I was just Googling around and ran across this informative, handy, colorful brochure about vermiculture offered online by Metro Vancouver. Good for handouts if you are spreading the word...
http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/publications/Publications/wormcompostbrochure.pdf
Tampilkan postingan dengan label vermiculture. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label vermiculture. Tampilkan semua postingan
Minggu, 28 Februari 2010
Senin, 08 Februari 2010
A Midwinter Worm Update
My worm bin is about 2 1/2 years old now, surviving a second frigid Michigan winter in our unheated but "attached" garage, so I'm probably enough of an experienced old worm wrangler to give some advice and make some observations that may encourage you to start your own bin if you've been considering it.
First, worm ranching is not a demanding occupation. I've skipped feeding my herd a week or two, here and there, and they seem no worse for wear.
Second, you don't have to follow the books precisely to get good results. I've broken rules and made some new rules according to the path of "What Works is Good".
Third, TRUST me, you'll get over worm-squeamishness once you've held a few cold, squirmy handfuls of these quiet pleasant little workers.
Background
If you find the vermiculture link in the right column, you can spend some time reading my past worm ranching posts, and watch my amateur video about putting together my second bin after the backyard wildlife (I suspect Racoon. J'accuse!) destroyed my first box.
Where to Keep Your Bin
I am an advocate of keeping the bin in the garage. Where to keep your bin is something to consider if you live where there are animals who might break into the box (for worms or for vegetable scraps?) the same way skunks break into bee boxes. And in the Way of Permaculture, if the box is close to your back door, it will be handier to keep the worms fed.
I've read of other Michigan worm wranglers trying to keep their boxes outdoors covered by bags of leaves. That seems to be going to an extreme, to me. When the thermometer in my garage goes too far south, I stick a trouble light with a 40 watt bulb in the box to keep it from freezing solid. I can take a container of scraps out to that garage wearing my house slippers.
Another consideration for keeping the bin out of the house is the fear I've contracted from others who report they have inadvertently introduced the dreaded fruit fly. I hate fruit flies. I can successfully report no fruit flies, even after feeding my herd peaches and apples in the late summer and fall. My theory is that you need to be sure to bury such fruity scraps completely, and keep the damp surface of the bin contents covered with a few inches of dry bedding.
Bedding
Speaking of bedding, I've used dampened sphagnum peat and coir. I got an end of the year deal (years ago I stocked up at $1 per Brick! Score! at Meijers) before coir became a popular amendment. However, in the past year I've been using shredded paper - it gave me an excuse for buying a paper shredder - which even beats the price I paid for the coir. By tradition I avoid paper with colored ink and suspiciously 'coated' bills.
Catching the Worm Juice
Worm juice is supposed by some to be a smelly problem, but I guess my garage is airy enough that it hasn't bothered my delicate nose. I did figure out the best way to catch it is in a lid from a second box of the same size. I made my bin from a Rubbermaid bin, and put the bin on top of a second identical bin. (That bin can be used to store potting soil, etc.) There is window screen in the bottom of my bin, but I've read if a worm need to escape, he can get through even that.
An added benefit of this Bin over bin arrangement is that the worms are thus raised so I can feed them (and see them) without bending over by half. The drippings should be collected into a wide mouth canning jar occasionally to keep the messiness at a minimum.
To Feed or Not To Feed
Speaking of unpleasant odeurs, I've discovered the least tolerable smell comes from members of the cabbage and onion families. Those kitchen scraps go out to the compost pile. I also find my worms can't keep up with all of the orange and grapefruit peels Herb goes through, or the numerous corn cobs in August. So I compost citrus peels and cobs. All other vegetative scraps go to the worms, along with tea bags and egg shells. I've read that worms like to lay their eggs in the interior of egg shells, so I don't go crazy trying to crush them.
Here I'll quote an interview by Bob Forbes with another worm wrangler from a program handed out at the 7th Annual Spring Horticulture Show put on by the MSU (Michigan State) Horticulture Club, that was in my Neverending Pile. I completely concur with this advice.
"Books and articles on this subject talk about burying garbage at selected locations in the bedding and rotating or alternating between these locations. This gives you the impression that the worms live in the bedding, coming over to the "buried" garbage for meals, and then returning to the bedding. I have not found this to be the case. I think they hang out in the garbage all the time. So I put some bedding in when starting the bin to give them a place to live, and after that I don't worry about maintaining the bedding. I also don't worry about alternating Where I put the garbage, or even mixing it in..." Here he adds ... "or burying it" which I disagree with, but then, he has had fruit flies and I haven't.
This quoted technique eliminates the need to figure out a system of marking the last scrap burial, and the worms don't seem to mind.
Finally, Harvesting the castings
Here I quote again from the above interview, and again I agree:
"The production of castings ... has fallen a little bit short of expectations. As with other kinds of composting, the volume reduction from start to finish is tremendous." I recommend harvesting a bin like mine only twice a year, ideally - in May and September. The spring harvest renews the bin and provides castings for spring planting, and the late summer harvest renews the bin, but gives the worms enough time to get comfortable before the harsh temperatures slow down their activity in the bin once more. A single midsummer harvest will work too.
To harvest castings I turn the whole bin over onto a large tarp which is spread on the garage floor. The western sunshine streaming in the open garage door keeps the worms digging for damp cool shade, making it easy to separate the worms from the castings.
The process is as follows: The sun lights drives the worms down, I scrape off a layer of castings, the uncovered worms dig deeper, I scrape off another layer, until we scrape tarp. The worms are pinkish red and easy to see. They are different sizes, babies to adults and some will be overlooked, but there will be enough to restart the bin.
Renewing the Bin
I put a small amount of damp bedding and some of the old castings, including unprocessed scraps, into the empty bin, and put the mass of worms back into the bin where I feed them, and cover all with dry bedding.
If, as I suspect, there are any tiny baby worms and eggs, or escapees in the castings, then using them in the garden in midsummer can only be beneficial to the garden and give the worms plenty of time to get used to living outdoors, so they can dig down into the earth as they should in the fall to survive the winter.
First, worm ranching is not a demanding occupation. I've skipped feeding my herd a week or two, here and there, and they seem no worse for wear.
Second, you don't have to follow the books precisely to get good results. I've broken rules and made some new rules according to the path of "What Works is Good".
Third, TRUST me, you'll get over worm-squeamishness once you've held a few cold, squirmy handfuls of these quiet pleasant little workers.
Background
If you find the vermiculture link in the right column, you can spend some time reading my past worm ranching posts, and watch my amateur video about putting together my second bin after the backyard wildlife (I suspect Racoon. J'accuse!) destroyed my first box.
Where to Keep Your Bin
I am an advocate of keeping the bin in the garage. Where to keep your bin is something to consider if you live where there are animals who might break into the box (for worms or for vegetable scraps?) the same way skunks break into bee boxes. And in the Way of Permaculture, if the box is close to your back door, it will be handier to keep the worms fed.
I've read of other Michigan worm wranglers trying to keep their boxes outdoors covered by bags of leaves. That seems to be going to an extreme, to me. When the thermometer in my garage goes too far south, I stick a trouble light with a 40 watt bulb in the box to keep it from freezing solid. I can take a container of scraps out to that garage wearing my house slippers.
Another consideration for keeping the bin out of the house is the fear I've contracted from others who report they have inadvertently introduced the dreaded fruit fly. I hate fruit flies. I can successfully report no fruit flies, even after feeding my herd peaches and apples in the late summer and fall. My theory is that you need to be sure to bury such fruity scraps completely, and keep the damp surface of the bin contents covered with a few inches of dry bedding.
Bedding
Speaking of bedding, I've used dampened sphagnum peat and coir. I got an end of the year deal (years ago I stocked up at $1 per Brick! Score! at Meijers) before coir became a popular amendment. However, in the past year I've been using shredded paper - it gave me an excuse for buying a paper shredder - which even beats the price I paid for the coir. By tradition I avoid paper with colored ink and suspiciously 'coated' bills.
Catching the Worm Juice
Worm juice is supposed by some to be a smelly problem, but I guess my garage is airy enough that it hasn't bothered my delicate nose. I did figure out the best way to catch it is in a lid from a second box of the same size. I made my bin from a Rubbermaid bin, and put the bin on top of a second identical bin. (That bin can be used to store potting soil, etc.) There is window screen in the bottom of my bin, but I've read if a worm need to escape, he can get through even that.
An added benefit of this Bin over bin arrangement is that the worms are thus raised so I can feed them (and see them) without bending over by half. The drippings should be collected into a wide mouth canning jar occasionally to keep the messiness at a minimum.
To Feed or Not To Feed
Speaking of unpleasant odeurs, I've discovered the least tolerable smell comes from members of the cabbage and onion families. Those kitchen scraps go out to the compost pile. I also find my worms can't keep up with all of the orange and grapefruit peels Herb goes through, or the numerous corn cobs in August. So I compost citrus peels and cobs. All other vegetative scraps go to the worms, along with tea bags and egg shells. I've read that worms like to lay their eggs in the interior of egg shells, so I don't go crazy trying to crush them.
Here I'll quote an interview by Bob Forbes with another worm wrangler from a program handed out at the 7th Annual Spring Horticulture Show put on by the MSU (Michigan State) Horticulture Club, that was in my Neverending Pile. I completely concur with this advice.
"Books and articles on this subject talk about burying garbage at selected locations in the bedding and rotating or alternating between these locations. This gives you the impression that the worms live in the bedding, coming over to the "buried" garbage for meals, and then returning to the bedding. I have not found this to be the case. I think they hang out in the garbage all the time. So I put some bedding in when starting the bin to give them a place to live, and after that I don't worry about maintaining the bedding. I also don't worry about alternating Where I put the garbage, or even mixing it in..." Here he adds ... "or burying it" which I disagree with, but then, he has had fruit flies and I haven't.
This quoted technique eliminates the need to figure out a system of marking the last scrap burial, and the worms don't seem to mind.
Finally, Harvesting the castings
Here I quote again from the above interview, and again I agree:
"The production of castings ... has fallen a little bit short of expectations. As with other kinds of composting, the volume reduction from start to finish is tremendous." I recommend harvesting a bin like mine only twice a year, ideally - in May and September. The spring harvest renews the bin and provides castings for spring planting, and the late summer harvest renews the bin, but gives the worms enough time to get comfortable before the harsh temperatures slow down their activity in the bin once more. A single midsummer harvest will work too.
To harvest castings I turn the whole bin over onto a large tarp which is spread on the garage floor. The western sunshine streaming in the open garage door keeps the worms digging for damp cool shade, making it easy to separate the worms from the castings.
The process is as follows: The sun lights drives the worms down, I scrape off a layer of castings, the uncovered worms dig deeper, I scrape off another layer, until we scrape tarp. The worms are pinkish red and easy to see. They are different sizes, babies to adults and some will be overlooked, but there will be enough to restart the bin.
Renewing the Bin
I put a small amount of damp bedding and some of the old castings, including unprocessed scraps, into the empty bin, and put the mass of worms back into the bin where I feed them, and cover all with dry bedding.
If, as I suspect, there are any tiny baby worms and eggs, or escapees in the castings, then using them in the garden in midsummer can only be beneficial to the garden and give the worms plenty of time to get used to living outdoors, so they can dig down into the earth as they should in the fall to survive the winter.
Sabtu, 02 Januari 2010
a wintery blast
The temps are in the low single digits today, and the wind chill is fierce.
Time to keep the kitties indoors, no matter how they whine to get out. (...and to chill out every time Herb replies to their whines "give me grace...")
Time to get used to my new laptop, and Google Chrome. (Patrick will be relieved to know Tony did buy the best warranted coverage, and the Pepsi Syndrome was repaired.)
Time to think about the state of affairs in the worm farm?
Last time I fed my flock (herd?, pack?), the night we had pot roast for supper with all of the accompanying veggie peels, they were still wigglin'. But when I took the trash bag out to the garbage can in the garage this morning the cold was palpable.
I dragged Herb out to find his trouble light and I stuck it in the box over the worm bedding. It was my emergency supplemental heat last winter, so it should work again this year. All the sources I read in the past said that worms wouldn't live much below 42 degrees. That's what kept me from vermicomposting for many years. We proved that isn't so.
Senin, 16 Februari 2009
Birthdays galore and wandering off topic
It was a birthday weekend! Abe Lincoln, my fave president; my son Skip, an original Valentine baby who finally admitted it was okay, in fact all right, celebrating his birthday on a significant Hallmark holiday; AND yesterday we celebrated our granddaughter Kayla's third birthday. Oh, time does fly.
Here's a photo of our beautiful B'day girl!
Grandma can never get her to hold still and smile for a photo, but the frosting did.
Speaking of birthdays, in a gardening sense we're celebrating a biggie this year, Darwin's 200th birthday. I was listening to NPR's Joe Palka on All Things Considered (link) reporting on the fascination that worms held in the later life studies of Charles Darwin. Darwin was apparently an earthworm aficionado...
It was an interesting human interest story - telling how the scientist at home involved his young sons in the scientific method - one of his children playing a bassoon to the worm bed to see how worms responded to the vibrations.
And noting the importance of his seminal book on the value of earthworms to human agriculture, The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms. Which you can read online, here (link) or in scanned book form here (link).
Anyway, today I was listening to Tom Hartmann demonstrating how to successfully debate an anti-Darwinist who had no concept of historical context (link). Sometimes I wonder at Hartmann giving so much free air time to proud members of the Know Nothing Party, but then I'm reminded that Tom is teaching by example how to counter the prevailing meme. But I'm diverging from my train of thought here. Back to Darwin's worms!
Recalling the previous story on NPR led me to Google Darwin and earthworm, and I found this interesting article from Wired Science dot com above the fold:
Darwin, Earthworms and the Importance of Individuality
By Brandon Keim
October 14, 2008
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/darwin-earthwor.html
(snip - The beginning of the article talks about a traditional activity called worm grunting.)
"Darwin's worm research began shortly after his historic voyage on the Beagle, culminating four decades later with the 1881 publication of Action of Worms; he showed, among other things, that earthworms do not respond to the notes of a whistle, a piano or a bassoon, and are "indifferent to shouts."
He also realized that England's lush topsoil was the product of ceaseless soil consumption and defecation by earthworms: about 54,000 per acre, depositing ten tons of fresh soil atop each acre of English countryside, every single year.
"It may be doubted whether there are any other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly, organized creatures," Darwin wrote.
This now-forgotten fascination was chronicled by David Quammen in an essay entitled "Thinking About Earthworms." To Quammen, Darwin didn't merely illuminate the importance of these underestimated invertebrates, but the importance of thinking individually.
"At the time, evolution by natural selection was the hottest idea in science; yet Charles Darwin spent his last year of work thinking about earthworms. And thank goodness he did," wrote Quammen. "More and more in recent years, we are all thinking about the same things at the same time.... Break stride. Wander off mentally. Pick a subject so perversely obscure that it can't help but have neglected significance."
That is, after all, what Darwin did. What about you?
This image is borrowed from the Wired article.
Here's a photo of our beautiful B'day girl!
Grandma can never get her to hold still and smile for a photo, but the frosting did.
Speaking of birthdays, in a gardening sense we're celebrating a biggie this year, Darwin's 200th birthday. I was listening to NPR's Joe Palka on All Things Considered (link) reporting on the fascination that worms held in the later life studies of Charles Darwin. Darwin was apparently an earthworm aficionado...
It was an interesting human interest story - telling how the scientist at home involved his young sons in the scientific method - one of his children playing a bassoon to the worm bed to see how worms responded to the vibrations.
And noting the importance of his seminal book on the value of earthworms to human agriculture, The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms. Which you can read online, here (link) or in scanned book form here (link).
Anyway, today I was listening to Tom Hartmann demonstrating how to successfully debate an anti-Darwinist who had no concept of historical context (link). Sometimes I wonder at Hartmann giving so much free air time to proud members of the Know Nothing Party, but then I'm reminded that Tom is teaching by example how to counter the prevailing meme. But I'm diverging from my train of thought here. Back to Darwin's worms!
Recalling the previous story on NPR led me to Google Darwin and earthworm, and I found this interesting article from Wired Science dot com above the fold:
Darwin, Earthworms and the Importance of Individuality
By Brandon Keim
October 14, 2008
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/darwin-earthwor.html
(snip - The beginning of the article talks about a traditional activity called worm grunting.)
"Darwin's worm research began shortly after his historic voyage on the Beagle, culminating four decades later with the 1881 publication of Action of Worms; he showed, among other things, that earthworms do not respond to the notes of a whistle, a piano or a bassoon, and are "indifferent to shouts."
He also realized that England's lush topsoil was the product of ceaseless soil consumption and defecation by earthworms: about 54,000 per acre, depositing ten tons of fresh soil atop each acre of English countryside, every single year.
"It may be doubted whether there are any other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly, organized creatures," Darwin wrote.
This now-forgotten fascination was chronicled by David Quammen in an essay entitled "Thinking About Earthworms." To Quammen, Darwin didn't merely illuminate the importance of these underestimated invertebrates, but the importance of thinking individually.
"At the time, evolution by natural selection was the hottest idea in science; yet Charles Darwin spent his last year of work thinking about earthworms. And thank goodness he did," wrote Quammen. "More and more in recent years, we are all thinking about the same things at the same time.... Break stride. Wander off mentally. Pick a subject so perversely obscure that it can't help but have neglected significance."
That is, after all, what Darwin did. What about you?
This image is borrowed from the Wired article.
Jumat, 23 Januari 2009
a helpful hint for frozen worm bins
My garage is pretty cold, even though it is attached to the house. I overwinter some marginally hardy potted plants out there, and, because my house is smallish, I also keep my worm bin just outside the laundry room door that opens to the garage.
I've harbored feral cats out there, with food and water and shelter from the wind, and learned that if the cat water has a skim of ice in the morning, the temps are dropping pretty low outdoors.
Well, this winter, the outdoor temperatures are frigid. BRRRR. Subzero and I mean Fahrenheit. No cats in the garage this year but my worm bin is still out there and after those subzero days in January 2009, I have been worried about the little guys. Anyone want wormcicles? I don't even like the image in my brain!
Not a big deal in the Karmic rotation (perhaps), but I'd still feel guilty if the little creatures froze solid.
My herd survived below freezing during winter 2007-8, in contrast to the instructions from every vermiculture authority I've read who say they start disappearing? what? around 40-something degrees.
Anyway, this winter My Experiment in Worm Survival has earned Positive but Surprising Results that I'll share with you now:
My bedding-food mixture was questionably stiff, and I thought I might be begging worms from the worm guy at the Extension again come spring (if his worms survived, that is), but last week a light bulb clicked on over my head:
I put a trouble light in the bin.
One light bulb, a few inches above the surface of the contents revived my bin and upon scratching the surface of the thawed bedding-food mass (they don't like light), I detected a lively red worm.
Success!
A caveat or two: The bedding is shredded bills and other paper, a fire hazard if it came in contact with a lightbulb. So I kept the lid propped open a tad for ventillation with one of my old cat towels barely covering the gap. Don't need to burn the house down for a few worms. Be thrifty, but be wise.
I've harbored feral cats out there, with food and water and shelter from the wind, and learned that if the cat water has a skim of ice in the morning, the temps are dropping pretty low outdoors.
Well, this winter, the outdoor temperatures are frigid. BRRRR. Subzero and I mean Fahrenheit. No cats in the garage this year but my worm bin is still out there and after those subzero days in January 2009, I have been worried about the little guys. Anyone want wormcicles? I don't even like the image in my brain!
Not a big deal in the Karmic rotation (perhaps), but I'd still feel guilty if the little creatures froze solid.
My herd survived below freezing during winter 2007-8, in contrast to the instructions from every vermiculture authority I've read who say they start disappearing? what? around 40-something degrees.
Anyway, this winter My Experiment in Worm Survival has earned Positive but Surprising Results that I'll share with you now:
My bedding-food mixture was questionably stiff, and I thought I might be begging worms from the worm guy at the Extension again come spring (if his worms survived, that is), but last week a light bulb clicked on over my head:
I put a trouble light in the bin.
One light bulb, a few inches above the surface of the contents revived my bin and upon scratching the surface of the thawed bedding-food mass (they don't like light), I detected a lively red worm.
Success!
A caveat or two: The bedding is shredded bills and other paper, a fire hazard if it came in contact with a lightbulb. So I kept the lid propped open a tad for ventillation with one of my old cat towels barely covering the gap. Don't need to burn the house down for a few worms. Be thrifty, but be wise.
Rabu, 02 Juli 2008
Back for some worm talk
... or to be more precise, some wormy photo blogging.
Yes, I'm still alive, but it does feel like a year since my last blog entry rather than a mere month. But what a long strange month it has been. So I'll have a few things to talk about - no Blogger Block here! Where to start?
I came home from my nephew's lovely wedding in paradise (a.k.a. the Traverse City area of our fair state of Michigan) over Memorial Day weekend to a jammed up and acting badly computer. Have you ever heard of a warped motherboard? Me neither.
After my I.T. guy got around to fixing Mom's 'puter (he is going to school and has a business to run and a family to attend to) I was pretty much weaned from daily blogging, but hey! it was JUNE! I have a GARDEN! And mostly, Blogger was giving me some issues about, let us say, "ease of logging in" so I said to heck with it all.
But I took some cool photos up on the Mission Peninsula when I was there, and the garden tour on Sunday and my project 'Demonstration Backyard Herb Garden' at the Extension deserves some mention, and the flowers in my yard have been having a field day, and this morning I got a load of pics in my e-mailbox of Pat Whetham's organic CSA farm from a pal, Bonnie, and this afternoon I finally renovated my worm bin... Lots to think about so I think it'll be a while until you can get me to quit talkin'!
So let's talk worms.
My worm bin that I made last summer, and documented in this cheezy video*, survived the winter in an ultra cold garage! When I discovered tiny whitish baby worms in there in the spring did I dance the happy dance!
(*3,224 views isn't bad for such a cheezy video though!)
Everything I've read says worms in containers tend to die off at certain temperatures, freezing being extremely harmful to their watery little bodies.
But my garage - that usually is protective enough to overwinter containers of zone 6 and 7 lavenders, salvias and other potted treasures - was registering in the teens and twenties for almost a month in the dead of winter and I held little hope. The temps killed my potted plants that usually overwinter, so why did the worms survive?
Maybe because my bin had been working since summer and had a lot of mass? I don't know.
Anyhow, today I stayed home from all my gallivanting around, and dumped the bin out on a tarp in the garage, determined to separate the worms from their castings and give them a new lease on life with a whole bowlful of fresh local strawberry trimmings. Lucky worms!
Here below is my photo essay:
Dumped the bin
Large mass of upended castings, very damp but not dripping. Worms immediately headed for the new bottom of the pile. That wooden thing is the framed screen that fits in the bottom of the bin.
Caught a slowpoke before he disappeared.
Here I replaced the screen in the bottom of the bin and added new bedding: shredded, dampened Flint Journal. About the size of a Sunday newspaper, less the ads. Don't want to fill up the bin, just have a nice damp place for the guys to rest.
This is the money shot: see the tiny worm next to the big guys? a good depiction of the various sizes of worms in a bin.
I gleaned two good pails of nice castings. A little rough with eggshells, but those don't bother me. Professional vermiculture operations screen the peach pits, pumpkin stems, small sticks and other chunks out I assume. I just pulled them out as I saw them, and kept the majority of my worms to replenish the bin.
Brown gold!
Yes, I'm still alive, but it does feel like a year since my last blog entry rather than a mere month. But what a long strange month it has been. So I'll have a few things to talk about - no Blogger Block here! Where to start?
I came home from my nephew's lovely wedding in paradise (a.k.a. the Traverse City area of our fair state of Michigan) over Memorial Day weekend to a jammed up and acting badly computer. Have you ever heard of a warped motherboard? Me neither.
After my I.T. guy got around to fixing Mom's 'puter (he is going to school and has a business to run and a family to attend to) I was pretty much weaned from daily blogging, but hey! it was JUNE! I have a GARDEN! And mostly, Blogger was giving me some issues about, let us say, "ease of logging in" so I said to heck with it all.
But I took some cool photos up on the Mission Peninsula when I was there, and the garden tour on Sunday and my project 'Demonstration Backyard Herb Garden' at the Extension deserves some mention, and the flowers in my yard have been having a field day, and this morning I got a load of pics in my e-mailbox of Pat Whetham's organic CSA farm from a pal, Bonnie, and this afternoon I finally renovated my worm bin... Lots to think about so I think it'll be a while until you can get me to quit talkin'!
So let's talk worms.
My worm bin that I made last summer, and documented in this cheezy video*, survived the winter in an ultra cold garage! When I discovered tiny whitish baby worms in there in the spring did I dance the happy dance!
(*3,224 views isn't bad for such a cheezy video though!)
Everything I've read says worms in containers tend to die off at certain temperatures, freezing being extremely harmful to their watery little bodies.
But my garage - that usually is protective enough to overwinter containers of zone 6 and 7 lavenders, salvias and other potted treasures - was registering in the teens and twenties for almost a month in the dead of winter and I held little hope. The temps killed my potted plants that usually overwinter, so why did the worms survive?
Maybe because my bin had been working since summer and had a lot of mass? I don't know.
Anyhow, today I stayed home from all my gallivanting around, and dumped the bin out on a tarp in the garage, determined to separate the worms from their castings and give them a new lease on life with a whole bowlful of fresh local strawberry trimmings. Lucky worms!
Here below is my photo essay:
Dumped the bin
Large mass of upended castings, very damp but not dripping. Worms immediately headed for the new bottom of the pile. That wooden thing is the framed screen that fits in the bottom of the bin.
Caught a slowpoke before he disappeared.
Here I replaced the screen in the bottom of the bin and added new bedding: shredded, dampened Flint Journal. About the size of a Sunday newspaper, less the ads. Don't want to fill up the bin, just have a nice damp place for the guys to rest.
This is the money shot: see the tiny worm next to the big guys? a good depiction of the various sizes of worms in a bin.
I gleaned two good pails of nice castings. A little rough with eggshells, but those don't bother me. Professional vermiculture operations screen the peach pits, pumpkin stems, small sticks and other chunks out I assume. I just pulled them out as I saw them, and kept the majority of my worms to replenish the bin.
Brown gold!
Rabu, 27 Februari 2008
just another frabjous day
I thought I had killed my worms. Not murder you know, but maybe involuntary wormslaughter.
My garage is just way cold!
Not my fault, but 1. the worm bin is just too heavy to drag indoors, and 2. because I had added a bit of real garden soil to it to enhance it's microbness, there are probably some insects that I don't want in the house in there as well as my worms. So I didn't bring the bin indoors and didn't maybe expect the worms to live.
How cold is it? Well, the ice cubes that I dump on my overwintering containers of semi-hardy perennials in the garage to 'slow water' them (probably also involuntary plantslaughtered by the low temps) won't thaw. That's a bad sign. If I left a glass of water out there I bet it would be frozen by suppertime.
I've been convinced the worms were frozen, and I even thought up the old lightbulb in the box solution like we did to keep our doghouse warm back in the olden days when we were dog people.
So I go out to dig down in the box today, just to be sure, and the worms are O-TAY!
Yipee! Who knew! Beats me how such a watery pink little moist thing could keep from freezing solid, but there you are!
The main veggie peels and ends I've been composting lately in the compost bin are things you don't necessarily want in your worm bin: onion and garlic skins, cabbage leaves, grapefruit and lemon peels, the odd houseplant leaf. Herb takes his apples to work.
I'll have to peel some carrots and potatoes and give the guys a treat!
My garage is just way cold!
Not my fault, but 1. the worm bin is just too heavy to drag indoors, and 2. because I had added a bit of real garden soil to it to enhance it's microbness, there are probably some insects that I don't want in the house in there as well as my worms. So I didn't bring the bin indoors and didn't maybe expect the worms to live.
How cold is it? Well, the ice cubes that I dump on my overwintering containers of semi-hardy perennials in the garage to 'slow water' them (probably also involuntary plantslaughtered by the low temps) won't thaw. That's a bad sign. If I left a glass of water out there I bet it would be frozen by suppertime.
I've been convinced the worms were frozen, and I even thought up the old lightbulb in the box solution like we did to keep our doghouse warm back in the olden days when we were dog people.
So I go out to dig down in the box today, just to be sure, and the worms are O-TAY!
Yipee! Who knew! Beats me how such a watery pink little moist thing could keep from freezing solid, but there you are!
The main veggie peels and ends I've been composting lately in the compost bin are things you don't necessarily want in your worm bin: onion and garlic skins, cabbage leaves, grapefruit and lemon peels, the odd houseplant leaf. Herb takes his apples to work.
I'll have to peel some carrots and potatoes and give the guys a treat!
Senin, 01 Oktober 2007
As The Worm Turns
A note to new visitors from the county Master Gardener link: you can find my other videos, including a diary of the Backyard Herb Garden at the Extension, and a look at the Detroit Urban Farm Tour, and more, by clicking the "tag" word called video... (to the right of the screen in the alphabetical list of subjects.)
And, if you'd like to see more YouTube home-made videos on this topic, double click on the video and the magic of the internet will sweep you away to the page where this video is located on YouTube, where similarly tagged videos can be found.
Kamis, 16 Agustus 2007
Worm thief, captured!
No, not Puffy. Stupid old dear. Meaow!
The racoon escaped from the live trap baited with corncobs. But when we beaded marshmallows on a string and tied it down to the floor of the cage, he had to spend some time in there and he set the spring. We caught him yesterday...
Quit Hissing, robber!
We let him go a few miles away on a wooded road - he immediately tried to climb the nearest strong tree.
If I'da painted his toenails red, I'd know if he makes it back, but didn't think of it until he was set free. Herb did see two racoons, so we're setting the trap for the other one. And my worm bin will definitely stay in the garage.
Worm Bin Update:
Last night at the Master Gardener meeting I talked to our community worm farmer, Brad, and he gave me permission to bring home a scoop of red wigglers from the worm farm he has been tending all summer at the Extension. Yipee! now I'll be able to get another bin going before winter sets in.
Sabtu, 04 Agustus 2007
Worm Thief!
I THOUGHT I had a pretty good set up.
Out the back door, on the shady side of my shed, right near one of the compost piles I located my worm box.
Did I tell you about the Growing Power Urban Agriculture workshop at the Extension, when Will Allen came to Flint and left behind a lot of knowledge and enthusiasm, and some of his red wiggler worms?
Anyway, I had a worm box, but never had the right kind of worms - so it was unused - until Will Allen's worms came home with me.
My beer-brewing son gave me a bag of spent barley mash for bedding, and with my food scraps, I was ALL set.
So, today I'm taking my scraps out to bury them in the bedding. And this is what I find...
A WORM THIEVING RACOON STRUCK! The Rubbermaid top was pretty tight, I guess, so he must have chewed through the side.
The hail in June and the drought and 90 degree temperatures weren't bad enough. AUUGH!
I dug through the remains, and found a few worms, maybe I can start another box, but in the garage this time.
Oy vey, time for some Lemon Balm tea.
Out the back door, on the shady side of my shed, right near one of the compost piles I located my worm box.
Did I tell you about the Growing Power Urban Agriculture workshop at the Extension, when Will Allen came to Flint and left behind a lot of knowledge and enthusiasm, and some of his red wiggler worms?
Anyway, I had a worm box, but never had the right kind of worms - so it was unused - until Will Allen's worms came home with me.
My beer-brewing son gave me a bag of spent barley mash for bedding, and with my food scraps, I was ALL set.
So, today I'm taking my scraps out to bury them in the bedding. And this is what I find...
A WORM THIEVING RACOON STRUCK! The Rubbermaid top was pretty tight, I guess, so he must have chewed through the side.
The hail in June and the drought and 90 degree temperatures weren't bad enough. AUUGH!
I dug through the remains, and found a few worms, maybe I can start another box, but in the garage this time.
Oy vey, time for some Lemon Balm tea.
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