From Trash to Treasure

I have been thinking about how I can get more boxes/bins for my worms. They double in population about every month! If you leave them in the same container and keep feeding them some will eventually die off, but you can keep them in that same area for a long time. Since I've been collecting the castings and adding them to the garden (and making compost tea as a fertilizer) I've been wanting a way to be able to collect even more. I've been keeping my eyes out for bins on the side of the road (Isn't it amazing what people throw away?) since I knew I didn't want to buy any new materials for this project.

A few weeks ago, while driving to a friend's house, I spotted this big blue bin. When I stopped to take a closer look I noticed it smelled terrible--like someone was using for a garbage bin and instead of dumping the garbage out, they decided to dump the whole bin. (can you imagine how long it would take something like this to decompose in a landfill?) I almost just left it there. But I got my guts up and used a plastic bag to pick it up, dump it and put it in the back of my car. It barely fit! When I got home I hosed it off really good and cleaned it out. Since it was going to be for my worms it didn't need to be that clean, right:) I drilled air holes, loaded it with bedding (soil and moist newsprint and cardboard) and added the worms. After that I thought that it was looking a little faded and sad so I asked the girls to come out and help me make it pretty. It's so much nicer to feed the worms and collect their poo when I have the girls beautiful artwork to look at!

I didn't get a picture of the bin before cleaning, but here it is right after I loaded it with the bedding.

The girls first primed it with some leftover kilz then painted it with some acrylics.
Here are my newest 2 bins. All together I have 3 bins that I keep in the carport. Notice the new bin is bigger and has wheels. I saw a new one at Lowe's the other day priced at $16.99! Maybe others wouldn't consider this trash turned into treasure, but when you consider what a bag of worm castings or bottle of compost tea costs, plus the cost of the bin--this is surely a treasure to any gardener!

Garlic Harvest

We decided to grow garlic last fall. It was simple to do and low maintenance throughout. Our books recommend getting garlic from a seed store but we went to the grocery and picked out a couple of nice organic cloves (the danger in either case is taking garlic home to grow that was not grown in your region and isn't as productive given certain environmental conditions). Pick a sunny space in your yard (maybe a flower bed or anywhere you can spare) and plant bulbs 6 inches apart about a month or 2 before the soil freezes. After planting cover with a layer of straw or mulch. In the spring you can remove the mulch and look for sprouts. Garlic will grow well with only moderate attention, but it is slow growing. It is ready to harvest when the leaves begin to turn brown or fall over. This generally happens in late summer but as you can see we are harvesting here at the beginning of June (probably a combination of poor soil and extreme heat). But it was worth it! Remember that the garlic will inhabit its place in the yard from Fall to late summer but you can companion plant with lettuce underneath the maturing garlic.

Here the girls are spreading our first harvest of vermicompost (worm poo) in the spot where we will be planting the garlic cloves. This was November of 2007

Jen took this picture so she would remember where the cloves were planted.
Garlic growing in spring of this year.
After we pulled it up last week we let it sit and cure in a shady spot for about a week.
Note: Cost=3 bulbs. Payoff=30 bulbs.

Also, here is a quick pic of some of our early summer harvest. We still have greens producing but most of the lettuce, kale, and chard are going to seed. The girls wanted to put hands on the beans as they harvested these. We are eating beans like crazy, and the zucchini is producing well. Below Jennifer is holding some basil. We are eating it like the beans (as much as we want). Last, a picture of the corn. Tomatoes, peppers, corn, and eggplant are flowering and have their first fruits hanging. Very exciting. More later.

Note to self: It is frightening to check the girls growth from garlic planting to garlic harvest. They themselves are growing like crazy!

Basic Worm Composting and Compost Tea

Last year we started composting with worms. I posted a few of these pictures last November when we harvested the first batch of vermicompost from our worm bins and added it to some of our garden. I'm posting the photos again to show how rich the castings look compared to our sandy soil. The second picture just shows what these little red wrigglers actually look like.

These are my worm bins that I keep on our front porch. I started with the blue one then decided to give them some more room to spread out and added another bin. They will actually reproduce really fast so if I can keep them alive we'll keep getting more worms!

It's very easy to assemble the bins.

First, you just drill holes for air all around the box. I used these plastic bins but a lot of people build small wooden boxes for their worms.

Then you add the bedding. You can use some dirt, compost, or more commonly people use shredded newspaper sprayed with a little water.

Then you add your worms. The red wigglers can be bought online or from a local bait shop (just make sure you are getting the composting worms (red wigglers)and not nightcrawlers).

Then you start feeding them. They eat kitchen scraps--rotting fruit and veggies, coffee and filters, tea and bags, and any grains. They don't eat animal products. Cover the worms and food scraps with more bedding. In a few weeks the worms will eat through the scraps and will leave behind beautiful, rich, fertilizer that you can add to houseplants or anywhere.

This is a terrible picture since you can't even see any of the worms but this is what the inside of the bin looks like.
About a month or so ago I started making compost tea with the vermicompost. The tea is made by putting some of the worm compost in a tea bag and letting it sit for several days. There are many ways to do it but I decided to use a fish pump to aerate the water as this was recommended to produce the best tea. The finished product is used to water or spray on the beds as a fertilizer. It helps to prevent foliar diseases when sprayed on leaves,and it increases plant growth and helps make nutrients more available to plants when added to the soil.

Here's what my tea bucket looks like before I add water and the pump. The mesh "bag" is actually flexible window screen. It is filled with about 2 cups of vermicompost and tied together with a thin string then attached to a stick so it will be suspended while sitting in the bucket.


This is what it looks like after I add the fish pump and water. There are 4 hoses that are pumping air. I also add a little molasses for the beneficial bacteria to eat. After 3 days I pour the tea into a watering can and pour it on our plants and seedlings. I've been making it once a week for the past 3 weeks.

When I first started the worm compost I was a little freaked out by the worms. But now I feel completely the opposite. I love them. I put my bare hands in the bin filled with bugs and worms all the time. I think it is really amazing how they can turn our trash into such treasure! They are amazing creatures.

This is a very simple explanation and I'm sure I left a lot out. There is tons of info on the web giving detailed instructions on how to start worm composting and brewing compost tea. If you are interested...google is at your fingertips!

science, nature, and service

We started vermicomposting about 6 months ago after I got a small bag of red wiggler worms from a friend of mine. This species of worms prefer the conditions in rotting vegetation, compost and manure piles and are a little different from the earthworms that you might find in your yard. They are perfect for eating through the kitchen scraps of a vegan family! The worms live in a bin on my front porch. I started the bin with layers consisting of a bed of wet newspaper, then the worms on top, then added the food scraps, then a layer of leaves or dirt or something just to keep the flies off. I drilled holes in the bin (which is actually just a plastic bin from the dollar store) to allow for drainage and airflow. They did try to escape after the first day. Apparently, if the conditions are not just right for them they will leave. I put them back in the bin and just tried again, not changing anything. They must really like it in there now because they have multiplied and eaten through so many scraps over these few months. I don't give them much attention. I feed them about once a week or less depending on when I remember to do it. I'm sure I went several weeks at a time without even looking in the bin. The girls really like the project. I have to admit, I'm a little grossed out by the creatures. One worm doesn't really bother me but when I have to look at so many all bunched up together it's different. Then I remember that they are so harmless and move really slowly.

Yesterday, we decided to separate the worms from their castings. This worm poop is what is so good for the soil because it is so rich in nutrients, even more so than regular compost. There are many ways to harvest the castings and I think the way we did it was the most complicated. We just dumped everything out of the bin, put on gloves and started separating the worms from the compost. It was a long process because as I said before there are tons more worms now and, amazingly, no recognizable food in all that rich compost. Then we put the worms back in the bin and I'll be adding the compost to the garden. The girls were very interested in the little guys. They talked to them and would try to get as many worms as they could in their hands.






The girls and I are part of a Roots and Shoots group. This quote from the organization's homepage explains the group best.

(www.rootsandshoots.org) "Roots & Shoots, a program of the Jane Goodall Institute, is a powerful, youth-driven, global network of more than 8,000 groups in almost 100 countries. Together, youth of all ages are taking action to improve our world through service learning projects that promote care and concern for animals, the environment and the human community."

Our local group is just starting up. We are still trying to work out some of the details but basically we are just a group of families who want to make a positive impact in our community and the environment. We have lots of ideas and plan on meeting at least once a month. The first meeting we talked about birds and migration and made bird feeders out of orange juice cartons. These last 2 pictures are of our 2nd project doing a trash pick up at a park. It's amazing how much fun kids can have picking up and sorting trash.