Vermiculture Nursery

If you’re not aware vermiculture is raising worms for their byproducts (worm castings or as bait). I started experimenting with vermiculture last October. I began with a wooden box I made lined with plastic and a modest handful of red wigglers. When I first started out it seemed to be going moderately well, I had castings (worm poop) and lots of worm eggs being laid. But I had a large problem also, vinegar flies aka fruit flies. I couldn't get the little varmints to go away and when cold weather came I was hesitant to bring my worms and flies inside mostly because of the flies. So consequently my worms all died, R.I.P.

So I concocted a new plan and made a new worm house out of a large styrofoam meat container. I then went and bought some new worms from, I hate to say, Wal-Mart. I found a distributor who sells European night crawlers to them as "pan fish and trout worms". These worms are the new hip composting worms. They reproduce less than red wigglers but are hardier and eat more types of food. In fact one online source claims they will eat any organic matter besides bones, a little creepy but efficient. I have had my European night crawlers in the basement since early November. All this time they have been eating and producing castings and laying eggs but there has been a problem. The eggs haven't appeared to be hatching because I haven't seen any babies. So I made a sort of vermiculture nursery. I thought maybe it was too cold in basement for the eggs to hatch since I had read multiple sources that said the eggs need temperatures between 60 and 70 degrees fahrenheit.

About two weeks ago I took about fifteen eggs and put them in a plastic sour cream container with a few knife holes punched in the top. I then shredded and wet a paper towel and placed some small morsels of organic matter for them to eat inside. Just yesterday I was inspecting my eggs and turning some of the newspaper over when I discovered babies! I was excited to the point where I am pretty certain some members of my household may be scarred for life. I also discovered why I wasn't seeing my little babies in the main worm house; the worm pictured next to the straight pin is two to three times bigger than the smallest worms hatched. I figure I will let the little guys keep growing and hatching for another week and I will move them to the main worm house. I also finally did discover some young worms in the main house that are about one inch long. I am not sure what I thought I was looking for before when checking for babies but I don't think it was quite this small.

Project 2: The Compost Bins

Finally, I finished the compost bins that I had mentioned in an earlier post (refer to November 9th post, "Project 1: the mini greenhouses"). Just like the mini greenhouses these compost bins are made completely from reused materials that were discovered in the loft of the barn. Since I didn't use treated, cedar, or some other rot resistant wood I'm sure that they won’t last as long as they could but I really strive to reuse any possible material. Not only does it feel good to challenge myself to "reduce and reuse" it is also a relief to any pocket book by saving money and building the compost bins for FREE. I even scavenged around the garage finding and reusing the nails that hold them together!

To make the compost bins I simply dug out a spot roughly six feet long and three feet deep creating an area which was level. I then cut whatever wood was available into three foot pieces and also cut six additional 2x4's to use as four foot posts. Next, I nailed the sides together to make three foot by four foot rectangle walls, assembled the entire thing and wired the lattice fronts on. The two final bins are 3' x 4' rectangular prisms side by side. One compost bin for use and one decomposing...hopefully, that's the plan.  The two bins won’t be my only compost source but they will be the tidiest. I plan to also have several compost piles elsewhere (placed for convenience) but they will be simple heaps with no bin.
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