So far, so good

The new worms are very happy! Yay! They’re eating like crazy and I hope they’re breeding too! I even set up a new tray for them. I’m so relieved. I was starting to think our worm colony was going to be a worm graveyard but that’s not the case. I’ve got the expandable worm tower and I’m starting to see some really nice black, rich-looking castings in the bottom. If things go well, I’ll harvest the tray in another 2-3 weeks. I read I can make compost tea with it and spray it on the lawn! WOW. I’m so excited.

I’ve also set up our outdoor compost tumbler. Yeah, I’m a little compost crazy. But something’s gotta be done with all these !@#$$ leaves! And we have no shortage of food scraps.

See more progress on: start a worm compost

New crop

Okay, so I’m still mystified over the disappearance over the first generation of worms. It was like a little lost worm city of Atlantis. I suspect that they all died off and turned into… compost.

So, I decided to get new worms. Local worms. Raised 25 minutes away from here. The farmer didn’t do pickups, or I would have driven out there, collected them and transported them home myself. I had to settle for a priority mail shipment. They came very quickly, and I dumped them right in. I also “plumped their pillows” a little bit: adding some new newspaper; spritzing some water in it to raise the moisture level (our house is very dry in the winter); and preparing their food by chopping it up and microwaving the heck out of it (5 mins on high). That last bit was a tip from the worksheet I got with the original worms. The preparation breaks down the food so it is more suitable for the microorganisms to prepare it for the worms. The idea was to acclimate the worms as fast as possible.

And acclimate they have. These “new” worms seem more vigorous, eagerly crawling out sight when I lift the lid and expose them to light. They’re crawling in and around the food, a good sign that they’re eating. And they’re crawling into the bottom-most bin, and leaving dark, rich-looking castings behind! Woo hoo!

I’m very optimistic about these new worms. Soon it’ll be warm enough to move them into the mud room, right off our kitchen so I can keep a closer eye on them. I hope they start to procreate soon, and I can prepare another tray for them to crawl up into.

See more progress on: start a worm compost

Um, where have all the wormies gone?

So, remember when we got those worms? Well, now they don’t seem to be there anymore. I mean, you buy a pound of worms… that should be like, 300-500 worms or something right? And we did lose a few due to stress in the shipping. But I looked in the worm bin just the other day, after leaving them alone for a few days and now they seem to be… gone. What happened? Did they die and their worm corpses are have already decomposed? Well, they’re not TOTALLY gone. I saw a few baby worms here and there. But no adult worms. I even looked around the bin, on the table, on the floor. No worms.

There are, however, these teeny white mites, which I’m told are some of the organisms typically seen in worm bins. They aid with the decomp. So did they go to town on the adult worms? I’m confused. I checked the moisture level and gave them some food scraps and decided to leave them alone for a couple of days. Hopefully those baby worms will grow and breed and we can get the population up again.

I’m mystified.

See more progress on: start a worm compost

More foods you can eat

"Mushrooms can ward off colds They contain more of an immune-boosting antioxidant called ergothioneine than any other food, say researchers at Pennsylvania State University."

This was #4 in the 50 Mind-Blowing Food Facts I read about today.

Shame :-(

I just took the ecological footprint test at myfootprint.org. My footprint is 15 acres! By comparison to the average for my area (24 acres) it is low. But the site also said if everyone lived like me we'd need 3 1/2 planets. Better send out more space probes to look for some M-class planets out there.

They're here.

Okay, so the worms finally arrived last Friday. We set up the worm tower with bedding and fresh food scraps and then just dumped them in. The instructions said to check on them in three days. So we did. I think some of them were too stressed and didn’t make it. But most of them look pretty good and healthy. They were crawling in and out of the food, which was a good sign. It smelled a little funky; not rotten or anything. But it was definitely an earthy, humid smell. Dead worms maybe? Checked on them again yesterday and it seemed a little wet, so I added a bit of paper. And then today I added some coffee grounds and eggshells.

I read in the instructions that we should avoid citrus peels in the worm bin. Oops. There were a few citrus peels in that original handful of food. Must remember to put those only in the outside compost.

I think I’m going to leave them alone for the next few days. It’s hard to not futz around with them because I’m down in the basement doing laundry and I get curious about them so I turn on the light and open it up. And they apparently HATE light, which is why they will stay in the bin. Other worms, I’ve read, may CRAWL OUT of the bin. Boy wouldn’t that surprise the dog. She probably would try to eat a worm that was crawling around on her floor.

See more progress on: start a worm compost

My bro, Burrito Joe

My brother leads a charmed life. Besides having a cushy job with benefits, a swank apartment in the Bay Area, a side job doing music reviews, another side job as a freelance web designer, his own record label, and regular dj gigs, he built and runs a site called burritobot.com. Because of this site, he was interviewed by the local wacky morning dj show on a Bay Area mainstream radio station.

Sick of hearing about what you can't eat? Here's stuff you CAN eat:

The 29 Healthiest Foods on the Planet

Hm. Time to make a smoothie.