Last Worm Bin Delivery for the season!

This is it! The final delivery of the season! It was a cool one for sure, and one that I will remember for a while (well at least when I have the pictures as prompts...I need all the help I can get. The mind ain't what it used to be) On Monday, I took a pound of worms, a bin, peat moss, shredded newspaper, and my hubby to a Llama and Alpaca Farm. Marty, the human leader of the animals, greeted us with a huge smile and a hand shake. She lead us to the future home of the red wigglers, a renovated chicken coop that was invaded by racoons...Yikes. The chicken coop was already set up with a heat lamp and hay...perfect for a red wiggler set up in November. Totally cool! These guys love their llamas and alpacas and will soon love their red wigglers. Just look at that set up!
Here's a picture of hay which is above sheets of newspaper. This will keep the worms warm especially during the chilly Bend nights.
Doesn't this look yummmmmmy!!! Marty was all set with food scraps for the red wigglers. I put the rotting lettuce, celery, cucumbers and squash on top of the bedding and covered the scraps with the sheets of newspaper (another good use for USA today). I use the newspaper to keep the red wigglers contained to the food area so they won't travel up through the hay. In the summer this helps reduce fruit flies.

Marty's goal is to reduce her food waste and to also compost her llama and alpaca waste. I don't have experience with animal waste so she is my test case. We will be chatting a bunch to see how the red wigglers are doing. I am excited to see what happens!!

Let the Feasting Begin!

I came home this afternoon to find my pumpkin collection bucket full of nasty, rotting pumpkins. My red wigglers will be feasting for a while, especially on something they enjoy.

During my 5+ years of vermicomposting, I have found that they love pumpkins. In the past, I have halved and quartered pumpkins and tossed them into the worm bins. After a day or so, I checked on them and lifted a piece of the pumpkin and to my surprise, I found a cluster of red wigglers underneath! Way cool!!!
If you have a worm bin and pumpkins left, go ahead and feed them to your worms!

Thanks to all of my friends for supplying these nasty, rotting pumpkins!

Pumpkins=Happy Red Wigglers

Calling all Halloween Jack-O-Lantern and rotting pumpkin owners!

When you are tempted to toss your icky pumpkins into the trash can, don't! STOP and think about other options.

1. toss them into the corner of your backyard.
2. toss them into your compost pile.
3. toss them into your worm bin!!!
and if these options don't work for you, GIVE THEM TO THE WONDER WORMAN!!! (if you are local)

Pumpkins are 100% biodegradable. When added to your compost pile, you will have rich fertilizer for the spring! A huge bonus, if you have a worm bin, the worms will have a Halloween treat too! They love, love, love pumpkins! I can't stress that enough!

REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF USABLE WASTE THAT CLOGS OUR LANDFILLS!!!!

School Visit

This has to be the highlight of my Wonder Worming job! I love to go visit the schools and see kids, teachers and staff members eager to learn about worms. I also like to gross them out with some really vivid and cool photos of decomposing food and the red wigglers feasting on it!

Seven Peaks, a beautiful, private school on Bend, recently bought 5 pounds of my earth loving red wigglers. They are creating a school wide composting project to reduce their usable waste and then use the rich organic fertilizer that the worms produce for their community gardens. I will be guiding them on their journey! Stay tuned for future progress.

Potato lovin' Worm

I was visiting my other bins today because not much has changed in bin #1, at least no change that was photo worthy! I love this picture for so many reasons.

- check out the stripes on the the Red Wiggler. They are also called tiger worms and their scientific name is eisenia foetida, love that name.

- look at the way it wrapped itself around the potato! so cool. This potato may be here a while.

- it's just one, lonely worm hanging out!

Day 7: Is This Appealing to YOU?

What an unusual day! Bend got about 4 inches of snow! I did not want to disturb the Red Wigglers but had a bunch of kitchen waste that needed to go some where! Usually if we have a lot of snow, I don't bother the worms and leave the snow on top of the bins for natural insulation. I felt comfortable about going in the bins because this weeks forecast will be in the mid 60s.

The worm bin bedding is at 50 degrees. It has dropped 12 degrees. When the bedding is at 40 degrees, I will insulate the bin with hay.

I didn't think the worms would be this active. I pulled away the watermelon which was very, very mushy and saw this!! The worms were underneath feasting on the watermelon. Not much has changed with the other food waste.

I look forward to seeing the change when the temperature rises this week.

Happy Wormin'

Day 6: Is This Appealing to YOU?

Yesterday was too cold for me to go outside and check the bins! Seriously the morning temp was 30, and I didn't want to disturb the worms! So today, Wednesday, I headed out there excited to see their progress. They were busy eating away at all the waste. You can see 2 worms above.



The temperature did drop to 58 in the bin. The water melon is breaking down. Notice the change of color on the rind. It is turning brown.


I spy two worms? Can you? I also spy an egg cocoon! Can you?
I will show you more tomorrow!

Happy wormin'

Day 4: Is This Appealing to YOU?

Blah, is all I can say about this one! Well, ick and gross come to mind too! I pulled back the watermelon to see what was going on underneath. The worms do scatter!

Things are moving along rather slowly this week. It may be due to the cooler weather we have been having! Wow today at 6p.m. it was 45! Yikes, fall is here. The worms are slowing down for sure. I still think this mush will be gone in a week!

see ya tomorrow!

Day 3: Is This Appealing to YOU?

Welcome to Day 3! Not much has changed in Bin #1, except there was a cute visitor hanging out on a watermelon! My daughter got a kick out of seeing him and called him a snail. I think she is right, or is it a slug??

Seeing this little guys made me smile. He too is enjoying the nice, juicy watermelon along with my Red Wigglers.

Let's hope for some more change tomorrow. Change that is worth photographing! or maybe a cute visitor?!

Day 2: Is This Appealing to YOU?

I decided to check on bin #1 a little bit earlier today because I wanted to add a "meat" thermometer to see what the temperature was in the bedding. When I lifted to newspaper, I noticed not much has changed. There were a few red wigglers on the top of the coffee filters, but by the time I turned my camera on and took the picture they were gone. They are quick when they are exposed to light! I believe another type of bug is eating through the cabbage leaf. There are big bites taken out of it. It is not uncommon to have other decomposers in the bin too. The worms are well mannered and don't mind sharing!



Here is the "meat" thermometer. It reads about 62 degrees (not sure how to make the symbol on the computer).

The worms are quite active when I pulled the watermelon away so I know they don't mind this temperature. Tomorrow, I will take a picture of the worms underneath the melon. I will have to keep an eye on this and will begin to insulate the bins when it drops to about 40 degrees.





After I finished taking pictures, I covered the red wigglers with their favorite "blankie". They surely like their large sheets of newspaper. It keeps their home nice and dark and helps to keep out the fruit flies.

Until tomorrow.....

Happy Worming!

Is this appealing to YOU?

Probably not, I am sure of that, but to my red wigglers this is heaven on a stick. The nastier the better. They will devour this mess of mush in about 2 weeks, and I will keep track of this for the week. I am home for a week from my "other" job due to a surgery so I need a Wonder Worman project to keep me busy. I have decided to document the progress of bin #1.

Not sure if you can tell what all of this is???
- 3/4 of a watermelon
-3 coffee filters
-carrots...not sure how many
-cabbage leaves...from my garden (which the deer have eaten...another blog for that one)
-apple core and some egg shells
I shall see how long this takes. I just threw the waste on top of the bedding and have covered the food with large sheets of newspaper. I will be back tomorrow to show another picture. Happy worming!!!

Wonder Worman is a Super Hero

Last Wednesday morning, I was reading The Source, the weekly newspaper in Bend. They have a section called "Cold Call" where they go around town asking various questions. This weeks question was "Who is your favorite super hero?" A past worm buyer named Susan said "Wonder Worman." I was laughing so hard and quickly showed my husband. Holy Cow, I am someones super hero. She went on to mention the worms and my business. To see the complete interview check out this weeks Source!

My Garden

My vegetable garden seems to be nearing the end of it's growing season. We have eaten a lot of squash and snap peas! This has been out first year with the garden, and I am so pleased with the results.

We started the garden in late May, planting some from starters and some from seeds. They both grew rather well. When we began, we added soil from the local garden center. With some of the seeds/plants, I added my worm castings. They did rather well and was asked by many of the neighbors "Did you use fertilizer?" I just told them it was the castings.

We also used a cloth over the top which was used on the cold spring nights. We took those off in early July.

I look forward to doing this again next year.

Artichokes

Hey, guess what??? Worms love artichokes! Rotten ones and eaten artichoke skins (I think that's what they are)
They were all over them this afternoon! Yipee! cause I love them toooooo!

Bend Bulletin

It's the season for worms!!!

Bend has been Growing!

I had the chance to speak at The Environmental Center in Bend on Feb 10, 2009. The night was sponsored by The Juniper Club Sierra Group. The turn out was terrific, 40 plus and their enthusiasm was amazing. The focus was on the benefits of composting with worms and also how to set up worm bins. Many of the people came with their own plastic bins, shredded newspaper and peat moss. I was able to share my experience and show lots of photos.