Worm Delivery

I don't really recommend order worms during a month like January, particularly if you live in any northern state. I knew what day my worms should be coming and kept a close eye on the door for the mail so that I could bring them inside as soon as possible.

The mail was really late that day, which meant the worms had spent all day in a cold, metal, postal van. Thankfully the post man knocked on the door when he dropped them off so I was able to snatch them up before he'd even driven away.

The box was cold. Really, really cold and I was concerned that my worms were dead.

Gotta love how the box says to keep it at room temperature.

As you can see they were packed surrounded by a bit of newspaper.

They were inside the same type of plastic container you can frequently expect to buy bait in. They had ample bedding and plenty of holes in the lid.

 The seller even included an info sheet about taking care of your worms.

When I opened it up the worms on the top weren't moving. Harkening upon my backwoods nature to poke dead stuff with a stick - I poked the worms. They moved. I didn't dig through the entire thing checking each and every worm but since I could see the ones on the sides moving I decided enough of them probably survived the journey.

I put them on top of their new oragnic waste-filled home and closed them up.

When I checked later there were no worm bodies on top of the compost. Kalloo kallay!

Since I was previously having issued with producing what I seriously felt must have been an excess of leachate I've been adding more dry bedding than moist and it's made a noticeable difference.

The Worms - Week 2

Every year plenty of us get pumpkins to cut up, paint, carve, or use in whatever your personal chosen method of Halloween or Thanksgiving craft is. As you might remember I had quite a few this year, courtesy of my one of my brother-in-laws who grew over 100 of them.

In mid-January - I still had some. In fact, a few had gotten to the point that if you picked them up, the stem would break off. One or two were mushy. Some of these got thrown onto the lawn by husband to let them fertilize the lawn natural (and just generally get the heck out of our house.) Seriously hating to feed a landfill with more waste, and now the proud owner of a VermiHut I could barely shut up about to anyone who spoke to me - I opted to compost them.

I did my best (with the aid of a hammer) to break up the pumpkins (I think there were three or four) and put them into the composter. I felt the tiniest bit guilty about it all because my worms were still supposed to be acclimating - but I really couldn't let these sit around much longer.

Obviously, the amount of pumpkins I had filled an entire tray.

It took me two or three days later to finally shred some paper waste to add to the composter along with the pumpkin.

Let's stop for a moment. I want to hold you hostage (isn't that what you came to my blog to essentially have happen to you for a short while?) just long enough to give you a little information.

Whenever I talk to mothers that ask me about cloth diapering I eventually get to the point where I warn the ones who have decided they want to go that route that, "No matter how much research you do. No matter how prepared you are. The first time your kid poops in a cloth diaper - there's a good chance you're going to freak out at least a little bit."

My experience with splitting the pumpkin guts from one tray into two, mixed with paper waste - was similar to my first time changing a poopy cloth diaper.

I knew there were worms in there. I even had more on the way. I knew what they were in there to do. I worried for a little while maybe they died but felt pretty good that they were still alive. And I had also spent significant time wondering to me how quickly they reproduce and in what time period.

YET!

When I reached in and began removing pumpkin and adding it to the other tray and looked at the worms squirming around in my organic waste - I had a moment where I freaked out. Just. A tiny. Bit. I didn't scream, squeal, or recoil - it was just a moment of, "Oh my god there are WORMS in there! . . . . I'm picking up and handling worms . . .  right now."

So my composter has gone from one tray to three trays.

A response I read online in a forum said I shouldn't be collecting quite so much leachate and that this means my composter is way too moist.

This is over 2 qts of leachate - YIKES! I shredded more paper and added that along with some of that stuff you get out of your vacuum bag.

Related reading about leachate:
Leachate vs Worm Tea
Using Worm Bin Leachate
 Leachate: Use it or Lose, Right or Wrong: You Decide!

The Worms - Week 1

This is what the inside of the vermihut looked like after 1 week in the laundry room. The only things added since you last saw it was a little left over green beans and some vegetable soup my daughter didn't finish.

It didn't smell one bit.

Here's how much leachate I drained out of the spigot.

What is leachate? Leachate is something that is misrepresented as worm tea. Leachate, is what seeps out of your composter and collects in your reservoir. Worm tea is the result of steeping aerated worm castings.

Because my composter cannot be considered a mature worm bin, my leachate should be treated with more caution if I wanted to use it as liquid fertilizer than if this were something more than the beginning of my journey.

Impatient and having a lot of saved compost - I wanted more worms. So I bought another 1/2 pound.

The Day The Worms Arrived

The day the worms arrived I was 1) really glad I got them off the front porch before they got too cold outside and 2) scared that I wasn't up to what previously didn't feel like a challenge.

I added the food that was in my current compost bag to the VermiHut.

Mixed it in.

I opened the package with the worms.

And then added them.

Now I just had to leave them alone for a few weeks while they acclimate.

VermiHut - Setup

The day my worm composter arrived finally came and my husband couldn't be too much happier since I've been filling up our large freezer with our compostable food waste while I waited to get it.

My mother-in-law called and said it had arrived at her house and we went down to go get it the very next day.

I had my husband haul it out to my car for me. It really wasn't so much a "haul" because it's not huge and it's not heavy.

 Because we found ourselves at a party that same evening I waited until the next morning to set up the composter.

 Here's what you basically see as soon as you open the box. Exciting no?

 Once you remove that first bit you're looking at you will find your "goodies". An owners manual, coconut chior

 The top and the drip pan are to the left and my trays and stand are on the right.

 On the left if your drip pan and the right is the top of your hut.

 This is the stand.

These are the compost trays. Having a family of what would soon be four I decided to just go ahead with the 5-tray.

For now this is all I should have set up. After all that travel I don't need to add more stress and confusion to the worms by throwing them into a massive composter (you know in comparison to the size of worms) and risk them attempting to escape.

Set the remaining trays aside for now.

 

You will need a gallon of water. I have empty gallon milk jugs laying around so I filled one and used that.

You're also going to need a bucket with a capacity larger than a gallon. Mine is around three to five gallons.

Place your coconut chior into the bucket.

 Pour the gallon of water over the chior, and wait for it to absorb the water.

 As you can see it will "puff up", this is why you need a larger container. Your chior should be moist, not dry, wet, but not dripping wet. If you pick it up and water flows through your fingers you have too much water. If you squeeze and and no water comes out, then you do not have enough. If you follow the directions correctly, all should be fine.

 Place the chior on top of the newspaper.

 I sent the poor hubby out to get me some soil from outside.

 I mixed it in and removed that little piece of plastic.

Now it's time to ass paper shreddings. I've also been saving quite a bit of our compostable "brown" waste in a bag: Ads that are made with newspaper, paper bags, lint from the dryer, receipts that don't have plastic coatings, cardboard, and junk mail.

After shredding up what seemed like enough to add to my mix I threw it on top.

Mix it in.

Now to wait for the worms before I do any more.

I've Got Compost Fever

Well it's finally happened. If you regularly read this blog or know me personally you may have seen this one coming. I did - but not this soon. I've got composting fever.

The other week I was throwing out banana peels left from my daughters snacking and something in me sort of snapped, not in an angry way, more in a  - WHY AM I DOING THIS!? . . . sort of way.

In my attempts to become greener and greener and all I have been learning needless waste is something that is frequently (if not constantly) on my mind. Throwing away banana peels that could be composted along with other table type scraps just felt so completely wasteful.

I'd learned a little bit about vermicomposting from watching the documentary, "No Impact Man." So on the night of this "revelation" I went to bed dreaming of an indoor worm composting bin and growing fresh, wonderful tomatoes. And if I wanted that compost to take any part in my spring and summer gardening I needed to start now.

Disheartened that I didn't have the funds for a vermicompost bin and not yet finding a site detailing how to make a bin that would be "as good" as the kind you buy I hit up Pintrest. This fantastic pin gave me the first ray of sunshine. Knowing that I wanted to start my compost bin in a month or less I still felt unhappy with throwing away things I knew I would one day (hopefully soon) be composting. There was the answer, freeze it. If you have too much food that will be going into your bin you're advised to freeze it. Why not just begin freezing it now!?

I got out my freezer bags.

Then went through my fridge to find out what had gone bad and what needed to be thrown away anyway.

I felt a tad stupid. My grandmother had been freezing her compostables all of my life and I never thought anything of it and the idea never occurred to me. She keeps a small ceramic container that looks like a tiny garbage can on  the counter and when it's full she would put it into a plastic bag and freeze it.

After I began bagging I looked at the amount of food that would have just gone to waste and felt a bit better. Who knows if I will always have the amount of food I need to provide for my little worms to be? This way at least I may have some food here and ready to go for them.