michael, is working the scare monger field it seems, he has unrealistic phobia about what we need to do to help the planet, we do not live in those old time in england where hygiene was the issue and poor health due to poor food regime, the poor scavenged out of bins, the rich ate rotting meat heavily spiced. we had a composting loo and also a bucket system we buried the bucket contents weekly and grew food trees over it, the composting toilet went to gardens etc.,. we shared much food within our extended family and with friends and neighbours. no complaints ever no one got sick let alone deceased like is being suggested, yet you support sewerage being recycled and returned to you and others as drinking water, the humus from the sewerage farm (where all waste goes eg.,. hospital, industrial teh list could go on and on). the humus gets mixed into the composted stuff that people grab from refuse collection points, it gets added into potting mixes and garden supplements, in that stuff from the tip they pour in liquid waste from all sorts of medium industries. so move on hey you are beating a worn out drum, think of the planet that is being raped by gov' and wealthy manipulators do your bit. this fear factor thing has been going for at least 15 years, i have said these words way back then. and guess what we are still here as healthy as ever. and whilst we don't have a composting toilet(would love to have one) i wee in a bucket and we use all our second hand water. the genie is in your thoughts. old england is past history. we have a life.

do you have a refrence for this material? ~Ryan

The commercial hydroponic product "Floralicious" promoted as "enhances flavor" & boosts "complex secondary aromatic compounds" is not available everywhere ( I worked in Asia 2 years). It includes 2% humic acid, which has a cation exchange capacity (CEC) +/- 10 times greater than normally found; chelated multiple (++) charged trace mineral ions get more uptake with improved membrane permiability. If you take the leachate (distinct from aerobic brewed worm casting "tea") from worm bins' drainage run off this has humic acid (as would the tea). The leachate pH can be 7+ ; make sure bin conditions have not gone anaerobic. Alternately, if you have soft shale (or soft lignite/leonardite) you can bring up the pH to 6.5 - 8.0 (say 25% sodium bicarbonate, or less if use lye/sodium hdroxide) to soak it crushed for 2 days agitated in water (say 50%) to get humic acid into solution & then precipitate the unwanted elements. In N. Thailand (Chiang Mai was sleepy in mid-1980s) you might only have decaying fresh water drift wood to chop up & work with; the guideline is if that old tree carbon's soak water stains yellow you've got humic acid. When working with hard water it will require more source substrate & soft water dissolves the humic acid more readily. (The carbonates affect the process & alkaline/hard water classification is not the same as a solution's pH reading.) Always highly dilute humic acid, because an excess of the plant growth hormones it carries can diminish N,P,K uptake. Another ingredient of the de-" licious" product is a soil organism to regulate root microbial population & keep the undesireables away; it is bacterial innoculation with Bacillus subtilis. Bacillus subtilis encompases a wide choice of varieties. Apart from the beneficial human medical implications of different strains, it is commonly living in one form or another in the soil. The USDA maintains a culture bank of freeze dried strains in vials for the public & many universities around the world will be experimenting it. (Scientific supply companies sell cultures of it to secondary school classes for students to learn how to culture benign bacteria in a petri dish with soy broth nutrient.) As for the other components: hydrolysed protein is meals of blood (say 50%) , fish bone (say 50%) & poultry feather (say 20%) individually dissolved in enough citric acid ( say 50% each extraction) to lower the pH to free their nitrogen (not as nitrate); seaweed (washed) is the multiple trace minerals source; & mannitol (a long chain carbohydrate, such as those found in mushrooms) is a "sugar" for the bacterial growth that acts acidic to help balance the pH.

Thermo is in reference to the thermophilic stage of hot composting. Meso is in reference to the mesophilic stage. Thermo is more about bacteria and is the stage which can reach temps beyond 150F. Meso is the "curing" stage after the thermo or you can make use of mesophilic microbes all the time in cool compost piles. Thermo to meso generally means the hot loving bacteria are making room for the cool loving fungi and bacteria. That's when you get the actinomycetes that give you that "earthy" smell. Folly, you're definitely right that it would be a lot to handle. But, if it is precomposted in the bucket like in a composting toilet it shouldn't be a major problem. There are a few reasons to give it to the worms. One is that worms would greatly reduce the amount just lying around in a compost system. In fact, that is the primary reason I would think using worms would be a good idea. They would save a ton of space rather than having to start another bin. Three, they supposedly further process any pathogens out and make the nutrients water soluble. Four, I imagine it would make great worm feed. Oh, and you don't have to transfer to the worm bin. Transfer the worms. You have to compost horse manure to use it. It's recommended, but not necessary. I don't always do so. I just let it sit in a new bin for a week so it gets past heating up and then add worms. You don't have to let it "cure" before using it in a worm bin or pit. Nobody relishes the idea of "digging through a pile of human waste". Okay, there might be a few out there, but most don't. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Appelhof's advice is nonsense on pet feces. For example, if you have a cat, you have to clean the litter box. You are handling the feces anyway and you're actually doing so more dangerously because the feces is so dry from the absorption by cat litter that you are at more risk for inhaling the dust, which is where the danger lies. Any woman that has been pregnant has probably gotten that warning from their doctor. And many of us men cleaned the litter box for 9 months even though we might not like the cat. Worm bins are not dusty. If you dedicate a bin to feces, just take the proper precautions. Keep it wet. Wear gloves. Don't dig in unprocessed food material (for your and the worms safety). Basic precautions that you really should take with any worm bin. Again, I still recommend against it because I don't trust everyone to take sensible precautions. I think that is why Applehof said that, too. We'll never know now.