Inflation strikes again. 2000 worms for 60 bucks from the place I bought from and that’s on sale. Still that’s a good start and still under $100 US. I’m so impressed with how much benefit worm casting give that I wouldn’t hesitate to spend more. I started out with stacked buckets as well Sean and they worked great until I had to expand. We were down a couple of weeks from the bio-weapon attack in the winter of 2021 and I lost my whole first set up because I didn’t keep the root cellar above their kill temp. Bought new worms and started over. I don’t put the effort into it that the people on the web do. I feed them and add new bedding and only harvest castings a couple times a year. I could get them to multiple much faster if I wanted to separate cocoons on a more regular basis. Regardless, the money I spent for worms has repaid itself over and over. No regrets.
I suppose that prices are higher in Sweden Johan but I don’t know why they would be unless there is not enough demand to ramp up supply. There are many sources for worms here including European night crawlers which I haven’t ventured into. Believe it or not people actually develop some affection for their worms. They work their asses off and get rid of your food scraps and you take a lot of shit from them and appreciate it. 
Thank you! You are making me feel a lot less cheap. Their regular prices tripled. I saved 60 bucks instead of just 20. Although I have no idea how many worms I actually have. As long as the compost goes down a bit, I am pretty sure they are still alive. 
Here is an older video from Bobby, the MHPgardener. As honest as the day is long. He has several follow up videos discussing organic hydro solutions and never did get excellent results and he is no amateur. You can’t really use any kind of manure because it would just go increasing fetid in any kind of hydroponic set up. Hopefully someone will come up with a DIY solution but I keep a pretty close eye on this stuff and have not seen one yet.
It is hard to use manure because it is relatively inconsistent as far as nutrient content goes and a lot of the benefit is the microorganisms it stimulates.
In hydroponics you are aiming for specific nutrient levels without the microorganisms.
If you are a grower, you buy organic liquid fertilizer in 55 gallon drums or 250 gallon totes and it already been tested. Because the testing for nutrients is the same tests they do for soil analysis which is like 50 bucks for a single sample for the full test. It isn’t going to be cost effective. I won’t say ever but even commercial greenhouses send their testing out to a lab because the reagents are expensive and some of them have a fairly short shelf life. Some of it is improving like they have meters they can poke into the ground for soil tests for npk, and they can test leaf samples in the field now which is really cool. But that equipment is in the 5-15k range I think per year because they have to upload the data to cloud. Then they have software that maps the field out for you. Then there is another service that can do it onsite, but just from the video, it appeared to still require some chemistry work.
I think that is spot on, I was into market gardening groups online like 7-8 years ago, this was before I realized that I had to put a whole workyears effort into spring and summer only to try to sell produce to people that think the price is too high because they could grow it themselves (but they didn’t, did they). Anyway, litteraly noone spoke about worm castings there, not even the benefits which they should know about since it was a no-dig group.
Did a quick search now and it seems like 800 red wigglers are somewhere between $60 and $100.
Can’t you just count them? 
If you do find one, please tell us about it 
How long can I leave the potatoes in the soil after removing the leaves?
If you cut the above ground part you can leave it as long as you want, harvest when you have time, as long as you harvest before freezing. It is like a root cellar in the ground so no problems
Hmm, didn’t know I can’t store onions and potatoes in the same cellar, thanks for the tip, Tom.
Edit: I have reduced the potatoes for this year, let’s see how it lasts this winter, this year it was far too much again, had to drive it to the forest.
I know someone who stores potatoes in the perforated tubs from junk washing machines. Digs a hole so that the top is about 18 inches underground, fills the tub with potatoes, covers it with a tarp and then stacks a big layer of leaves and mulch on top. Depending on how much snow you get where you live, potatoes will go through the winter underground. Here we get enough early snow that I have very seldom seen more than maybe 6 inches of frozen ground. I have seen in a book that it was common place in England and Ireland to dig a cache in the ground and just leaving a wick of straw from them to above ground store them all winter as well.
I wouldn’t be to eager to scrap those potatoes on your really nice cart. I dehydrate most of mine so that 10 pounds shredded as hash browns will go into a quart bag. I’ll show pictures of that and how I do it since a lot of people struggle with drying potatoes and not having them get them black.
Please do, not that I tried that but I like to learn. I also have a bunch of potatoes in my root cellar but mine look more like giant spiderwebs or perhaps a massive white asparagus patch
In the military - in busy day in the woods - we were fed breakfast, lunch and dinner - all of them first thing in the morning. Just so that no one could ever complain about not beeing fed properly.
When it comes to potatoes we eat as much as possible until Christmas. With the woodburner running, my basement is too warm to keep them ok much longer. By the time spring comes the sprouts are two feet long some of them overdue to even plant.
Been eating fresh potatoes almost every day for a month now. What’s left in the ground will hopfully last until Christmas and from January onwards we will start loosing weight (probably not 
).
Yes, please!
That doesn’t necessarily mean I’ve experienced black potatoes . . .
.
.
, , , but I have 
By the time your store bought produce is harvested, shipped to distribution points, distributed to super markets and then sits in you fridge for perhaps days to a week it has lost a lot of it’s nutritional value. One way to supplement your vitamin and mineral sources.
The blight has progressed slower than I expected but now it is time to cut the potatoes above ground, not waiting any longer.
I noticed that this little Tecumseh 98cc can only run half throttle or more, orherwise it is getting flooded so I guess I got myself some carburator work.
Probably something hanging the needle open. That’s always my rotten luck even with an inline filter.
This might interest you.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1878818119305365
It should stay resident in the soil and should help fight off the nasty oomycete but it isn’t super expensive either. it also has an effect on fungus that causes early blight.
That would be my guess too, there is no filter at all on this one, not even a screen in the filler.
I think I am partially to blame for the blight this year as I had the potatoes very close to where they were last year, I got too greedy and planted the potatoes where I had spread extra chicken poo / winter bedding two years ago before planting a lot of veggies together with another family that didn’t have access to their bought land yet.
Anyway, we had blight last year which was not weird at all, it was a very wet summer/fall and and to my knowledge potato blight can lie latent in the soil up to three years and this year it was a good nice summer.
Next year I am planting in a spot over 100m /100yards away where there hasn’t been potatoes for the last 70 years, if ever.
I believe my potatoes have run the course as well and I don’t think what blight we had prevented them from full development. I’ll probably go back to growing them in buckets next year. I just needed a more abundant harvest this year and I have found that in-ground produces about 20 per cent more yield. I will be moving my tomatoes to an area that hasn’t been planted in before. An old berry bush area that I quit maintaining because the bears just tore it up anyway. I saw in the local paper today that we have only had six days this summer where the humidity was below 60 per cent. Helps to explain why the blight was so bad all over and apparently all but wiped out the sweet cherry crop that has always been the agricultural mainstay of this area. I’m harvesting tomatoes every day and still thinking about Kamil’s disaster. There but for the grace of God is a truth I always take to heart… Have had some issues this year as always but I’m pretty please with what I been putting up and drying. If I can force myself to maintain the greenhouse this winter I will still be growing a lot of leaf and root crops. The bad part is a couple of days down with some crud and not tending to the heaters and a lot of work will prove useless. Just another gamble I guess.
One of those blights is airborne so 100yds isn’t going to do it. I am not joking, I would spray some bacillus subtilis also known as hay bacillus or grass bacillus. however, the new area, may already have some. It is sold as a probiotic so it is fairly easy to get. Then you have something that possibly can keep it at bay in your current field when you rotate back to it.