The Garden of Man, part 1

New neighbors moved in next door last year and tempted me to start a garden in my front yard. My soil in the front yard was never that healthy looking and was very much clay. But at the insistence of my neighbors to show my gardening technique, I took the bait. But instead of starting my own garden, I started a garden for them.

There were two reasons for this. The first reason was that my health was starting to fail again and with the news that twins were on the way, I didnt know if I would honestly be capable of gardening at all. The day to day struggle of dealing with a lung disease is debilitating, the pain excruciating and unbearable, and the mind follows the body, when the body is failing.

But love conquers all.

My wife came home and saw how nice the neighbors garden looked and with a tinge of jealousy in here eye she asked simply, "where's mine?"

And thus began the garden of gardens. An experiment in what can grow with what, a melting pot of theory.

 I started with gasoline. Im just kidding, I really have no idea why that gasoline is there at all. Oh right, I was tilling with my gas honda tiller. See that green plant there in the middle next to the onions? Those of you following the blog should recognize that as the "zombie celery." It never died, in fact, I moved it up front after it survived a cold winter and was living all alone in a field of dreams.

 I went to the local feed store and ordered some artichoke plants. I went a little nuts and ordered 60, since Id heard that the local populace wanted them, and since Id gone to every store in the county and left empty handed. Funnily enough, I visited a lot of gardeners that month who were very grateful that the store I ordered them at actually had them in stock!

 I planted rows of corn, some ancient corn someone had purchased off the internet and given to me, and some corn from a few rotten pieces I had saved from a grow last year. I didn't know if it would grow or if it would be any good and I was worried about the water lines under the garden, since I only tilled 8 inches deep, to avoid hitting any. Still, everything started to take off. As you can see on the far left, in the center of the picture above, my neighbor was transplanting into my yard and I into his. The plant Im referring to is an aloe vera plant. The rest of the aloe veras on his side died, and they were all quite old, but on my side, they died down to practically nothing, then started to thrive!

 The garden became a sort of competition, with them adding more each day, and the look from my wife. So I began to get a little competitive, which isn't like me at all, but there's just something about a woman being involved to drive a man crazy...

 And of course my wife's roses deserved a spot in this garden!

 And so I began to decorate with bricks, creating stepping stones into a world of food.

 See the clay. It was disappointing to say the least, but as you can see on the bottom of the picture, I began to plant peanuts, as peanuts restore nitrogen and other goodies to the soil, making it healthy in only a few months. I love peanuts!

 And I started to create organization.

 The tomatoes grown from seed in the kitchen window began to do quite well.

 So I put tomatoes of different kinds against the fence, hoping they werent too close together!

 I built new fences around my yard and the neighbors yard to keep our dogs out, since they were as curious as we were.

 And I put up that terrible tarp from my last post for a bit of privacy on the porch.

 But I was most proud of my strawberry garden. This stuff loves to spread.

 And all it takes to create a potted plant, is a little ingenuity.

 So I took some soil that was being stored away that had been depleted of nutrients.

 I added a little worm tea to it.

 Like this.

 And let it sit a while.

 I went to check on my artichoke and my aloe vera plants, both medicinal plants.

 Wow, look at the corn grow!

 Tomatoes, corn, squash, and melons, garlic, broccoli, potatoes, and peppers!

And look at how the plant took to the transplant. I just submerged the bottom part of the vine and covered it with a stone, so it wouldn't move out of the pot. Within 3-4 days it can be cut from the vine and transplanted wherever you want. It's that simple.

Harvesting Vermicompost

Well I ended up harvesting months ago, waaaay back in March or April and intended to update my blog waaay back then. But life had other plans and I was busy planning for the birth of my twin daughters, who arrived healthily in May. So it's time to update some of whats been going on in the world of worms.....

This project was about building a sifter and harvesting the vermicompost from the worm inn with the help of a wonderful family!

The first step was to decide how I was going to build a sifter. I wanted to use some screen that would catch the eggs, so I did some research online about proper screen sizes and started from there. I will have to look up what size screen I used to provide the proper size for those of you following this blog.

 I decided to use recycled wood, meaning wood from other projects that has been sitting outside for a while. As you can see, it is damaged, but Ive always been the type of person who cares more about function, than looks, though as I get better woodworking and finding pride in my work, Im finding a middle ground :)

 My neighbor Tom was nice enough to donate some old hand rails from a bathroom. These are the types of rails you see in stores for the handicapped. They fit quite well and provided stability for shaking this heavy sifter. And it is pretty heavy, so keep that in mind as you're building one.

 This was the final product after some hard work. I used: scissors, a drill, a hand saw, and some old screws. All of the materials, including screws were recycled from other projects.

This was my first attempt at sifting. It was unsatisfying because I was losing a lot of material on both sides, since the bucket underneath wasnt large enough, nor the right shape.

 So we decided to pour to the entire pile onto some old tarps I had. The tarps were also donated from elsewhere and had some holes in them, so I used a few of them overlapping each other to make sure no material was lost during the process.

 Then I added the vermicompost and held it over the bucket or tub. Because of the odd shape of the tub I wasnt able to lay the sifter onto it and just shake it back n forth, but instead had to hold it and shake it. Trust me when I say this becomes very exhausting, very quickly. I had to find another way.

 There were a lot of baby worms and eggs falling into the finished product.

 I decided a red ryder wagon was the best way to go, so I switched to using that. My wife and kids used forks to pick out as many eggs as they could, since we were already putting undigested material back into the worm inn.

 My wife was very pregnant at the time, carrying twins, but she was happy to show us her amazing camera skills! Notice how the sifter sits on the wagon, it was much easier to sift that way.

 Heres a nice shot of some worm eggs. There could be 3 to 6 worms in each egg, sometimes more, sometimes less. There's not very many good pictures of eggs out there, so I wanted to make sure we added some.

 And more sifting. As you can see, we were losing some material on the ground, wonder why I didnt use a recycled couple of tarps over here :-/

 Lots of little worms and little eggs but wow, look how that vermicompost is coming out!

 Luckily we had these tiny kid forks that we were able to sift with. We gathered hundred of eggs of these little worms. The kids love this job, but its tedious. Still, there's a job for everybody!

 We started to get quite a bit of vermicompost. I needed to get a couple buckets.

 We were collecting worms on this wet paper you see in the picture above. We also tossed the little worm eggs in there. The worms you see were scrambling to get out of the light and many of them moved under the damp paper.

 I was doing a final check here to see if we had gotten all the little worms and eggs out. It's impossible to get them all, but a little bit of OCD goes a Looong ways!

 Wow, look how nice that stuff is.

 This is good stuff!

 Its really earthy, and smells like earth. Doesnt stink at all, very uniform in size and shape.

 I collected about half a bucket worth of vermicompost and only harvested my worm inn. I could have collected more but I wanted to let the rest of the material in there break down more, so I just tossed it all back in. A handful from this bucket in distilled water or water that is left to sit for a few days to let chlorine evaporate is the beginning of a beautiful worm tea.

Sadly, Ive been neglecting my worm bins since the birth of my daughters. Ive been overwhelmed with many projects. I will try to be more dedicated to my blogs but my health is also a factor that has played a major role in the success of my ambition....until next time!

Winter Update, long Overdue!

Hello my fellow vermicomposters and gardeners! It has been quite a while since I've posted any updates and I sincerely apologize for my absence. Ive been overwhelmed with planning for my twin girls who are due to be born in a few months, as well as a bit ill from this valley fever lung disease, but beyond that, I'm alright and looking forward to spring and more updates!

So lets get to it!

 What you are looking at above is a coffee can that was donated to me for the purpose of holding rabbit manure. Every few days Ill remove the rabbit manure from my rabbit cage and use a putty knife to scrape the manure into this can. Then I place an airtight lid on the can and leave it to mold. Yes that's right, I said mold. You see, this white hairy fungus begins to grow on the manure that is one of the most beneficial molds in soil breakdown.

This mold is known as mycelia or in its vegetative form (white hair like growth) its called mycelium. Over the years in various gardens both indoors and out, Ive seen people freak out over this beneficial mold, but I explain its benefit and soon they hope to get the growth on their top soil, as this particular fungus helps break down decaying matter into food for microorganisms.

This morning I found a banana peel on the table and tossed it into the manure. I carried this can into the worm bathroom, aka, worm room and filled it up with tap water, which is ironic, since the chlorine in the water probably killed a lot of the beneficial goodies living in/on/around the manure. But wetting the manure is a necessary step to ensure any urine in the feces gets diluted so as not to burn the worms.

CAUTION: When using hot manures like horse, steer, cow, etc. make sure to allow these hot manures to sit outside and breakdown for a few months before applying any to your worms. The reason for this is because those hot manures will kill your worms

I havent so much as added anything unique to the worm inn in months. The inn is so heavy, (at least 160lbs) that I fear adding another ten pounds would literally break the pvc frame. I checked on it a month ago and noticed it was in fact, slightly broken. Because I didnt use any glue to hold it together, the tubes had just slipped apart, so i readjusted and then quickly left, as the room is very musty, and with my lung disease, its difficult for me to breathe around these molds nowadays.

I decided to try to get a worm picture and after barely moving the top layer, it was clear that these worms have done VERY well the last few months. There were a lot of baby worms (which is a great sign, it means they've adapted to their environment and are thriving) but Im always happy to see these giant worms that almost look like baby snakes.

 To give a reference to this particular worm's size, I put the handrake thingy in there. See how long he is? He's moving fast!

I also wanted to discuss bugs a little. At first, I tried to freeze all of my vegetables so that they'd break down faster. The more you vermicompost, the more tricks you learn and like most hobbies, comfort breeds laziness. As time went on, I stopped freezing veges and just let them sit out back in a 5 gallon bucket and all our food scraps, dryer lint, cardboard, toilet paper rolls, you name it, if the dogs cant eat it, its added to the bucket so that it can breakdown over time.

This doesnt mean that I wont freeze them in the summer, when flies are prevalent, but in the winter, it's not as big a deal. If you can see the picture above, it is literally covered with thousands of different hopping, jumping and flying bugs that all somehow escaped from the worm inn.

To prevent bugs, I usually just cover the top of the inn with some cardboard or paper, which slows their ability to escape/breed/want to coexist in the environment I created. These fly traps can be had for a dollar at the dollar store and you typically get a few of them in the package. I recommend them, but theyre not appealing to the eye.

 From an above angle, its difficult to tell, but the worm in is about 1/3rd empty. Those worms are really eating away! I tore up some cardboard, paper bags, paper, toilet paper tubes, etc. and just tossed them on top.

 Then I poured the coffee can of manure (or poopachino hehe :) ) onto the top of the torn paper and let it soak in a bit.

Then I tore up some more paper and added some more water to the top of the paper/manure combo to help it soak up some more. The worms wont touch dried manure, so make sure to wet it well.

Just to show you whats going on with the outside bin, I opened it up, tossed some more cardboard in there with some rabbit manure and snapped a few shots from different angles.

As you can see, we've gotten a bit lazy in our tearing things up. Instead, we just toss stuff in there whole, add some water every few days and the mold and moisture breaks it down, albeit slowly, but surely!

The worms are also thriving in the outside bin, with about a good 6-8 inches of vermicompost on the bottom of the bin. We should have a nice vermicompost harvest in the next few months!

Another thing I'd like to point out in the above picture is the weeds Im allowing to accumulate in my yard. See that big one on the left? That's stinging nettle and according to my medicinal herb book, that itchy plant can be used to.......treat itchyness! If any of you are interested in a good herbal medicine book that teaches you how to make medicine out of the weeds in your yard, I highly recommend the "encyclopedia of herbal medicine" by andrew chevallier. Its less than thirty dollars on amazon and.... It may save your life one day!

Stay tuned for more updates and as always, if you need any help, guidance, direction, or if you just have a question or comment, feel free to post and Ill get back to you as soon as I can!