Melvin Baggs asked 8 years ago
I own a Lawn Aeration Company and want to expand it by mixing vermicompost with compost then offer it to my customers as a top dressing to their lawns.
I’ve looked at a commercial worm bin (5’x8′) which when set up will produce about 300 lbs of castings per week.
What is the size of the Beast and how much in castings will it produce in castings per week?
wormadmin Staff answered 8 years ago
Hi Melvin,
Thats one of those “it depends” things.
Firstly the size of the BEAST CFT that the DIY plans are designed for is 10 square feet of BEDDING (and 4 x 3 feet external dimensions).
But you can use the same method of construction for bigger or smaller DIY worm bins. The BEAST 1.5 is 15 square feet of BEDDING (6×3 feet external).
Your output depends on your input. Your input is controlled by your population and your skill as a worm farmer to grow it and then hold it at a certain point – as well as your skill in feeding the CFT.
Generally speaking, a CFT fed manure will return about 50 to 75% of the input as output.
For a CFT fed kitchen waste and cardboard etc. the figure is more like about 20% out that you put in.
So it’s a hard question to answer – sorry.
This week I fed the two CFT worm bins that are 10 square feet a mix of coffee and well aged grass. The volume that I fed each CFT was about 8 gallons.
That usually lasts 2 weeks though. So on some very rough figures I may expect to get a maximum of 50% to 75% back out – or 2 to 3 gallons a week.
But I am not running those systems at maximum, as I never push my systems. So at peak operating ability that figure may be up to 2 or 3 times as much – maybe even 4 times.
Let me know if I can help you more by asking more questions,
Also – have you seen my CFT guide? You’ll find a link in the left hand sidebar to the e-book.
regards
Brian