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