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Harvesting The Worm P_ _p

January 6, 2012

Bishop Composting, Gardening , , 4 Comments

The bounty after screening

The “nicer” word for the harvest product is “castings” but I like to be as realistically accurate as possible.

I had ignored my silent workers long enough. It was time to see what was left behind in the bottom bin of my vermicomposting equipment. I use two big 18 gallon Rubbermaid  storage tubs. If you want to make your own, I would suggest using a more shallow bin. Live and learn is my motto….but it seems like I am relearning many of the same lessons. Hmmmmm. maybe I should mention that to the doctor on my next visit, the problem is I will probably forget to mention it!  Here is a link to a “How To Article” for building your own bins. I use a stacking process to get my little guys to migrate up into a newly prepared bin. http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/cowell124.html

If you want to try raising worms go to my first choice – Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm online at; http://www.unclejimswormfarm.com/ He has everything you need as well as commercially made equipment, advice and bags of worms….. They only ship in the US so if you are outside the US you will need to find or search for suppliers.

As my little buddies consume all of my kitchen scraps they leave behind wonderfully rich castings. Once the bin has 8 to 10 inches of the good stuff in the bottom I prep the second bin with shredded wet newspaper and some and some good tasty treats to entice the little guys to migrate up through the 1/4 inch holes in the bottom of the bin. After two months or so the only things left in the bottom bin are the rich castings and a few stubborn workers that have not quite licked their platters clean….I guess if I were a worm I would be one of the stubborn ones in the bottom bin. My mother would never let me have the good stuff….dessert, until my plate was COMPLETELY clean! Isn’t that right Mom? She reads my blogs so I know that I will hear from her not long after this is posted. Something else Mom, the worms in the bottom seem to be a little chubbier…. could be one of life’s little lessons…Maybe I should have left a little more on my plate and passed up a few more desserts….. I still love you Mom!

The how-to article link above also shares a description for a worm casting tea. I have some friends here in Kingwood that brew this up this and use it as a foliar feeding fertilizer. I have yet to brew my own but have all the equipment. I have several aerators that I use to keep my bait alive while fishing…….they are battery operated so it may be beneficial to buy a small plug-in electric model.

I get odd stares from folks when I talk about my vermiculture and composting efforts. They consider me to be a bit odd. I guess maybe I am a little odd but I seem to enjoy my oddness. My daughter Ashleigh has helped a few times with the harvest and better understands my oddness. She was also amazed at how clean and odor free the process was. Virtually no detectable odor. I have my castings out and exposed to the sun’s heat to dry them out before storing. See photo above. I will make some tea this weekend but will pass on including scones and/or biscuits with the endeavor!

My other gardening activities include;

I added a single strawberry tower to John’s backyard. It will be a nice surprise for him when he returns from his Aruba vacation. I told his wife, Beverly, to not let him take her snorkeling on any secluded beaches!!!!….just a bit of dark and tongue in cheek humor!

While working in John’s yard I added a couple of rows of bunching green onions from seed and put in a single row of sugar snap peas. Both of these additions were in his original 4X4 bed. I also  thinned the radishes and turnips in the new bed. I must have been a little too liberal in my original seeding efforts. The onion and garlic bulbs, even though planted late, are emerging nicely. They seem to be benefitting from this mild winter – I am reluctant to call it winter – it just seems like a prolonged Fall or an early Spring.

I topped off one of my compost bins with shredded leaves this week and added an activator, prepackaged micro-organisms, to speed things along. I will add a weak water and molasses mix today as some additional food to get the pile heated up. It is amazing to feel how hot the process becomes …… literally cooking up some great garden food for the garden.

I added some spinach and Swiss Chard transplants that I had started from seed a month ago. The next 10 days looks like very mild weather so they should take off pretty quickly. I have some really nice looking turnips to harvest this weekend. I don’t find too many recipes that “feature” turnips, they seem to occupy the niches for added body in most recipes. I found one in AllRecipes that caught my eye, “Beef Stew with Ale”. A cup of diced turnips finds their way into the recipe and what really caught my eye was the word “Ale”. Must be a typo in the recipe though….the ingredient list calls for two bottles of a brown lager….hmmmm a big difference between the two…. If you try this recipe just use a good Ale, preferably a Brown Ale!!!! http://allrecipes.com/recipe/beef-stew-with-ale/detail.aspx

Enough for now – I changed up my post background, it seems to be a little easier for my old eyes to read…. I hope you like it.

TTFN

Bishop

Fall Harvest is Getting Closer

October 7, 2011

Bishop Beans, Composting, Gardening, Vegetables , , , , , , 4 Comments

The start of a homegrown tomato!

I wasn’t sure if the tomatoes I planted in late summer would give me any “maters” before the so-called winter chill hit. I was out this morning watering, looking and planning for what I want to put out next when I spotted this tomato. I had been brutally hot for September, too hot for blossoms to set so I had almost given up. Well, we may have homegrown tomatoes at Thanksgiving and probably earlier this fall. I looked a little closer and saw that I have a dozen or so that have appear to have set and lots of blossoms that are healthy.

I will pick probably a serving or so of green beans this weekend and I’m getting some good help from one of my green buddies wearing blue eye shadow. It is a don’t ask don’t tell issue…. as long as he does his job protecting my green beans I am a happy camper. Just an FYI…. sometimes they change colors and blend very well with the bricks. It seems that the blue eye shadow disappears when patrolling the bricks. They are called green anole lizards, Anolis Carolinensis. read more here; http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/galveston/beneficials/beneficial-19_lizard_green_anole.htm

One of the volunteer cucumbers.

My experiments continue…. I had spread some compost from my bins in early August and have found a pleasant surprise… I have some volunteer cucumber plants. Just for grins and giggles I let them grow and now I have some cucumbers beginning to mature. Time will tell which variety made it through the composting process, obviously my heap did not generate much heat.

Temperatures are still touching the low 90’s and lows in the high 60’s for the next week or so. We did have a few sub 60 degree mornings but they were fleeting.

On a last note, I am chastising myself for being so naive and trusting. I went down to Lowes and purchased some Miracle Grow brand “organic” soil for one of the beds that I reworked at the end of summer. I spread the “organic soil” and it looked a lot like sawdust. As I sorted through it I saw what looked to be saw dust and wood chips, and little else of the possible ingredients listed on the bag. A closer examination of the bag has a disclaimer for bags purchased in Texas and California…. it says the contents are “regionally formulated forest products – that is the first ingredient listed. I could not tell if any of the remaining ingredients were present – but to the naked eye I saw nothing but sawdust and wood chips…. The label says organic and I guess it is true but it won’t add any benefit to the soil until it breaks down in a year or more. Caveat emptor….. read the labels before you buy!!!!

TTFN

Bishop

A How To Lesson – Compost Bin Basics

August 22, 2010

Bishop Uncategorized , , , , , , Leave a comment

Dual Compost Bin
Dual Compost Bin

This is my compost bin built primarily from remnants of my blown down fence after Hurricane Ike visited my neighborhood. It is about 75% recycled wood and wire screen, the remainder is store bought. Foot print dimensions are 30 X 36 inches and about 40 inches tall. On the left side you can see some wood slats drilled with holes for air circulation. The slats fit in a groove to allow access to the bin for turning and removal of material. At the base I installed access doors for removal of material – good idea but has not been real practical. I need to trim about an inch or so off the bottom edge to make it easier to swing the door open. I am still looking for a "round to it" to get pushed off center!

Why two bins? Well, originally I thought I would need two during the summer to keep up with the massive amounts of grass clippings we grass we generate in this God awful hot and humid climate. The nice surprise is that the grass heats up and decays so quickly that it never fills up. My son Joe came in the house one day after mowing and said the bin was too full. I suggested he look again in three days and see if it was too full. Three days later, plenty of room for the next week's mowing. I now use the other bin to hold the brown material needed to keep the ratio of green to brown material in a close to correct balance.

Training folks to use the bin – this is the tough part. I go back a few years to our Midland, Texas days. As always I had a bin in our Midland yard. I was coaching my wife to take the kitchen scraps, no meat, fat or bone – just veggies and bread, out to the bin or let me or one of the kids do it. Well we had a lesson learned experience. Kathy was making mashed potatoes and had a sink full of potato peelings. Instead of gettting them out to the bin she attempted to process them through the garbage disposal unit. Potatoes are very starchy and stick together – they plug up the disposal discharge line -SOLID! The repair is just some minor plumbing work easily enough done. I received a promise to never try that again. Well – the promise did not last long and I was under the sink again to remove the starch bound mass of peelings. The lesson has now been learned – that was probably 10 years ago and I have not been under the sink for that repair again.

What goes to the bin – most kitchen scraps over and above what goes to the worm bin, grass clippings (the green stuff), leaves (the brown stuff), mulched up yard waste (chopped up through the mower to increase surface area allowing quicker rotting) and anything that will decay.

A definitive guide is found in the book titled " Let it Rot" can't remember the author's name but it is a great source of composting info. I have misplaced my copy. My beds are healthier and more productive, the soil is easier to work and I have an abundance of large worms to take to the lake – cat fish love my worms!!! PS – not the little guys in my worm bin…… I need them doing their job of making wonderful worm poop.

TTFN
Bishop

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