Vermicomposting + Direct EM/BIM inoculation = ???

Long time DG user, first time posting. About five days ago, I started a simple vermicomposting setup with two 14 gal. rubbermaid bins - an upper feeding bin and a lower leachate collection bin. I'm satisfied with the progress so far, even though the worms are slow to process the small amount of food I have added (pureed banana peels, used tea bags, coffee grounds, ground egg shells). I have been reading the forum postings here and gathering great ideas. (Props to mraider3, bevoreno and others for the detailed info and war stories). I've also been reading about bokashi composting using effective microorganisms/beneficial indigenous microorganisms (EM/BIM). Bokashi supercharges the breakdown of foods through fermentation. See, e.g., the following DG article: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/109/. Many people bury their fermented partially composted food in the garden to finish the composting process. Others feed their bokashied food to their worms. Mraider3 calls his food preparation process 'wormkashi,' which I'm assuming (but please correct me if I'm wrong) is inspired by the bokashi principle.

I read somewhere in my research that a brand new worm bin can take anywhere from several weeks to several months to develop a culture of microbes sufficient to break down food for worms. This is where the addition of micro-organisms (some folks just add previously-made compost) is particularly beneficial. Various websites sell EM/BIM and pre-made bokashi, but it is expensive, and I have found several simple recipes to make my own beneficial micro-organism inoculant. See, e.g., http://bokashicomposting.com/?cat=12. Rather than trying to both vermicompost and bokashi compost, I'm toying with the idea of spraying homemade EM inoculant directly on my worm bin bedding. My theory is that it will supercharge the bacteria available to break down the food I'm adding to the worm bin, thus allowing for an increased feeding rate. The originator of the home brew EM recipe above actually uses newspaper as the carrier for the EM inoculant, which got me thinking about using a similar process to prepare the bedding for my next worm bin. Any thoughts on this experiment? I'm of the opinion that it can't hurt to try, and thus, I started a lactobacillus culture from rice just this evening. Thanks in advance.

Andrew

This message was edited Feb 16, 2010 11:22 PM

Hi Andrew,
I use one of those plastic 5 gal. buckets with a loose fitting paint lid you can buy from Home Depot to age my worm food. I bought an old blender at Goodwill for about $5
to grind up the food into a slurry and put it in the bucket for a couple of weeks. By grinding up the food I break it down so it can begin decomposing much faster.
I just bought a bottle of EM-1 from EM America, www.emamerica.com . EM stands for essential micro-nutrients that are added to break down the worm food. The worms won't eat whole apples and such. They wait until they get good and rotten and then have lunch.
Paul.

I freeze my worm food before I put in in my bucket for deterioration down to a slurry. I thank DGr somewhere for that hint. I just use already used z-locks and put the days scraps in the freezer and the next day take them out and add them to the bucket.