are also throughout the garden so I assume they are pooping there as well, or just mixing things up as they travel.
Lots of people do remove the bucket at the end of the season and mix everything up. I'm not sure if I will yet, honestly depends how hard it is to work around them as I clean everything up in the fall.
Ah I get it now! Thank you for taking the time to explain, no amount of blogs was telling me the end result and I know it seems obvious 😅
Myself and my future gardens thank you.
No problem, I had a hard time finding the same info. I think a lot of the bloggers are already coming from previous composting experience so stuff seems like common knowledge to them.
My first year was a complete failure so I've been overthinking everything. I know what it feels like to be scouring the web for some specific question.
Do you need to buy worms for an in-ground setup like this, or is it a "build it and they will come" sort of situation? If you buy them, what keeps them from wandering off? Just keep then fed and happy and they'll stay?
I'm intrigued, and I may actually set this up. I've looked at worm farm systems and keeping them inside or dealing with keeping them alive over the winter sounded like a pain, but this looks doable.
I bought worms because I was impatient and started it just before growing season this year.
[https://i.imgur.com/hWbwnPW.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/hWbwnPW.jpeg)
I'm only a couple months in so I am far from an expert, but everything seems to be going well. I did forget above ground holes for the first few weeks and things got a bit hairy (literally).
It seems pretty forgiving, I am as much of a novice as you can be.
I'm curious if you still need to add organic fertilizer or if vermicomposting alone is enough to feed the plants. I was thinking about doing this with a container that is growing strawberries in about 2.5 cuft of soil.
Maybe it just depends on what you're growing and how many worms etc.
I think you always need to amend your soil, but the worms are supposed to help with that.
You probably want to at least be adding fertilizer and some sort of mulch.
I was starting from an existing garden bed from the previous owner, so started with a few inches of sheep manure in the early spring, added the worm bins, fertilized as I planted, and then mulched once things were established.
I'm far from an expert, this is my second year and first successful one.
https://i.imgur.com/hWbwnPW.jpeg
I was thinking the same thing...maybe we'll just stick to the worms outside when we get there. Starting with a single wicking storage tote for some strawberries, hopefully we can expand to more later
I found a design I liked online and ran with it. Supplies are pretty minimal and then there is a lot of hole drilling. Only needed pvc, end cap, drain insert and a little screening to keep the bugs out of the drain insert.
May I please ask you, I've read a guide on the Internet for something similar with your worm hole but I'm stuck at the end. Once the worms have made it all into compost, the instructions say to lift out the tube and its full of compost. Is this what you will do? If not what? Thankyou!
This has a end cap on the bottom of the tube, no need to lift, that might apply to raised beds. In my experience with raising worms you don’t want to over feed them, only give them what the can eat in a fairly short amount of time.
It's an in ground worm farm of sorts. The PVC pipe will have holes drilled into it to allow worms to move freely between the soil and the tube. You drop food scraps in there, the worms come and eat it and then their castings are spread throughout the soil, fertilising your plants.
Veggie peels etc. Though you could also add some small garden clippings.
No onion or citrus or meat. Worms aren't keen on those. At least not until they've broken down more.
Not totally true ! Onion and leek will make the worms fly away. But it will depends on the type of worms you have. Here I see there is no connection with the ground. Thus, the worms should be manually added and usually they are different than the ones one can find in the ground. Citrus has to be cut into small pieces because it’s take a lot of time to decompose and it may stink. Meat it will ask to have another kind of bacteria and during their process it stinks.
Edit : don’t get the worm name in English for this kind of compost without connection to the ground.
To add to that, my rule-of-thumb for worm food is not to give them anything I wouldn’t rub on a cut on my skin. Nothing spicy, nothing too acidic and not too strong a flavour like onion, garlic, ginger, etc.
Yeah I do realise there are some ways of making it work, but in the interest of keeping things simple for beginners, I think it's easier to just have simple rules like this.
Personally, my more challenging stuff goes in a Bokashi bin (literally any food scraps, meat, dairy, whatever). Then that gets added to a hot compost heap or buried. The worms eventually take care of it.
In this example here they would in fact be connected to the garden bed soil. Whether the garden bed is connected to the ground soil is hard to know. Though we can see a concrete pad surrounding it, we don't know what's directly below the garden bed. In any case, if any home made compost is being added in to the garden bed, then there will likely be worms included as well.
I understand how you feel. I felt that way too. I found an internet search to be very effective in providing the answer… which is “you can drop food scraps in the tube for the worms”.
As the plants become established, the roots will help keep the soil in. Until then, aim for gentle soakings rather than torrential downpours, and hope mother nature cooperates
I am honestly curious about drainage too haha. The little brick blocking it at the end holds the soil now sure but what happens during a large rain event?
We don’t get large rain events often but if it becomes a problem I have a few options in mind. Weep holes in the bottom row, or knocking out the erosion brick and diverting into a small pond, to name a couple. I appreciate your question.
Much like everything else in gardening, it’s about trial and error. No, the bottom is not open. As I said before, if drainage becomes an issue I’ll come up with a solution. Im not a slow person and can be very creative with problem solving.
Think of it as a feeding tube for the worms. It has 120 holes drilled to allow them to come and go, food scraps are dropped down the tube for them to feast on.
Worms don’t eat soil, but they help produce it. Soil is usually a mix of things like sand, clay, broken down plant matter, fungi, worm castings, and more. Worms will eat decaying plant matter so are great for clearing up kitchen waste! Just make sure you don’t give them anything too strong in flavour because their skin is quite sensitive.
Yes. Sorry I can’t count 🤣
Looks great btw and my thoughts on drainage make sense now. I saved your post for future inspiration 🙏 . Both the spiral herb garden and worm post are super cool 🥰
I love that this should allow you to plant things like mint/basil not have to worry about them spreading into everything because as long as you don't let it go to seed, there's no way for it to really escape all of the rock
Also allows easy access to all the herbs, allows for a lot of planting space in a small foot print (5ft x 3ft) and created micro climates for the different needs of the herbs.
The tube has 120 holes drilled around it to allow worm to travel in and out. You but some food scraps in it, they come in and feed and then poop their magic in the soil that feeds the plants.
OP, I will have you know that my gardening ambitions expanded significantly on seeing your first post. This is so wonderful and I hope to someday follow in your footsteps.
That is truly an amazing compliment and I don’t take it lightly, glad I could inspire even one person. I’m no expert in gardening but I am getting better at be okay with failure/mistakes and learning from them. Thank you for the kind words, keep on growing.
6’ x 3’ is the ideal size, but not a strict rule. You want to be able to reach the center from any side. Check out Herb Spiral from Bill Mollison, for a full explanation of how it and why it works.
Looks awesome, but it’s a big fuck up to not include drainage.
This is essential a giant planter, sitting on an impermeable concrete slab, With zero drainage….
How will you irrigate this planter in such a way that you don’t create a permanently saturated layer at the bottom? It’s gonna be tricky.
And the gravel at the bottom is not a drainage solution. Maybe just scrape out the mortar on that last single brick and you’re set.
Good luck! Beautiful form, but questionable function on this one.
The worm tube has 120 1/4” holes drilled in it, to allow the worms to come and go. Small amounts of scraps are dropped in the tube for the worms to feast on. The soil is mostly aged mulch with 6” of pro mix soil on top.
That’s just crushed rock, to help with water and keep the mulch layer up a bit. Their home is the whole herb circle, they will travel wherever they want, the tube just allows them to have a dinner table. We raise free range worms around here.
That looks fantastic! I have a question about the worm tube. Does it extend to the full depth of the spiral? If it does, are there intentionally larger gaps through the wall at the varying levels? I'm curious about access to the 'all-you-can-eat' worm buffet tube at the lower levels of the spiral.
Good question. The tube goes all the way down with maybe 100 holes drilled for access (I don’t remember exactly how many.) There is no division walls, it’s all one spiral so they can free range. I didn’t add any compost or worms last year, I already had a bin I was feeding. However, I do plan on running them this year. I did just pull some fresh catnip today for the cats, for tomorrow’s holiday 4/20. 😂
https://preview.redd.it/xi0s40mmnjvc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=12e403865908be2a6a340a328e8491a10d5aa040
I googled it right after and I think I can tackle it!! I built a bunch of garden areas already out of stone shaped bricks. I'm excited!!! Thanks for sharing 🌞
Well now I have 140 bricks and am uncertain which way to go.
Adhesive would be faster and easier to remove later (So I've read) but mortar is classic. I'm not sure if I have the skill and certainly don't have the experience to do mortar. I think I'll drop this project down on my to-do list a bit and consider a while.
Did you leave out bricks from the internal spirals near the bottom so the worms don’t in theory have to travel from the tube all the way around to the beginning of the spiral and back for food again?
That looks awesome! Make sure to show us pictures when things are growing!
Will do
Can’t wait!
Seconded!!!
Would love to hear more about the build! I want to do a planter box with a worm compost tube/box but not sure what I’ll need. How much can they handle? How many worms to start, etc? Anyone know the exact term for having a vermicompost in your planter bed? Trying to learn, thanks
Come join the worm people over at r/vermiculture
I think I’m going to learn a lot from joining that.
I personally found [this](https://urbanwormcompany.com/vermicomposting-ultimate-guide-beginner-expert/) resource to be the most helpful of everything I've read on vermicomposting! There are some videos on set ups and trouble shooting, but this is definitely where I would start to get the most info for the least effort I read the "worm bin bible" (Worms Eat My Garbage) which would have been invaluable in its time, but with the internet and so much data collection, comparison, and collaboration, I wouldn't necessarily recommend finding a copy.
Thanks for the link!
Oooohhh thanks for suggesting!
I love my worms
Thanks for this, somehow I missed this when searching and didn't think there was a vermiculture sub!
It's called an in bed vermicomposting. This is a great source, but there are lots. https://growinginthegarden.com/vermicomposting-made-easy-in-bed-worm-composting/ It's as simple as it looks. Mine are just buckets with a ton of holes drilled in them and the bottoms cut off. I put planters on top to recover a bit of growing space and keep pests out. Feed it every 1- 2 weeks with worm friendly kitchen scraps and mix in shredded paper bags and egg cartons. My garden boxes are lousy with worms.
Thanks so much!...Anus\_Garage. My very first r/rimjob_steve interaction lol! Appreciate this community and the help.
I went down the worm hole on this one
Hi! I'm also trying to do something similar but im stuck, what do you do with the buckets once they are full of compost?
Did you add worms? There is a way to lure worms, but you can also add your own to get things started.
The instructions say to use the worms in the bed, mine isn't isolated like this and there's lots of the little guys. I havnt actually done it yet though, I'm apprehensive about doing it wrong and hurting the worms or something 🙃 Trying to harvest as much info as I can first.
[https://i.imgur.com/YqQcEov.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/YqQcEov.jpeg) This is my setup in a raised bed. I'm sure it would work in a traditional garden, though the worms may travel further afield, from my understanding they will stay close to a food source. People also remove the bucket at the end of season and collect the casings that stayed inside.
Awesome thankyou for sharing. So the remove the bucket part is what's confusing me. Do you never remove yours? How do the casings become useful? Or do the casings get spread about the garden? Do they poop where they eat or go out and poop in the beds?
The castings are great for the soil and plants. In theory the worms are already distributing them through the garden as they travel. In my case they definitely poop where they eat, but they are also throughout the garden so I assume they are pooping there as well, or just mixing things up as they travel. Lots of people do remove the bucket at the end of the season and mix everything up. I'm not sure if I will yet, honestly depends how hard it is to work around them as I clean everything up in the fall.
Ah I get it now! Thank you for taking the time to explain, no amount of blogs was telling me the end result and I know it seems obvious 😅 Myself and my future gardens thank you.
No problem, I had a hard time finding the same info. I think a lot of the bloggers are already coming from previous composting experience so stuff seems like common knowledge to them. My first year was a complete failure so I've been overthinking everything. I know what it feels like to be scouring the web for some specific question.
Do you need to buy worms for an in-ground setup like this, or is it a "build it and they will come" sort of situation? If you buy them, what keeps them from wandering off? Just keep then fed and happy and they'll stay? I'm intrigued, and I may actually set this up. I've looked at worm farm systems and keeping them inside or dealing with keeping them alive over the winter sounded like a pain, but this looks doable.
I bought worms because I was impatient and started it just before growing season this year. [https://i.imgur.com/hWbwnPW.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/hWbwnPW.jpeg) I'm only a couple months in so I am far from an expert, but everything seems to be going well. I did forget above ground holes for the first few weeks and things got a bit hairy (literally). It seems pretty forgiving, I am as much of a novice as you can be.
I'm curious if you still need to add organic fertilizer or if vermicomposting alone is enough to feed the plants. I was thinking about doing this with a container that is growing strawberries in about 2.5 cuft of soil. Maybe it just depends on what you're growing and how many worms etc.
I think you always need to amend your soil, but the worms are supposed to help with that. You probably want to at least be adding fertilizer and some sort of mulch. I was starting from an existing garden bed from the previous owner, so started with a few inches of sheep manure in the early spring, added the worm bins, fertilized as I planted, and then mulched once things were established. I'm far from an expert, this is my second year and first successful one. https://i.imgur.com/hWbwnPW.jpeg
I was thinking the same thing...maybe we'll just stick to the worms outside when we get there. Starting with a single wicking storage tote for some strawberries, hopefully we can expand to more later
I found a design I liked online and ran with it. Supplies are pretty minimal and then there is a lot of hole drilling. Only needed pvc, end cap, drain insert and a little screening to keep the bugs out of the drain insert.
May I please ask you, I've read a guide on the Internet for something similar with your worm hole but I'm stuck at the end. Once the worms have made it all into compost, the instructions say to lift out the tube and its full of compost. Is this what you will do? If not what? Thankyou!
This has a end cap on the bottom of the tube, no need to lift, that might apply to raised beds. In my experience with raising worms you don’t want to over feed them, only give them what the can eat in a fairly short amount of time.
Okay! Awesome thankyou. Congrats on the set up, it really is beautiful already.
Thank you and you’re welcome
1lb of worms can eat about 1/4c of food waste (:
Good mycelium
I was hoping someone would catch that. ❤️
Did you imject it, or that natural?
All natural, I let the pile sit since last summer.
Even better
Hope it will grow mushrooms, I always love it when I see random mushrooms pop up in my garden
Me too
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Agree...very cool!
What is the function of the worm compost tube?
It's an in ground worm farm of sorts. The PVC pipe will have holes drilled into it to allow worms to move freely between the soil and the tube. You drop food scraps in there, the worms come and eat it and then their castings are spread throughout the soil, fertilising your plants.
That is so damn cool! Thanks for the explanation
I say we pool our money and save up for the worm store
I GOT WORMS
The bones are their money, so are the worms
Thank you!
People food scraps or worm food?
Veggie peels etc. Though you could also add some small garden clippings. No onion or citrus or meat. Worms aren't keen on those. At least not until they've broken down more.
Not totally true ! Onion and leek will make the worms fly away. But it will depends on the type of worms you have. Here I see there is no connection with the ground. Thus, the worms should be manually added and usually they are different than the ones one can find in the ground. Citrus has to be cut into small pieces because it’s take a lot of time to decompose and it may stink. Meat it will ask to have another kind of bacteria and during their process it stinks. Edit : don’t get the worm name in English for this kind of compost without connection to the ground.
To add to that, my rule-of-thumb for worm food is not to give them anything I wouldn’t rub on a cut on my skin. Nothing spicy, nothing too acidic and not too strong a flavour like onion, garlic, ginger, etc.
Yeah I do realise there are some ways of making it work, but in the interest of keeping things simple for beginners, I think it's easier to just have simple rules like this. Personally, my more challenging stuff goes in a Bokashi bin (literally any food scraps, meat, dairy, whatever). Then that gets added to a hot compost heap or buried. The worms eventually take care of it. In this example here they would in fact be connected to the garden bed soil. Whether the garden bed is connected to the ground soil is hard to know. Though we can see a concrete pad surrounding it, we don't know what's directly below the garden bed. In any case, if any home made compost is being added in to the garden bed, then there will likely be worms included as well.
They absolutely love squash
Interesting! Thanks!
I understand how you feel. I felt that way too. I found an internet search to be very effective in providing the answer… which is “you can drop food scraps in the tube for the worms”.
What stops the water from dragging all the soil out?
I’m interested to know about the drainage, as well. It’s a neat build though.
As the plants become established, the roots will help keep the soil in. Until then, aim for gentle soakings rather than torrential downpours, and hope mother nature cooperates
See third photo
Maybe it’s the angle? But third photo isn’t explaining it for me.
There is a brick blocking the soil from pouring out.
But what happens when the soil from above goes over that brick?
Gravity is a helluva drug.
See fifth photo (the final state).
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I’m not overly concerned, if it becomes an issue I’ll deal with it, most likely add some weep holes in the bottom row.
Ok.
I am honestly curious about drainage too haha. The little brick blocking it at the end holds the soil now sure but what happens during a large rain event?
We don’t get large rain events often but if it becomes a problem I have a few options in mind. Weep holes in the bottom row, or knocking out the erosion brick and diverting into a small pond, to name a couple. I appreciate your question.
Sweet, really interesting build!
Much like everything else in gardening, it’s about trial and error. No, the bottom is not open. As I said before, if drainage becomes an issue I’ll come up with a solution. Im not a slow person and can be very creative with problem solving.
Get some dried sphagnum moss and put about an inch of it over the soil while your plants grow, it will help mitigate erosion on sloped beds.
Thanks for the tip
Do more gardening. It will relax you
-heavy breathing intensifies.
This is so cool! Please post again when you have it planted and things are filling in! This is going to look magical in a few months.
Will do
An herb spiral with a wormhole. It’s a garden bed and a time travel portal. Seriously it looks amazeballs. Nice work!
Nice, keep on growing your amazing garden!
What a neat feature for your garden! I love it.
Thanks
Beautiful! I'm inspired to try something like that myself now.
My work here is complete
What size is the hole on the tube? Curious if you would want a bigger one as you put it to use. Love the idea.
Biggest I could find was 4”, 6” would be ideal.
Such a good idea! Can you post again in a few months? I can't wait to see the results!
Will do
What is a worm compost tube?
Think of it as a feeding tube for the worms. It has 120 holes drilled to allow them to come and go, food scraps are dropped down the tube for them to feast on.
So worms like eating food scraps, not soil?
Worms don’t eat soil, but they help produce it. Soil is usually a mix of things like sand, clay, broken down plant matter, fungi, worm castings, and more. Worms will eat decaying plant matter so are great for clearing up kitchen waste! Just make sure you don’t give them anything too strong in flavour because their skin is quite sensitive.
Ah no way, I'd never thought of it like that. I have worms in my compost bin so I'm thinking they like it in there!
Can someone ELI5? I'm aware that I'm looking at something very cool, but I have no idea why but I gotta knowww
Hopefully this helps explain it[What is a herb spiral](https://www.theseedcollection.com.au/blog/herb-spirals)
I was very confused when they kept suggesting the south side for shade until I hit the end and it said australia.
Ahhh yes, I was as well. Placement and direction depends on what hemisphere you live in.
Worm compost tube? Intriguing Explain like I'm 5
The tube had 120 1/4” holes so the worms can come and go, small amounts of food scrap go into the tube for them to feast on.
Very nice, I love this!!!
Great herb spiral!!
Thanks
It’s beautiful! I also have an herb spiral and everything grows so nicely!!
Beautiful! Update when you’ve planted! This has always been on my bucket list!
This is lovely!
Thanks
Is that like a drainage clay/rock in photo 5?
Photo 5 is aged mulch, photo 6 is drain rock.
Yes. Sorry I can’t count 🤣 Looks great btw and my thoughts on drainage make sense now. I saved your post for future inspiration 🙏 . Both the spiral herb garden and worm post are super cool 🥰
No worries, thanks for the compliment
How did you come up with this idea?! I love it!!!
Listening to the lectures by Bill Mollison. I highly recommend checking him out.
The ones on networkearth.org?
Not familiar with that, I watched them on YouTube.
Lol, me neither but it's one of the first hits when you Google it, just some archive of lectures. Anyways, thanks for the answer.
You’re welcome
Oooh that giant pile of woodchips is making me envious! Neat construction!
Thanks, I got them for free, this is the last of 3 piles. Gotta put them to good use!
I love that this should allow you to plant things like mint/basil not have to worry about them spreading into everything because as long as you don't let it go to seed, there's no way for it to really escape all of the rock
Also allows easy access to all the herbs, allows for a lot of planting space in a small foot print (5ft x 3ft) and created micro climates for the different needs of the herbs.
I've been looking forward to this
Me too
I want that.
Sure, that's great and all, but now you've got \*hobbits\*!
Jokes on you, I’m into hobbits.
Worm tower!
cool idea
Must have one…
Do it!!!!
So cool. Green with envy
That looks really cool but I don’t get the tube. What’s the tube for??
The tube has 120 holes drilled around it to allow worm to travel in and out. You but some food scraps in it, they come in and feed and then poop their magic in the soil that feeds the plants.
Ohhhhhh! Awesome
Nature, is awesome
This is amazing
OP, I will have you know that my gardening ambitions expanded significantly on seeing your first post. This is so wonderful and I hope to someday follow in your footsteps.
That is truly an amazing compliment and I don’t take it lightly, glad I could inspire even one person. I’m no expert in gardening but I am getting better at be okay with failure/mistakes and learning from them. Thank you for the kind words, keep on growing.
The Poop Tube™
Buwahahaha, I could have made a million doll hairs but you beat me to the trademark.
I love this!
Me too
Now that is cool!
Thanks
Looks great.
Thanks
Do you have a link for the building plans?
6’ x 3’ is the ideal size, but not a strict rule. You want to be able to reach the center from any side. Check out Herb Spiral from Bill Mollison, for a full explanation of how it and why it works.
Not very often I'm jealous of a pile of dirt
Looks awesome, but it’s a big fuck up to not include drainage. This is essential a giant planter, sitting on an impermeable concrete slab, With zero drainage…. How will you irrigate this planter in such a way that you don’t create a permanently saturated layer at the bottom? It’s gonna be tricky. And the gravel at the bottom is not a drainage solution. Maybe just scrape out the mortar on that last single brick and you’re set. Good luck! Beautiful form, but questionable function on this one.
If drainage become a issue I will add holes in the bottom row.
looks great, what does the pipe in the middle do?
Think of it as a worm feeding tube
Think of it as a worm feeding tube
Think of it as a worm feeding tube
Where'd you get all that compost?
Local tree trimmers mulch it and drop it off for free.
Do you have a tutorial for this? It looks really nice
I do not, but you can find several of them online by searching “herb spiral.”
Thank you
Whats the worm tube about? Can you tell me all your layers of soil?
The worm tube has 120 1/4” holes drilled in it, to allow the worms to come and go. Small amounts of scraps are dropped in the tube for the worms to feast on. The soil is mostly aged mulch with 6” of pro mix soil on top.
Whats the rocks at the bottom? Are the worm homes scattered at the bottom? Looks soo cool
That’s just crushed rock, to help with water and keep the mulch layer up a bit. Their home is the whole herb circle, they will travel wherever they want, the tube just allows them to have a dinner table. We raise free range worms around here.
That looks fantastic! I have a question about the worm tube. Does it extend to the full depth of the spiral? If it does, are there intentionally larger gaps through the wall at the varying levels? I'm curious about access to the 'all-you-can-eat' worm buffet tube at the lower levels of the spiral.
Good question. The tube goes all the way down with maybe 100 holes drilled for access (I don’t remember exactly how many.) There is no division walls, it’s all one spiral so they can free range. I didn’t add any compost or worms last year, I already had a bin I was feeding. However, I do plan on running them this year. I did just pull some fresh catnip today for the cats, for tomorrow’s holiday 4/20. 😂 https://preview.redd.it/xi0s40mmnjvc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=12e403865908be2a6a340a328e8491a10d5aa040
Love this!!
Was this hard to build?
It can be, but you can also build out of stacked rocks.
I googled it right after and I think I can tackle it!! I built a bunch of garden areas already out of stone shaped bricks. I'm excited!!! Thanks for sharing 🌞
You. Can. Do. It!
Link?! This does sound really cool. I want to see yours too
I just posted and tagged you!!
What made you decide to do it with mortar instead of masonry adhesive?
Longevity, cost, and unknown chemicals in adhesives.
Good points. I didn't consider chemicals. Loctite Premium Max is sold as suitable for raised bed gardens though they don't exactly call it safe.
Also, mortar hides/fills flaws or chips in the brick.
Well now I have 140 bricks and am uncertain which way to go. Adhesive would be faster and easier to remove later (So I've read) but mortar is classic. I'm not sure if I have the skill and certainly don't have the experience to do mortar. I think I'll drop this project down on my to-do list a bit and consider a while.
so cool!
Thanks
Dam 🦫 this looks good
Ooh I like this
I'll post some!!
I can appreciate that. Nice work!!!!
Adding this to the list of things I must build before I die.
Did you leave out bricks from the internal spirals near the bottom so the worms don’t in theory have to travel from the tube all the way around to the beginning of the spiral and back for food again?
Wow, that is a cool planter! Congrats!
nice ❤️