" To create a garden is to search for a better world. In our effort to improve on nature, we are guided by a vision of paradise. Whether the result is a horticultural masterpiece or only a modest vegetable patch, it is based on the expectation of a glorious future. This hope for the future is at the heart of all gardening."
I usually strive to keep the real world out of this home and garden blog. But this is a powerful message that needs to be heard.
"The Heat Is On" by Ross Gelbspan
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid51061328001?bctid=62732198001
The Genesee County Conservation District (Michigan) has their woody plant sale page posted. Order right now and pick up in April at Cummings Center - just in time for planting.
The prices are incredible. This is one way people (like me) who live on a budget can justify buying plants. I just ordered a ~$4 Hazelnut and a 10 pack of Serviceberry shrubs for ~$9.
Local herbies - you can order various other woody herbal trees and herbal shrubs.
Think Elderberry, White Cedar, Black Cherry. They are small and bare rooted, but alive and ready to go! Planting a small woody plant may seem like a long term proposition, but there is no shock from transplanting from a nursery pot, and if the plant is in the right spot, it'll take off! I've successfully planted GCCD Ginkgos (not available this year), a Serviceberry, a Filbert, and Elderberries. Check it out:
http://www.gettrees.org/catalog/index.php
My worm bin is about 2 1/2 years old now, surviving a second frigid Michigan winter in our unheated but "attached" garage, so I'm probably enough of an experienced old worm wrangler to give some advice and make some observations that may encourage you to start your own bin if you've been considering it.
First, worm ranching is not a demanding occupation. I've skipped feeding my herd a week or two, here and there, and they seem no worse for wear.
Second, you don't have to follow the books precisely to get good results. I've broken rules and made some new rules according to the path of "What Works is Good".
Third, TRUST me, you'll get over worm-squeamishness once you've held a few cold, squirmy handfuls of these quiet pleasant little workers.
Background
If you find the vermiculture link in the right column, you can spend some time reading my past worm ranching posts, and watch my amateur video about putting together my second bin after the backyard wildlife (I suspect Racoon. J'accuse!) destroyed my first box.
Where to Keep Your Bin
I am an advocate of keeping the bin in the garage. Where to keep your bin is something to consider if you live where there are animals who might break into the box (for worms or for vegetable scraps?) the same way skunks break into bee boxes. And in the Way of Permaculture, if the box is close to your back door, it will be handier to keep the worms fed.
I've read of other Michigan worm wranglers trying to keep their boxes outdoors covered by bags of leaves. That seems to be going to an extreme, to me. When the thermometer in my garage goes too far south, I stick a trouble light with a 40 watt bulb in the box to keep it from freezing solid. I can take a container of scraps out to that garage wearing my house slippers.
Another consideration for keeping the bin out of the house is the fear I've contracted from others who report they have inadvertently introduced the dreaded fruit fly. I hate fruit flies. I can successfully report no fruit flies, even after feeding my herd peaches and apples in the late summer and fall. My theory is that you need to be sure to bury such fruity scraps completely, and keep the damp surface of the bin contents covered with a few inches of dry bedding.
Bedding
Speaking of bedding, I've used dampened sphagnum peat and coir. I got an end of the year deal (years ago I stocked up at $1 per Brick! Score! at Meijers) before coir became a popular amendment. However, in the past year I've been using shredded paper - it gave me an excuse for buying a paper shredder - which even beats the price I paid for the coir. By tradition I avoid paper with colored ink and suspiciously 'coated' bills.
Catching the Worm Juice
Worm juice is supposed by some to be a smelly problem, but I guess my garage is airy enough that it hasn't bothered my delicate nose. I did figure out the best way to catch it is in a lid from a second box of the same size. I made my bin from a Rubbermaid bin, and put the bin on top of a second identical bin. (That bin can be used to store potting soil, etc.) There is window screen in the bottom of my bin, but I've read if a worm need to escape, he can get through even that.
An added benefit of this Bin over bin arrangement is that the worms are thus raised so I can feed them (and see them) without bending over by half. The drippings should be collected into a wide mouth canning jar occasionally to keep the messiness at a minimum.
To Feed or Not To Feed
Speaking of unpleasant odeurs, I've discovered the least tolerable smell comes from members of the cabbage and onion families. Those kitchen scraps go out to the compost pile. I also find my worms can't keep up with all of the orange and grapefruit peels Herb goes through, or the numerous corn cobs in August. So I compost citrus peels and cobs. All other vegetative scraps go to the worms, along with tea bags and egg shells. I've read that worms like to lay their eggs in the interior of egg shells, so I don't go crazy trying to crush them.
Here I'll quote an interview by Bob Forbes with another worm wrangler from a program handed out at the 7th Annual Spring Horticulture Show put on by the MSU (Michigan State) Horticulture Club, that was in my Neverending Pile. I completely concur with this advice.
"Books and articles on this subject talk about burying garbage at selected locations in the bedding and rotating or alternating between these locations. This gives you the impression that the worms live in the bedding, coming over to the "buried" garbage for meals, and then returning to the bedding. I have not found this to be the case. I think they hang out in the garbage all the time. So I put some bedding in when starting the bin to give them a place to live, and after that I don't worry about maintaining the bedding. I also don't worry about alternating Where I put the garbage, or even mixing it in..." Here he adds ... "or burying it" which I disagree with, but then, he has had fruit flies and I haven't.
This quoted technique eliminates the need to figure out a system of marking the last scrap burial, and the worms don't seem to mind.
Finally, Harvesting the castings
Here I quote again from the above interview, and again I agree:
"The production of castings ... has fallen a little bit short of expectations. As with other kinds of composting, the volume reduction from start to finish is tremendous." I recommend harvesting a bin like mine only twice a year, ideally - in May and September. The spring harvest renews the bin and provides castings for spring planting, and the late summer harvest renews the bin, but gives the worms enough time to get comfortable before the harsh temperatures slow down their activity in the bin once more. A single midsummer harvest will work too.
To harvest castings I turn the whole bin over onto a large tarp which is spread on the garage floor. The western sunshine streaming in the open garage door keeps the worms digging for damp cool shade, making it easy to separate the worms from the castings.
The process is as follows: The sun lights drives the worms down, I scrape off a layer of castings, the uncovered worms dig deeper, I scrape off another layer, until we scrape tarp. The worms are pinkish red and easy to see. They are different sizes, babies to adults and some will be overlooked, but there will be enough to restart the bin.
Renewing the Bin
I put a small amount of damp bedding and some of the old castings, including unprocessed scraps, into the empty bin, and put the mass of worms back into the bin where I feed them, and cover all with dry bedding.
If, as I suspect, there are any tiny baby worms and eggs, or escapees in the castings, then using them in the garden in midsummer can only be beneficial to the garden and give the worms plenty of time to get used to living outdoors, so they can dig down into the earth as they should in the fall to survive the winter.
"We know enough of the internal workings of the seed to stand in awe at its variety, its toughness, and its practical simplicity."
- Nancy Bubel
Say, howdya like my nifty new digs? About time, you say?
I've been playing around at cleaning out old computer files lately, in lieu of getting any real work done. Years ago, when I edited the newsletter for our local herb society (in the hands on days of cutting and pasting with real scissors and actual glue) I got into the habit of saving every interesting scrap of information. It gets to be a pack-ratty sort of habit, though, the result being that in these quieter days I have mountains of useless information to keep me busy.
Lacking all other inspiration, I'll be posting some snippets from my piles along with more of the endless supply of garden-y quotations from smarter than me folks that you may have noticed lately.
Shall we begin?
Torn from the pages of the biggest tool in America, Parade Magazine, advertising copy (note the charming use of the mitigating word MAY to obfuscate any health claims for the herbs they are selling you):
McCormick Spices For Health
Seven Super Spices (Have you noticed this campaign?)
"great sources of flavor as well as concentrated sources of natural antioxidants."
McC has developed 1/2 teaspoon recipes. "is there anything better than adding a favorite ingredient that may also support your health?"
& in another ad:
Oregano
1/4 t. add to a grilled cheese sandwich.
Ground Cinnamon (1 t. as many antioxidants as 1/2 cup of blueberries)
1/4 t. sprinkle on oatmeal.
Ground Ginger
a dash - add to cooked carrots, winter squash, or sweet potatoes
Crushed Red Peppers, Ground Paprika
A was fruitlessly trying to jump up, grunt, jump up, grunt, jump up... to get herself a second helping of "rewards" (M&Ms - hey, they work!) for peeing in the potty, and we were all enjoying her struggle With gravity (sooo easily amused), when K said, "We need to buy A a trampoline so she can jump up high enough to get her M&Ms". I guess you had to be there. We did enjoy repeating the word trampoline for the rest of the evening, though. Peace.
"Seedsmen reckon that their stock in trade is not seeds at all ... it's optimism. That's what they're selling when you're seduced by that gorgeous picture on the front of the packet."
- Geoff Hamilton
"There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you ..... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself."
- Ruth Stout
"If it's rare, we want it. If it's tiny and impossible to grow, we've got to have it. If it's brown, looks dead, and has black flowers, we'll kill for it."
- Ken Druse
"A gardener's best tool is the knowledge from previous seasons. And it can be recorded in a $2 notebook."
- Andy Tomolonis
"The strongest, most productive garden implement you can ever obtain probably won't be for sale in tool catalogs or implement stores; you won't find it listed in seed catalogs or stocked in your favorite garden center. Yet this tool is far mightier than the hoe; it will dig deeper than a tiller and will lay off rows better than any wheel planter. It's the most valuable implement a gardener can ever use: a pencil."
- Jim Long
"There are two seasonal diversions that can ease the bite of any winter.
One is the January thaw. The other is the seed catalogues."
- Hal Borland
"As I write, snow is falling outside my Maine window, and indoors all around me half a hundred garden catalogs are in bloom."
- Katharine S. White
"Turn down the noise. Reduce the speed. Be like the somnolent bears, or those other animals that slow down and almost die in the cold season. Let it be the way it is. The magic is there in its power."
- Henry Mitchell
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