The 360 Diaries, Day 68

Excessive moisture in the bin... I didn't see that coming. Since we started this endeavor, I've read how important it is to maintain the correct moisture level for the worms. It's a delicate balancing act and must be monitored and maintained weekly. I thought I was doing a pretty good job of it. The bedding has to be moist enough that the worms can survive, and more importantly breath, as respiration is achieved through moisture through their skin. If the environment is too wet on the other hand, you can actually drown the inhabitants. As you prepare the bedding with each new added tray, you are supposed to do the "squeeze test." Grab a handful and squeeze it between your fingers- it should be moist enough to clump and release a couple droplets of water, but if too dry will not produce any water drops. The obvious correction if too wet is to add dry, shredded paper which will absorb the excess water. If it's too dry, you simply add a couple handfuls of moistened, shredded paper. If you're in a hurry, you can also dump a half cup of water on the newspaper that cover your food waste.

So why did I (all of a sudden) have a wet, soggy bin if I had been correctly moistening it. It was not obvious. I began to review what I added to the contents as I was convinced the bedding was right and then it struck me. A neighbor friend who had heard about our project, offered some kitchen scraps to the effort as she was excited about our worm farm. She gave me a kitchen size bag of green onion tops and corn husks. Apparently this was the culprit. The corn husks contain a high amount of moisture to begin with, and they are also green and full of nitrogen. This combination heated the bedding up with the breakdown of the corn and released a huge amount of condensation as a result. The tapper at the bottom of the system had been left in the closed position as it sits on the hardwood dining room floor. I'm told if you are adding huge amounts of moist, green kitchen scraps, the system gets pretty damp and you are to leave the tapper open so any excess can drain on it's own.

It was a perfect storm- closed tapper which retained the condensate, green, moisture-ladened corn husks and lots of them. I discovered the error when I took the system outdoors to harvest our first tray. When I removed the bottom processing tray, there it was- about 2 pints of dark, rich leachate in the bottom reservoir, and unfortunately a bunch of drowned worms. The upside is there were countless baby worms in the compost about a quarter inch long and looked like tiny hair follicles. Unfortunately there is no practical way to separate those from the castings, so into the earth they went with our compost. All was not lost as I took the liquid treasure and combined it with water and spayed the leachate tea all over our annual flowers in the yard which made the leaves shine! The flowers look pretty darn good too, growing in their nutrient rich worm compost. Remember, GottaBGreen has the best selling green products online!

For more info and where to purchase your own Worm Farm, shop http://gottabgreen.com and go to Grow/Compost or click on: http://gottabgreen.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=55&products_id=4538

 

The WormFarm Chronicles- Day 57... Harvest ON

Today we harvested our first tray of compost... really. It's been about 8 weeks since we started, and about what we expected in terms of the earliest we could reap the rewards of our "not so hard" work. It also says the longer you can let it brew, the better and richer it is. Actually, we figured this is long enough, since we're about to enter our last month of summer. Here's how the process worked.

I took the system outside and put it in the direct sunlight and removed the lower most tray or the processing tray, and set it aside. I took the cover off the upper most tray and removed the moistened newspaper cap. I then put the processing tray back on top of the rest and let the sun beat down on it. Worms hate the sun almost as much as they hate being in a dry environment. The sun dries the compost out and the worm retreat to the lower, darker and moistened bedding. This in theory, is supposed to clear your processing tray of the worms allowing you to harvest your "worm free compost." This actually worked better than I thought it would. I was told to let the processing tray bake in the sun for a couple of hours, then gently rake and turn over the contents allowing it to dry out quicker and exposing more worms on their way down. After two hours, I went out and did as i was instructed- raked, folded and overturned one layer at a time. To my surprise, most of the worms were indeed gone and I grabbed a couple stragglers and threw them down into the tray below. The only hitch was the tiny, new infant worms- they were still in the compost in pretty large numbers but there is no practical way to separate them so I dumped the compost little by little into a plastic bag lined box and that was that.

The quality and richness of the material was equally impressive. It looked very much like black, wet coffee grounds with a couple wads of soggy newspaper clumps, crushed egg shells and a couple potato pieces to boot. Actually, it is the waste product of about 1500 worms and the best part is there is no smell- my wife loves that part. The plan is to allow the compost to dry out for a couple days and then mix with potting soil- about 1 part worm castings to 4 parts dirt. Our harvest yielded about one 5-gallon bucket of castings and about two cups of liquid leachate. The blogs I've read on the subject also recommend leaving the treasure sit for a month or two so the compost can become more oxygenated and pH neutral. Although this is better, I don't think we'll be doing that as our growing season would be done by then and we'd never see how the stuff works. I've also waited long enough.

We'll be applying it to our flowers and plants this weekend. After a quick hose and wipe down, I return the system back to normal and put the worm farm back into the dining room. I have no doubt this harvesting process is fairly traumatic for the worms so we'll leave them alone, let them recover and chill out for a couple days before I bother them again.

 

For more info and where to purchase your own Worm Farm, shop http://gottabgreen.com and go to Grow Accessories or click on: http://gottabgreen.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=55&products_id=4538

 

 

 Kelley Murphy, the author is a new e-commerce business owner of gottabgreen.com, promoting and selling a responsible lifestyle and eco-friendly green products online. Looking to rid the world of plastic, follow his blogs and shop GottaBGreen.com at http://gottabgreen.com/