What do you think lies beneath this? Right, I've already mentioned worms. But untill I looked under the paper I didn't know how they fared (you have a picture at the end of the post if you want to take a sneak peak). For over a week I've left the vermicompost alone under our stairs, while the vermifood have been left in a enameled tin can on our sink. It's both a blessing and a curse that the pot have a window, since I can see how much it's inside and how fresh it is... The vermicompost has indeed provided me with some new and fresh mental obstacles; the cloud of fungus gnats lifting from it was discouraging, and emptying a can with vegetable scraps and breadcrumbs that has pickled for over a week is nothing I look forward to. Ironically the last item prolonges itself; me not wanting to empty old scraps that turns into even olders scraps that I even less want to empty, untill I grab myself by the throat and do it.
The fungus gnats were gone when I took out the vermicompost today. I do hope that long periods of pitch dark are exactly what's needed to not make them feel at home. The other reason may be that I've gone from digging the scraps into the bedding to covering the stuff with a wet broadsheet - paper is harder to lay eggs in compared to pulp. The compost worms themselves can dig through it, if you look closely you can see a vermirump sticking up above the surface. (No, it's not mooning me, it's just too lazy to crawl down entirely.) Since colour printing in general includes unedible stuff my first step with this one is to replace the sheet with some raw, brown paper.
I was afraid that the vermicompost would be another one of my problem childs, but when I lifted the cover it was fine. The worms had apparantly felt well enough to make baby worms, and that is a good sign. My next action will be to add another container (I made two at the same time), make some dividers and split the vermistuff. Further on I need to figure out exactly what you do with freshly harvest worm poop. It doesn't smell, so I hope I won't end up with mental obstacles on this one.
And at last a family photo on my worms. I'm pondering a name for them, like Kurt-Sara or Anna-Bo or something :)
1 comment:
Don't forget that light will stress your worms. Keeping the bin in the dark is best for them as well as not being the favorite of the gnats.
If you have a dark-colored bin or you covered that one with something light proof it wouldn't be a problem to have it in a brighter room, but with the clear sides your worms will flee the edges in a bright room.
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