I took on another personal project which was to build a worm casting sifter, or a panning trommel, to better separate my worms and my castings. I found this worm casting sifter DIY video from Planted by Chris, which I followed to build my very own sifter. After I completed my sifter, I would recommend probably a different style with an electric motor. This works better than by hand, but still requires lots of work and sifting for small juveniles/eggs.
I started off by buying the video’s purchase list requirements to make the sifter. This included mesh wiring, PVC pipes and joints, bots and washers, and extra buckets. I cut the pipes using PVC snips and dry-fit the rotation frame together. This was partially done during the snowmagedon. I had to wait post-storm to get certain parts because hardware stores were sold out of PVC for plumbing issues.
These are the legs to the sifter, which are removable for easy storage! I also was inspired to paint the legs and frame because the epoxy binding glue leaked and caused purple streaks. The legs are at an angle to encourage the gravity feeding on the sifter too.
I put the the worm casting sifter to work and sifted 4x bins and a couple other worm stashes. After hours of harvesting and handle cranking with help from my girlfriend, we collected around 12-16 gallons of worm castings! I also added soil and rehoused the sifted worms to restart the four harvested bins, fed the worms well too!
