Vermicomposting by trial and error...

Yesterday I finished planting the main garden. I put in corn, watermelon, cucumbers, cantaloupe, green beans, wax beans, two types of peas, lettuce, summer squash, and zucchini in addition to the tomato plants that were already there.

(I find these blog posts are useful later when I want to know when I did something.)

Last night I built a sifter like the others seen on this site. It's made from a 32-gallon tote, a 5 gallon bucket, some 1/4 inch screen, and a bunch of plastic ties. I was really impressed with how well such a simple design works. Sifting the VC was ve… Continue

I can't ever leave well enough alone. I always need to experiment and learn. So, one of the things I've done lately was a mini-bin made out of a #10 can (the type you see in restaurant kitchens). I was experimenting in worms tolerance for being ignored. I left it on top of my water heater (for warmth since my cellar was in the 50s degrees F) for two months. Once, after about a month, I opened the top and misted the newspaper a little.

The worms did fine, but when I emptied that can this weekend… Continue

Today I went out and got some starter plants and seeds. I filled up the last two spots in my container garden with rosemary and fern leaf dill. So now the container garden looks like:



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Tonight I tried to harvest the worm bin for the first time since I started it back in October. Yes, I got a decent pile of black stuff out of the bottom. However, that pile contained a ton of unproces… Continue

All but two of the squares are planted. I'll probably run out tomorrow to get some dill and maybe something else for the remaining two squares. The planted squares include four tomato plants from Uncle Paul, peas, brocc

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It seems like I've managed to make most of the mistakes I could have while setting up the container gardens. Perhaps I can help someone to avoid the same mistakes if I fess up to them here.

1. When building a square foot gardening type container garden, paint the inside before putting on the cross pieces. Painting after the fact takes much more time.

2. When using wooden slats from a set of blinds as the cross pieces (or any thin slats) drill nail holes prior to trying to attach them. That wil… Continue

I've set up two new container gardens on a small part of my deck. The long axis is running approximately East-West and the deck gets sun nearly the whole day. Naturally the railing adds shadow, but that moves as the su… Continue

I have posted a collection of photos from my visit to the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh, PA this past Sunday. I know it's not worm related b… Continue

My old thermometer died. Probably because it was not well protected. The word "outdoor" on the label does not mean waterproof. So, I bought a new one. However, I've learned a couple of things so I did it a little differently this time.… Continue

Well, I broke down and decided to heat the worm bin. Troy Brooks suggested the possibility of using a fish tank heater and… Continue

As winter has set in my cellar temperature has continued to fall. Currently it is sitting around 50 degrees F. The worms are no where near as active as they were when the bin temp was in the 60s and 70s. They are very sluggish and don't seem to be eating much at all.

On the other hand, the fruit flies are doing well. There are always a few in the bin, plus any time I put in fruit that I didn't freeze first there's a boost in the population. I've noticed that they don't seem to fly around as muc… Continue

I've been reading all about people feeding their worms coffee grounds. So, ever since I started my bin I've made a habit of saving my coffee grounds. Every night I take that day's grounds, wrap them in a paper towel and bring them down to the cellar. Shortly after I started the bin I put some grounds in, but they are still there more than a month later. Last week I took some of the grounds and mixed them into some pumpkin. I put that mixture on top of the existing grounds, but still buried in th… Continue

Even though my cellar is cooling off as the cold weather moves in, the internal temperature of the worm bin is still holding at 67 degrees. I've see the cellar temperature as low as 58 and no higher than 60 over the last several days.

Tonight I spent a little while digging around in my bin. I found my first cocoons.

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When I first got into this I told myself I would not expend much effort on it. Then I spent hours shreading newspaper and cardboard. I told myself I would not put worm food in the freezer. There is some in the freezer now. I told myself I would not stoop to blending food. I recently won an auction in which I placed a $2 bid on a used blender...

Tonight, for the first time, I dug a 15" (38cm) hole in one corner of the bin. That got me nearly to the bottom. In the past I've dug down a few inches, but never more than about 4 or 5 since I didn't want to disturb the worms too much. I found that though there were worms close to the surface, the majority of worms were hanging… Continue

After reading posts here and elsewhere about temperature concerns I decided that I ought to know how cold my bin gets.

So, $10 later and my worm bin has a digital read-out. Too funny. I never expected to have electronics involved in this.

Naturally the "In" and "Out" labels are incorrect. "In" refers to the temperature outside the bin and "Out" refers to the temperature in the bedding.

I… Continue

At 4:30 PM Eastern Time Tuesday night I placed an order for 4 pounds of reds from vermitechnologies.com. I immediately got an email confirmation of the order. That night I got an email that said the worms would ship out in the morning, they would send me a tracking number when they shipped the worms, and I would receive the worms on Thursday. At around noon on Wednesday I received an email with the tracking number. Today (Thursday) the worms arrived. The worms… Continue

I've had the worms in their bin for three days. I figured it was about time to try turning off the lights. After a couple of hours I checked them out and found them crawling up the walls of the bin. So I figured there was something about the bin they didn't like. It turned out that once again the bin was too dry. Even though I pumped a gallon of water into it this weekend it keeps drying out. I checked deep in the bedding not just at the top and it was too dry. So I give them more water. After t… Continue