Worms Up! Day 7

Day 7, I hear it.

The WormFarm 360 is coming up to speed. In my little feeble brain, the best worm composting bin money can buy. After the first couple nights on the back patio where the overnight low temperature was around 45 degrees, the temperatures rose nicely over the weekend into the mid 70's and the evenings came and went in the mid 50's. I would also guess with the afternoon sunset hitting the dark green worm farm it warms the bin up some between 4 and 6, and then holds that temp trapped well into the evening. I last left you on Day 3, just after their first feeding. Here's what's been going on since.

Along with the temperatures moderating a bit over the weekend, the worms had just spent their 4th night on the deck and seem to be relaxing in their new habitat. I was pretty shocked to see many frenzied worms crawling all over this food. After 3 days of them being pretty lethargic to wow.... these worms got they grove on now. Late Sunday I added along with some junk mail, a banana, three muskmelon rinds, 4 crushed egg shells (and the carton) some strawberry tops, cut yellow pepper pieces and two or three cups of spent coffee grounds. I'm told the coffee grounds are treats to them and the grounds texture makes for some tortuous grinding in the gizzards of these crushing composting machines. That was some color.

I remember reading in the owners manual, one of the disadvantages to the WormFarm 360 if you don't operate it right, is excessive moisture content that can lead to fruit flies. What a drag. It was reported if any one of these conditions became a issue, to monitor your moisture content regularly and moisturize bedding with soggy paper scraps or a cup of water. If you're too wet, drain existing and subsidize bedding with dry shredded paper. For the fruit flies I tried their recommendation and loaded an empty tray above the food with dead leaves and/or shredded newspaper- kind of creating a 8-10 inch buffer zone for them to labor through to get to their fruit. Apparently these flies aren't very driven and loose interest quickly.

Happy to report after one week it's humming along just like the book says. No fruit flies, no bugs, no smell, no fuss. I have completely filled tray 1 and will begin filling tray 2 with more food on Day 9 or 10. I think I'm probably on the edge of feeding them too much at once so I'm going to pull back a little bit and give them some time. I have to remember that we're doing real breakdown and rotting of food and that's doesn't happen as quick as everything in our lives we are used to. It's not like warming a bagel in the microwave, it's more like watching paint dry but it's fun with a Guinness. It looks easy, so far... Next week I'm planning an incoherent ramble about bio degradable composting bags (which are very cool) and a plastic-free alternative to trash and compost bags. Down the road, some eco-friendly compost tips and some funky urban grow solutions.

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Worms Working For A Living

Our NEW Worm Composting Bin- Day 3

Good day and welcome to Day 3.

So this is our new website and we're new at this. Not so new at being earth smart and environmentally friendly- been doing that for years, but new to the e-commerce business and selling products online. So far we're having fun with it and it's always fun to learn something new. As an integral part of our product offerings, we sell the 'Worm Farm 360' self-contained worm composting system and had to buy one for general product knowledge. Talk about your learning...this is right up there with my science fair exhibit in 6th grade. I think this is going be a great hobby.

We took delivery of 1000 red wrigglers on Thursday... oh there are pictures. My partner (the wife character) squirmed and somewhat recoiled at the site of them on the dining room table. Yes, they were still in the bag. After preparing the worm farm as directed, to a strict formula of bedding, moisture, starter food and some decomposing brown leaves from last year to kick off the composting process, we're ready to do the vermaculture.

We gently pour the worms into the bedding made from shredded newspaper, sand, pumice, a hand-full of potting soil, some dead leaves ala. 2012, and a couple scraps of lettuce in the corners... they have to go out and find it I'm told. Thus the acclimation process for the worms begin. This is kind of boring- you set it and forget it. The book says put the cover on and leave them alone for 3 days while they get used to their new digs. I gave them a half day.

They seem to be well integrated into the bedding and crawling around the lettuce scraps, boiled potato pieces and coffee grounds I added this morning. I pulled out some more perfectly good lettuce from the refrigerator to feed them because we didn't have any food scraps in the hopper. I talked my wife into scrambled eggs just so i can feed them the shells. It's going pretty well so far even after a couple of cool nights. I covered them with a sleeping bag to be sure, but you could bring them inside if it drops below 40 degrees. I had permission for that strangely enough.Temperature consistency is pretty important- their limits are 40-80 degrees. Once we get the composting crushing machine up to speed they should be eating about 2-3 lbs of garbage a week. No rolling, tumbling or fumbling required for the compost- the worms drill thousands of holes in between the food trays and oxygenate the compost nicely, without smelling funny. Fresh strawberry tops were added an hour ago, we'll see how they like them.

Talk to you Day 7.