Worm Composting by PaulaWalla

We’ve been enjoying the veggies of our labors!  Here’s a photo of some things I picked yesterday. Cucumbers, green beans, a tomato, a small turnip, a radish, a couple tomatillos and a zucchini. Oh! And one little potato that grew under the compost pile!

Garden Bounty Aug. 4, 2010

The worms are doing fine – I’ve been gathering some of the castings out of the bottom catch basin for use in the garden as needed with new seedlings or just throughout the garden.  I have a couple big flowers pots full at the moment and I need to plant some more anyway…

The garden is doing pretty well. Only a few losses – a green bean plant that got fried before I ever planted it, some weak cantaloupe seedlings, etc. No big loss as I have others.

I’m posting some more garden photos today!

My plants are loving the Quantum Growth liquid!!! They’re already healthier looking, like nothing can stop them!

Yesterday, I planted three tomatillo plants given to me by our friends Kathi and Everardo. I’ve never eaten them before, but I found some good recipes!

I just planted some turnip and beet seeds in a nicely tilled (by hand) area of about 2 x 8. We’ll see how they grow. I haven’t had good luck with root crops… but maybe this is the year!

I put the Quantum mixture on the new plants and seeds areas, as well as the upside down tomato plant (in an old watering can) and the garlic  – the areas I missed last time.

I also fed some chopped up lettuce and cucumber peels to the worms. Got to keep them fed!

Today I cleaned out the 1st worm bin completely, putting the vermicompost into two separate containers (planters, really) for use in the garden. Now I can use the 1st bin in the worm composter again, as the 2nd bin. Can’t imagine needing all 3 or 4 bins at one time… although there are a TON of worms now.

Today I planted my three cantaloupe seedlings, two lettuce seedlings and 16 green been seeds, all with some vermicompost just under the soil.

I also started using Quantum Growth today – it’s an organic soil amendment / enhancement liquid that I got from the good people at GreenEarthAg.com. It stinks!  But you only use 2 oz. to a gallon of water and it’s supposed to do amazing things for your plants – encouraging greater root growth, healthier plants, and higher yields.

I also need to buy some hay from a local farmer to use as mulch to keep the weeds down and the moisture in. It should also help me see where my actual paths are through the garden. I almost stepped on my one parcel seedling several times it’s so tiny!

I harvested my first large amount of vermicompost today. I can’t believe how many worms there are now! They are quite the multipliers. I got most of the worms out of the 1st bin manually as they were still hanging around even though the bin was almost all castings. They can’t live in that. Silly worms. I left a few in the 1st bin with the vermicompost that I’ll use in my garden – they’ll live for a short while in the garden aerating the soil for me.

Almost done planting the garden. I have several more plants to plant and seeds to sow but I’m getting there.

It’s almost 90 degrees today. I’ve been so worried about my plants that I forgot to consider the worms. I looked in the bottom of the bin today and found at least 20 – 25 worms all huddled in the bottom, near the liquid. I assume they’re hot.  Well, that and the 1st bin is now mostly castings.  Not sure why they chose to go down instead of up where the food is… anyway, I put all the wayward worms into the 2nd bin. There really wasn’t that much food in the 2nd bin so I put a bunch of kitchen scraps in and added more moistened newspaper.  The worms should be happy there. I’ll wait a while till most of the worms move into the 2nd bin and then I’ll take the vermicompost to use in my garden.  It’s not all that much so I may use it as side dressing for the new plants.

I learned a few things from my last experiment… I had thrown some old lentil soup (not too liquidy) into the first bin, then added the second bin (with some moistened shredded newspaper and just a little bit of kitchen scraps).

First of all, the second bin fits inside the first bin completely, so it rests on top of the contents of the first bin — so my question about how the worms climb up to the 2nd bin when the  contents of the first bin keep dropping is answered.  No problem there.

Second, worms love lentils! When I lift the 2nd bin up to get a look at the 1st bin, there are tons of worms right on top – looks like they’re enjoying the lentils and are multiplying like crazy!

Third, I could have easily taken the good vermicompost out of the 1st bin to use, but since I piled all that new food in there, I should wait till more is converted to vermicast before I try to harvest it. I can’t bear to disturb the worms – they just look like they’re in heaven!

I did, however, take the finished compost from my outside compost pile and use it to top dress the peas and garlic in the garden. I just dumped some compost around each plant, not too thick, before a rain so the nutrients will start to leach into the soil and benefit the plants. It was the first time I’d used compost from my own compost pile so it gave me a thrill to know that my composting endeavor is really working!

Meanwhile, inside, sprouts are sprouting – we have lettuce, broccoli, pumpkins, zucchini, basil, a few chives, and more coming up finally inside. Still waiting for rosemary, green beans, cucumbers, etc. I’m trying to get the garden ready – did some more weeding today. I’m trying not to rototill or dig too much as they say it disturbs the beneficial insects, bacteria, etc in the soil.

It figures, as soon as I put my worm bin outside the temperature drops below 50 degrees.  They seem to be okay, though, most are still moving pretty well.  I started a new tray with fresh bedding today in case I overloaded the first one yesterday. (I dumped in about a quart of old lentil stew on top of the potato and banana peels.)  I probably should have just harvested the vermicast instead of dumping in all that new food. Oh well. It’ll be there later. Just in case there’s too much moisture, etc in the first bin I put in a new fresh bin for them to migrate into if they want to get away from it all.

I can’t resist saying a word about my garden… well a few words. I started peas in mid April outdoors and they’re doing really well.

Pea plant May 6, 2010

And I started some garlic last year from tiny garlic pods that Raye Hodgson gave me at last year’s Seed Exchange. They apparently need one more year to get to normal size but the greens have been usable since last year.  I didn’t chop off the yellowing leaves last year so the green is coming through them now.

garlic plants waiting for next year