The new home of the worms!

The worms have moved into their new home. I took a picture of the boxes before the transition to give you an idea of how I drilled the air and drainage holes. It may not be easy to see on this picture, but I use double boxes, the inner one has holes in the bottom to allow the worm fluid out (which means the outer one has an unperforated bottom). The long sides and one of the short sides has air holes drilled straight through both boxes - yep, I put them together and drilled, it's the only easy way to make the holes match.

These are standard boxes from IKEA (SAMLA 39*28*14cm / 15 1/4*11*5 1/2" to be exact, unfortunately the link seems to jump to anther size in the collection - use the drop down menu if you think the picture's wrong) and they have several advantages; they are relatively small, they are stackable and the worms thrive in them. This means I can easily put the vermicomposts away and they are stable when I need to stack them. And it's easy to make a bigger compost - I just make another vermicompost container and put it atop of the others. It's something like that I'm planning to do, when I've cleaned the old composts the best one will be reentering the system. Right now the oldies are drenched in pine soap water though - boy, they were mucky!

An interview saves the worms

This friday journalist Åsa Kjellman Erici interviewed me for Sveriges Radio (Sweden's Radio ltd. - Sweden's national publicly funded radio broadcaster) and a program about city gardening in all it's various forms.

Among other things we smelled the vermicompost. It stunk. Åsa Kjellman Erici was a nice journalist who put up with everything I put her through, and I've learned one thing - if you want to record background sounds to put local colour to the interview, then indoor gardening is an extremely silent hobby.

The stinking vermicompost has bothered me this weekend. Vermicomposts are supposed to be odourless, and mine had very few worms in it. Then it struck me; that was the compost that had fewer airholes in it. Now when I have started to put bokashi in the vermicompost I raised the level of organisms needing oxygen in it dramatically, so the compost doesn't get enough air. Thus I spent some time on IKEA today to buy boxes which will be turned into new and airier homes for my wormsies.

A worm composting horror story

My worms are live and kicking (metaphorically speaking at least - I would be very surprised if I found that they'd grown legs), and they stays in the bin even though they are kept in the dark. This lady wasn't as lucky with her first batch, and she still kept on vermicomposting. Perhaps you need that kind of chock in the beginning of a hobby to make it last, my first indoor vegetable gardening experiments were... well... perhaps I should take that in another blogpost ;) .

Embarassment of riches

The way from scarcity to abundance is sometimes a fastlane. The first year I grew vegetables indoors I used synthetizised fertiliser since it was easy to buy and handle. Later, when I felt more secure as an indoor gardener, I turned my attention to "natural" fertilizers, ie. poop, piss or rotten plants. You may understand why I hesitated to start this part of the experiment. Using my own urin from the start would have been an easy solution, but I didn't want my containers to start smelling.

When I had built my first vermicompost I eagerly awaited the famous worm liquid that would pour from it, odourless and a great 'food' for my plants.

It came. Drip by drip it came, and several times I hadn't enough to all my plants.

Do you believe me if I say this was a few weeks ago? Yesterday I poured of another half a liter (two cups) of the fluid - I have more than a litre (four cups) of it in the fridge. In addition I have the wondrous bokashi fluid, a great fertilizer in its own. I really have to sow more plants to get rid of the stuff!

The good news is I can do exactly that. Yesterday I sawed the pallets that blocked the access to my study window to pieces and sent them off. Today I'll go on a shopping spree to buy the items needed for my two new grow windows (plus a few rolls of flowery wall papers - of course I need a study with flowery wall paper). Things are progressing!

***

If you remember my goals for 2009 I have a small update; since the seventh of january I've lost a kilo (~two pounds)! Jay, and if I hadn't managed to throw my pants in the dryer I'd feel a lot thinner now :) Sparkpeople is good stuff.

To do list: study ecological farming and feed the worms

Yupp, I'm keeping the schedule! Yesterday I studied ecological farming...

erm...

...in reality I read a few pages every day, so you'll have to wait a bit for my Big and Learned Post on the subject. Untill then I can say that it's interesting to read about something in quite another size than my own fiddlings.

Today I fed the worms. That was something that took me a looooooong time to do. I was expecting odour, but when I finally came around to do it I did it so fast that the smell couldn't keep up. Self-preservation is a good thing.

Before I emptied the can of food into the compost I poured out the worm fluid. About three deciliter (more than a cup) of prime black water to feed to the plants. When I watched the level rise in the bottle I realised that I've reach a milestone, one of those I've waited for

I'm now selfsuficiant in fertiliser

The vermicomposts did the trick. When I came around setting them up the rest was a matter of weeks. Still I think a celebratory woho is in place. Wohoo!

So, this is what's left on the list

• Sterilise soil
  
• Mix new potting soil (jay for home made worm fertiliser!)
  
• Repot seedlings
  
• Buy sills, consoles, lamps, chains and flourescent lights
  
• Paint sills
  
• Put up sills and added light
  
• Move the mound of pallets under the window in the study
  
• Put the potted plants in their new places
  
• Order seeds
  

Will I keep the pace? Let's see...

Odor

The last time I watered my plants with mild wormfluid sollution I noted how bad it smelled. The soil then seemed to absorb the odor since I can't feel anything reeking around my plants - and I have a good sense of smell.

Vermicompost fluid doesn't pass through the worms all the time. Sometimes it pours directly from the kitchen waste into the tray for liquids, at that's why some of it smell bad. I keep the kitchen waste in an airtight tin on the sink before I put it in the compost. Since I only empty the tin about once in a week the scraps starts to break down. Things that breaks down with little oxygen smells bad.

So, what am I to do about it? Well, for a start I'll empty the tin more often, and in the long run I'll drill some extre holes in the vermicompost containers. You may remember that I found foul smelling food when I divided my compost into two some time ago, and I suspect the containers to be a bit to tight.

And I'll by a bokashi. I know I've been going on about this contrapition for a long time now, but I haven't bought one (too much month at the end of the money). If Santa is nice I'll be able to buy one on the evening the twentyfourth of december. If not I'll have to save up for a few months - and in the meantime be nit-picking about emptying the tin.

I've soiled my hands...

Today I gathered strength enough to pot some of my seedlings. I realised that I wouldn't be able to handel the entire batch so I settled for the eggplants since they looked perky. The project then grew fast; the terracotta pots needed soaking, it looked like I was running out of premixed soil which meant I had to drag out used soil for sterilisation. The used soil was dry as tinder, and I used about five litres (1 1/3 gallon) of water to get it moist enough for the heat of the oven (dry soil smolders and stinks).

After doing all this I had the pleasure to mix my own soil. I brought out one of the vermicomposts and harvested the produce by hand from the top layer. Not the most sofisticated method, but a start. I mixed the compost with sterilised soil, the rest of the premixed soil and water. It'll be interesting to see how it works.

After half a year of testing I can recommend coconut fiber as a grow medium. You may remember that I brought some home from Nordic gardens this spring. Since then I've mixed it with my soil and used it for tomatoes and other plants. Works really well. The fibres add structure to the soil and prevents it from building that crust you'll find in a pot when you try to save a plant you haven't watered for a while. The fibres also makes the soil easier to handle when you dig around in it. The fact that they are sold in briquettes makes them easy to store - a plus when you are gardening in small spaces.

I'll buy a generous amount of coconut fibre when my wallet so allows. Appart from using them in my soil I'll use them as bedding in my vermicompost. I've tried newspaper, shredded egg cartons and moist leaves, and I do suspect that coconut fibre will be the bedding most easy to handle.

Impressed by the vermicompost

Things works at a slower pace right now, and this has been the case for a while (I wonder how long I've been ill). A couple of days ago we finally fed the worms. I've invested in a tight tin for vegetable scraps so we don't have to disturb the vermicompost with every other hour. The plan was to empty it every third day...

When we finally emptied the tin I had lost count on how many weeks it was since last. It STUNK! I'm not a squeely person, but I couldn't clean it out afterwards, even at a second try. The only thing I could think of was
"Bokashi, I'd rob a bank to buy a bokashi!"

Of course the vermicompost started to smell once we'd fed it and the odour spred far beyond the understairs cupboard where the wormsies live. I passed it several times agonising on our resale value since I was convinced this stench would dig itself into the walls. At the same time I noticed it was diminishing, but attributed it to the nose getting used to it.

The next morning the odour was gone - completely. To be sure that my senses didn't play tricks on me I stuck my head into the cupboard and took a deep breath through the nose. The only thing I could smell was wet leaves. I asked the hubby to do the same, and he didn't feel anything either. In a few hours the wormsies had devoured all the stinky stuff - and I have a feeling they found it delicious.

I went to the doctor today

The Cold From Hell turned out to be pneumonia. May seem to be bad news, but it is a jackpot to me; at last I can get medication and heal! My lifelines have come to good use today too, and tomorrow an exciting event will take place here; the hubby (age fifty) and the son (age three) will harvest wormfluid and feed the worms in the vermicompost - after my instructions.

I finally came around to do it!

Today I 'shifted' my vermicompost. After spending weeks trying to make middle walls for the containers I happened to read in "Worms Eat My Garbage" (the vermicompost standard work) that a barrier wasn't necessary. Duh!

A compost with a pierced middle wall will probably be more tidy, but if the process works without it I'm ready to let my composts (they're two now) be as they are for a while. Perhaps I'll even get around to make barriers some day...

Digging around in that brown goo was quite fascinating. I found a mass of worms, big and small ones alike. They do thrive. But they hadn't finished their meal and their leftovers stunk when I moved them around. Perhaps the containers have too few air holes - I need to look this up.

The battle against murphy

I've demolished a plastic lid today. I was trying to make some barriers for my vermicompost and the thing didn't cooperate. I blame the fret saw! I'll make another attempt tomorrow, this time with the jigsaw. Battle continues...

Sustainable Dave Explains Vermicomposting

Time for the Saturday vid, once again we are watching an tutorial in vermicomposting. Worms make you a bit nervous, especially before you've started the vermicompost and I liked the calm attitude of Sustainable Dave, so I thought a small repetition was appropriate. It's true what he says - it's fairly uncomplicated.

The links flashing at the end of the vid are www.365daysoftrash.com and www.chasingsustainability.blogspot.com. Both are blogs about sustainable living and seems to be nice reading.

The worms deliver

The bottom tray of my homemade vermicompost has remained dry for a very long time. According to Those Who Know surplus fluid would seep into it, making an excellent base for compost tea. However my vermicompost seemed to have reach the ideal percentage of moist at once, so I stopped checking the tray...

...untill the day before yesterday when hubby accidentally poured some deciliters (cups) of black liquid over the floor while he was tidying the understairs cupboard. This made him a bit tired, not only for the sake of the puddle, but also since he had wasted valuable fertiliser. We decided to not cry over spilt drips, and today we had enough to make the first everyday watering with compost tea.

Thus, eventhough I'm frustrated that everything takes longer time than expected, I'm proud to see that I'm steadily nearing the goal.

Just a little grumpy

Today I found myself wondering why I haven't taken up stamp collecting as a hobby. Stamps are tiny, easy to store and won't give you any strange DIY ideas. While I was at it I wondered why I had to take "frugal living" as a second hobby, instead of buying myself free from troubble.

What I was doing? Making separation walls for my vermicomposts. Took far longer than I had expected and the material was wiggling in a way only millions of packingstraps can wiggle. I hope I'll finish the project tomorrow, or on Thursday - perhaps even on Friday...

(Dear Santa, I want a Can O Worms and a bokashi starter set for Christmas!)

The issue of worms

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 :)

Environmental friendly ponderings

The worms thrive in their compost, but find it a bit small. I wonder if this is a good reason for travelling to Great Britain and buy a Can O' Worms? But if I go there to buy something that makes me more environmental friendly it feels pretty stupid to go by air (saving on the pennies while wasting on the pounds so to say*). Going by train adds considerable to travel time, and this means I "have" to stay longer at the destination. The question is how am I going to justify that, considering the added cost of lodging and so forth.

Yes, I know it's simple to order one online and get it sent home by post, but that's not as fun.

***

*For some reason a translation of this simile felt more natural in brittish currency, but since I know I have a lot of american readers I can't resist making a conversion
"saving on cents while wasting on the dollars". There. And I didn't even need an online converter ;)

Dark-winged fungus gnats

Vermicompost with flytrap in their natural environment (I didn't use the flash due to low battery when I took this photo - I haven't soften it to make vermicomposting romantic ;) ).

Bummer! The other week I tried to show my son the worms in the vermicompost - of course with the evil plan to introduce him to recycling and the circle of life. I mean: worms seems to be an important part of boys' childhood, he could hardly find them repulsive.

And he was ok with the worms. It was the CLOUD of fungus gnats he didn't like. He found himself some important thing to do in another room, and I was left alone with the composting chore. I was warned that vermicompost would bring out flies, and now I could see the result of not putting up fly-traps in time.

The gnats thrive among my plants too, and I've added a hunting session to my daily routine. Every gnat I find is killed on the spot. This wont make my home completely free from the pest, I'm aiming for a substantial decimation of the population. I don't want to use pesticides, we live here ourselves and I feel sick every time I step into a room where spray has been used. Nemablom, an insecticide containing nematodes, is under consideration, but I won't use it untill I know if this kind eats other larvae and worms too. If they infect worms they're not much use in a vermicompost...

There are a few advantages. Crushed fungus gnats (which I think sometimes are refered to as fruitflies even in english language - this is a common mixup in Sweden at least) smells good. Some smells faintly of musk, others like sea- and lemon scented cleaning agents. This sometimes work the other way around, I know elders that can't stand the smell of modern cleaning agents since they associate it with fungus gnats. For my own part I focus on the positive side - and wash my hands afterwards.

Does the vermicompost smell?

Definately! And believe it or not, it smells lavendar. The understairs cupboard smells like granny's wardrobe when I open it to get something. However, this is not because of the worms, a few bouquets of dried lavendar were accidentaly left in the bedding, and I discovered them too late.

I cultivated lavendar on the balcony two years ago, but left the plants to die when I discovered that they were a hybrid with a strange, sharp smell. Since the original lavendar smells pretty sharp this was not a humdinger, and yet I dried some bouquets in my study. Interestingly enough they smell pretty good in the vermicompost.

If you feel the urge to throw fragrant herbs in your vermicompost I'll remind you that lavendar once was used to fend off moths, and is probably not a healthy diet for other insects and crawlies. For this reason I'm worried about my new multipet. I couldn't find any dead worms when I dug around in the compost an hour ago, which I think is a good sign. On the other hand I could'nt find any live ones either - only one that crept away surprisingly fast. This uncertainity about my wigglers' fate should make my compost a Schrödinger's vermicompost, at least until I've learned how to dig for worms.

Roses and worms

The worms arrived today! The company told me last week that this was the day, but it was still exiting to open a padded envelope to find a sealed plastic bag with some soil, white root fragments and a few motionless red worms. Gently I turned the bag around to see if any of them was alive. They couldn't be all dead, could they? Suddenly one of them stretched out and pointed its head (?) to burrow from the light.

Ew!

The sight made me shudder, eventhough I regard myself as tough when it comes to yucky things. I put the bag aside and started drilling holes in the vermicompost to be. Forgotten were the earpains and the feebleness, at least untill the battery of the driller died. Sometimes I dearly wish for better tools than this cheap mailorder stuff.

In the meantime the roses started to bud on the balcony, and I paused ever so often to look at them. I've waited for these flowers for over a year. The vermicompost has been planed for less than a year, it's only fair that they shared my attention. Then I moisturised the vermicompost bedding and the time had come for breaking the bag.

Inside the lump of soil I found wriggling worm spagetthi. And again I shuddered, but why give in to basic reactions like these? (They serve a purpose, I'm sure.) I broke the lump and scattered it over the bedding to leave the worms to fend for themselves. It's a way to find dead worms. Those who haven't burrowed after an hour are dead.

What I though were white root fragments proved to be worm babies wiggling their tails, or shaking their heads perhaps, against the light. Compost worms don't like light. After an hour I could see that all worms were live and well, since the only thing left on surface was the tip of a tail. I treated my new multipet to a generous prune core and put the vermicompost beneath our stairs. My next project is to build a trap for fruitflies...



(I haven't added a CafePresslink today because of technical trouble. I'll return to the routine shortly, with the addition of highdefinition CClicensed picture downloads.)

From chemical to natural

Have you ever wondered how healthy you would be if your food consisted of dextrose, vitamin and mineral pills, a shot of cooking oil every now and then and a daily pure fibre cookie? I've pondered this for some days, since it struck me that this is almost the 'mealplan' of plants fed with chemical fertilizer. The solution I use promise to provide every mineral and nutrient a plant needs. Since my plants stays healthy as long as they get their weekly clean water shower there may be some truth in that.

I use chemical fertilizer for two reasons; it's easy to store for a long time in room temperature, and there are limits to how advanced I can be when I'm starting something. In the beginning of this experiment the idea of growing vegetables indoors was odd in itself, I wasn't in the mood of experimenting with "natural" fertilizer too. Now I'm changing into nutrients I can make out of plants and plant waste, and are cheap and easy to produce.

Since I'm growing stuff indoors there are limits to what I can use - I'm reluctant to use anything that smells for example. The dark fluid in the glass above is the water left when I parboiled nettles a few days ago. This is what I use now, mixed one part to ten with clean water (you may remember that I think this fluid contains nutrients because of its colour). It doesn't smell much, and I hope it'll make my iceplant taste better. Since I've only used it once I can't say if it works or not. It's a temporary solution (ahaha), and when I've emptied my fertilizer carboys of this I'll replace it with something made from an old established recipe.

So, are there any old established recipes to use? Well, I know about two which involves fermenting, and one of them is known to have a smelly result (ie. nettle water). The other is easy to describe; you make a hole in the bottom of a bucket, fill it with comfrey leaves and place it over a tin. When the leaves rot a dark brown fluid drips into the tin, and this fuid is then diluted with water (one part to fifteen parts clean water, we are talking strong stuff here) to a liquid fertilizer. Neither do this sound as something sweetly fragrant. But since I live according to the motto "better living through reckless experimentation" I'll try it to see if the smell is something that stays or if it fades after a while.

I've also ordered some tiger worms to start up vermicomposting, and from this I count on having both dry and liquid fertilizer. If you keep your compost in plastic bins, which I intend to do, the worms and the waste will produce fluid that is good for making liquid fertilizer (and we could now say it together "dilute it with clean water"). The good thing about vermicompost is it doesn't smell much, the finished product is said to smell like soil (surprise). I don't know if this goes for the 'composttea' too, but this is my favorite candidate for a future standard solution.

Besides I think plants too deserve a cucumber decoration on their drinks every now and then.

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I'm pretty fond of Cafe Press. The feeling of seeing one's pictures printed professionally on everything from teddybears to posters is hard to beat. That's why I started to put up my pic of the day there. If you like the blog or the photo you can buy some prints. (I'm doing this for the fun of it, but this doesn't keep me from saying "Shop 'till you drop!" ;-) )

Prints of today's pic here.