Hi Christy, Mike is right. He has taken a lot of crap here. Mainly from one jerk who has mysteriously dissapeard. Hmm....wonder why he isn't here anymore? LOL...GOT WHAT HE DESERVED!!! I am glad you found a great organic fertilizer. I have to say that Mike has never steered me wrong and his fertilizer regimen has done tremendous things for me. IF you go thru the posts on the forum, you will find a post that I did on my new 'Dancy' tangerine tree. Not to many people looked at it. I think because they checked it once and realized there was no picture, so they never went back to that post. I also wanted to show people how the FP, white vinegar, and some liquid iron spray saved a sick dying tree. Since you want to go the organic route, can I still suggest one thing? Use the capfull of white vinegar! I have seen such a HUGE change in the health of my plants. I started the white vinegar treatment before I even had the FP. Good luck with your citrus. Your in the right place with this group of fantastic dedicated growers. Mike, Rhizzo, Josh, Al and Pug have all been extremely helpfull (There have also been others that have helped but this group has gone above and beyond being just helpfull!) Just one word of advice. If you are not trying to by more citrus trees, stay away from Meyer Mike's pics!! Since coming here and meeting him, he has been solely responsible for my buying my 6ft Improved Meyer lemon, and my Oro Blanco grapefruit tree! LOl. Love ya Mike! Andrew

Safyre--sometimes it is better to start a new thread rather than adding onto an old one. As for your question, it really would help to know what plants you're talking about. (As to the OP where how many seeds really depend on the plant). Are you talking transplanting into pots indoors, or into a garden. Since Houzz got rid of zone info, where are you at? I'm in Denver, so starting seeds now would mean I can't transplant out until April/May at the general earliest (my veg garden is just in plans right now for seed starting soon). But I have lots of pots indoors for the winter. All are different--I have some newly sprouted chives that I seeded directly into their pots. But I won't start my basil for another month or so, because it shouldn't go out until end of May due to our night temps here.

“LONG post. Looking for advice from folks who have lots of experience with medium scale worm breeding and casting production” Most of us here do smaller scale. “I can already tell that much of the advice out there is like the advice on regular composting - easiest case advice that has been reprinted enough times that certain things become 'consensus' thus must be true.” The same thing happens here. Since you are asking questions about things we may not have experience with, expect more of that kind of advice. “the advice out there that says a worm population will double in 90 days is silly - under ideal conditions they could increase 100 fold in that time period.” The WEIGHT of the worm population can double every 90 days. The numbers will more than double, but many of the new worms will be babies. “My assumption is that the fastest way to get a large population going is to master the right conditions and then to have very low density. IE, a pound of worms in one bin is not going to yield the same population in three months as will the same pound of worms spread across 2,4, or 8 bins.” I have no idea how you come to that conclusion. Worms only breed so fast. Separating them from potential partners does not speed up the process. You want to avoid overcrowding the worms, but one pound in the kind of bin you describe is far from overcrowding. “Is there a minimum number you experienced breeders have found to be the minimum effective dose to ensure worms are finding one another and doing the horizontal worm mambo” Two. “or have these suckers been around a few million years because if there are two they will track one another down and ensure the survival of the species?” I don’t know if anyone here has really researched that, but conventional wisdom says that if your population is not dense enough, you will have less breeding. “For Bins, I am building continuous flow through bins using plastic garbage pails since they are cheap and large.” But are not strong enough to hold the weight of the VC, especially if you have cut a hole in the bottom large enough to facilitate harvesting. Bins made the way you describe tend to collapse under the weight of the VC “I figured the cranked spinning bar would likely just dig a groove above the grate and require some hand loosening anyway” That has been my experience. “I was thinking I'd use 'unfinished' hot compost. By unfinished, I mean it has been turned a couple times and there are still identifiable chunks like leaves that are blackened but largely whole.” This would make great bedding. If your hot compost has a balance of C to N, it would also be great food, and would require no additional food. “Am I right that unfinished compost, so long as it doesn't heat up is more or less perfect and would spur breeding since it would represent a mountain of perfect food source and stay pretty constant in terms of temp and moisture level with minimal effort?” Probably. “Food: I will quickly have more worms than I will have food scraps suitable for feeding them,” You are being optimistic. You may be right, but there can be a lot of surprises when you are raising live animals. “One of my favorite composting ingredients is to get coffee grounds in mass quantity from the coffee shops” This is not ideal worm food. Perhaps you would do better to put it in your hot bins and precompost it. “I have read that too many coffee grounds are bad for worms due to acidity.” A lot of people say that. I don’t buy it. “Is there another reason they would be bad?” Besides that worms don’t like to eat them until they have decomposed a bit? “I don't want to make feeding the worms a full time job so if I get sufficient numbers I know a nursery that will sell a truckload of horse stall compost cheap.” That may be the answer to getting them to breed faster as well. “It's a tad warm usually but I'm thinking that spreading an inch on top of the bins and lightly watering it would prevent heating and I've read that there is no better food for feeding compost worms and getting them to breed/mature quickly?” Correct, and correct.

pickinpink, Absolutely give the plants more space. That would give the root system of each plant a lot of room. Personally I have found that my plants do just fine in the space they are currnetly in. I don't save seed so I am not concerned about cross polination. Although, If I am as impressed with some of the varieties I am planning on growing next season I might consider saving seed on my own. Right now I am content on letting those who do that sort of thing for a living do it for me. But, getting back to planting. If the soil is healthy and you properly prepare each hole when you plant I would think the plants would thrive on 4'OC. But maybe my thinking is skewed because of my small yard. I am always trying to maximize the area so I might be pushing it too hard by going 3'. A good organic fertilzer does not get washed out of the soil like the chemical ones do. It does not appear that my plants have had to compete for nutrients. Mulching is another thing that is much easier to do when the plants are up off the ground. Mulching significanty aids with moisture retention and temperature regulation, not to mention the additional CO2 that is released into the air as the mulch decomposes. For those who live in hot climates water regulation and temp control this is very important. Even though tomato plants like the heat their roots do not. The roots like a nice comfortable cool temperature where the soil is nice and moist (not dry or soggy). In a hot climate it is hard to maintain this situation if you do not mulch. I love grass clippings for this. They decompose fast, they do a great job of creating a nice tight cap for the soil and they provide lots of good nitrogen for the microbes in the soil. There are just so many good reasons to mulch - and I have not even mentioned weed control. My cages are made from the concret reinforcing wire (CRW) that you buy at any box store or concrete yard. I bought a 6" mesh that came on a 5'x50' roll (I think it was 50'). I think I got eight cages out of the roll. It takes 5 1/2' of material to make a 21" diameter cage. Unfortunaetly there is no way to avoid 6" of wasted material for every cage you make. A mesh with smaller openings would reduce the amount of waste but it also reduces the size of the openings. Forget about getting a smallier mesh size thinking that you will cut larger openings with wire cutters. I promise you that: 1. You will not even get an extra cage by saving all the waste, unless you are talking about a roll that is about 100' long. And I wouldn't begin to think about trying to muscle around a 100' roll of that stuff, 2. if you try and cut larger openings from using smaller mesh you will cut up your hands everytime you rach inside to get a tomato. There is simply no way to smooth the razor sharp edges you get when you cut off the tines. Just go with the larger mesh size and accept the 6" of waste for each cage. I did cut one of my cages into 1 1/2' bands in order to make an extension ring for the top of the other cages. In most years my plants outgrow the 5' height by August. I attach the extenion to the top of each of the cages using heavy duty nylon zip ties you can get almost anywhere. If for some reason I want to take the extension off I simply get out the scissors and remove them. The 6"x6" mesh is just wonderful. I can get in there and take out even the biggest tomato. I would guess I have another 10 years left on the ones I already have. Actually I am thinking of making a few more, except this time I am looking into making them square cages. That way I can fold them togtether and store them much more compactly. With the CRW that comes on the roll you can make the diameter of the cage any size you want. You said you wanted to give the plants more room, well you could do that. I don't think you need to go wider than 21" but you could if you wanted. It's just that at some point if the inside diameter gets too big you might as well just let them sprawl. One additional thought... you don't have to change all your plants to cages next year. CRW comes in sheets as well (I think the sheets are 5'x8', but don't quote me on that.) You could start by doing three or four and then decide if there really is a benefit to going to the time and expense of using cages on a larger scale. Plant them at different distnaces and see if it really does impact the health of the plants. It is my guess that most people who have good soil find the plants do just fine at 3' apart. I don't think I have ever heard of anyone who went from sprawl to cages going back to letting them sprawl. Mainly because you can put so many more tomato plants in the same area. I know I am being long-winded here. But if you decide to use some cages next year be sure to make the hole that surrounds your plant almost as nearly as big as the diameter of the cage. The cage itself should sit up outside the hole. Make the hole two or three inches deep with the the tomato planted on a mound in the center where the base of the stem is at the level of the main garden. That way when you water you can fill up the hole and never have to worry about the plant stem sitting in a pool of water. Tomatoes do not like it when the water floods all around the stem. This can cause fungus and other problems. It also allows for you to do deep watering occasionally which helps the plant to develop deep roots. Of course, the deeper the better. Finally, be sure to get some 1/4" or 1/2" rebar or some ordinary stakes to anchor the cages. I use three evenly spaced. If your plants get as large as mine do they can fall over due to weight or a strong wind. This can damage (even kill) the plant. In ten years I have never had one fall over when they were staked to the ground. Hope this helps. Tom