Upside down plants can take a lot of water and so have a tendency to dry out the soil faster than just a regular hanging basket filled with flowers would. Hence, adding worm soil just may reduce the number of times you have to water.

Red worms or squirmies, affectionately named by my husband, can be a fun hobby. They actually like it when you do not fuss over them. They will eat your leftover vegetables, egg shells, and bits of cardboard to make a special type of soil that is rich in nitrogen and has enough moisture to stick like clay. I once harvested the worm droppings and was able to compress them into a large ball.

However, it is the moisture holding property that makes them stick together, they will release their nutrients, as opposed to clay particles. Also, while clay particles adhere so strongly to each other that they form a wall for roots to force their way through, vermicompost is easily penetrated by roots. Their bonds are much weaker. The main exciting property is their water holding capacity. A regular loam soil will lose moisture faster than a soil that is part vermicompost.

So when you make your hanging basket soil mixture add a couple of handfuls of worm droppings, then sit back and have more time to smell the roses.

Tomorrow I will expose a secret to multiplying red wrigglers that few vermicomposters ever consider doing.

Red worms or making vermicompost can be an all encompassing job or a relaxing hobby. It all depends on how you approach it. For starters these worms are not native, so do not expect them to thrive in the heat of the summer which can be anywhere from 90- 100 degrees Fahrenheit. They also will not survive temperatures of anything below zero Fahrenheit. Also, different from the native nightcrawlers and earthworms, who make holes in the ground so that plants roots can breathe, redworms need air themselves.

In addition, instead of “eating” dirt or soil, red worms make soil, but need vegetables and carbon to make it. One last thing, they are sensitive to light. Red wrigglers or red movers are good nick names for them since if they are in the open they really “move” or “truck” to get hidden under anything.

There you have it – the important characteristics of red worms that are used to make organic fertilizer and help us get rid of our waste vegetable parts. Tomorrow I will talk about what makes red worms so special.

A big thank you goes out to Paul and Cyndi Muller for opening their farm generously again for the 5th year!!! Without their vision, the Illinois-Wisconsin region would be a poorer place in terms of homesteading people interacting and connecting.

As usual it was a rounding success. Success can be measured in both quantity and quality. Quantity in the number of attendants and quality in terms of demonstrations offered.

There were about 35 – 40 people on Saturday. That is a perfect size. Some people get to participate, others get to watch and everyone can see what is going on so no one feels left out.
Also, this size relaxes a person to chat with others enabling one to meet new friends.

5th Mullerslane Farm Event

Secondly, quality gets measured by what actually took place. In the morning there was group participation making hooks and various items in the Blacksmith shop under the watchful eye of Paul as Cyndi showed us how to make cool method lye soap that even has swirls on all sides.

Next, Paul tenaciously trimmed the Draft horses hooves, later harnessing the horses, allowing as many as wished to have hayrides around the farm.

Somewhat later, a 4-H couple showed us how to use and train Border Collies to herd goats and sheep. The Muller’s Heidi, even watched! So,when it was her turn, she sped in, running circles around the goats, keeping them together. Good job, Heidi!

Finally, many had a chance to try their hand at churning butter or hand-cranking ice cream, before an incredible storm blew us inside around 6 to 6:30 pm.

All that in one day! Amazing. Yes, it was a success all the way around. So all of us left with a tired but happy feeling of having learned a lot. Stay tuned for Part 2 of Reflections.

You can find out about their farm and to order what they offer from soap to wool to hand forged items here:
Mullerslane farm

If you liked the previous painting by Jory Sherman, there are more treats in store. The Winnesboro today has published a Father’s day piece on him that you can view here. They even show some of his paintings.

His paintings exude vibrant colors and are a delight to the eyes. His western books also create images with words and use some clever thinking. One of his latest books, Vigilante, depicts two gunman following another horseman who doesn’t want to be followed. Jory has them using a switchback technique that is pure genius. Now for the rest of the story go to his website and purchase the book or go to Amazon where you can find his books as well.

Jory Sherman has written over 300 books, most of them westerns, but not all. Also, you can find his short stories in Amazon shorts.

What if you don’t see any cocoons after a few months?  Then you first need to check the temperature.  Does the bedding feel hot or cold to the touch?  Grains can heat up the compost, so perhaps you should cut back on the amount of grains or leave them out altogether.  Next, check for smells.  Does it have a sour smell?  Perhaps you have used too much fruit rind as well.  Do you have enough air circulation getting to the bedding?  Sometimes just bottom holes or holes on the sides of the main bin are not enough.  You may have to have the worm bin lid slightly ajar to provide a much needed air flow.

Also, you need to completely replace the bedding at least every 3 months.  Maybe every two months if you have the containers overcrowded with red worm, especially in the wintertime.  What is the bedding, again?   Refer back to the previous posts for a detailed explanation.  In a nutshell, you need to have a body of shredded cardboard with some eggshells at the very least with a covering of shredded, dampened paper as the covering.

This has been the steps to successful vermicomposting.

For adequate drainage, be sure to drill holes in the individual tray bottoms and/or sides of the bins or construct the bin of chicken wire which is full of holes. Lastly, if you are using a plastic container, leaving the lid ajar would also promote air circulation. The red worms may not need a fan, but they do need their oxygen too.

After 4-6 months for larger bins and 2-3 months for smaller bins, you need to change the bedding. Although the plants love the worm casting and actually thrive in this, these castings are supposedly toxic to the worms themselves. So either you constantly harvest the worm castings or you move them into new “clean” bedding as described above. How to do this? There are various methods used to accomplish this. One is the dump method. Here you get a large clean cloth or paper and dump the bin contents onto it. Wait 10 minutes and start removing the top decomposed layers until you start to see worms. Stop and wait another 10 minutes and repeat until you have separated the worms from the old bedding. You don’t have to be perfect here. Store the old bedding however you like to use as natural fertilizer in your garden. Lastly divide up and place the newly harvested worms in their new bedding and the process starts all over again.

Some things to watch for are the formation of swollen bands or clitellum around the worms in the upper part of their body. This means the worm is mature enough to mate. Hence, after a couple of weeks you should look for round pineapple like balls that are cocoons containing the eggs of the red worms. Actually these cocoons start out white, turning yellow and then brown and lastly red just before hatching. Typically out of the 20 eggs, 2-3 become red wormlings. If you see this, you can rest assured that you have provided an environment that the worms are content with.

Next, sprinkle a light layer of crushed eggshells, followed by a light layer of sand. Since the worms do not have teeth, by swallowing sand grains it helps their muscular gizzard to grind away at the vegetable matter. Next, a light layer of soil gives them some additional bacteria to aid breaking down the plant material. Finally, a thick layer of lightly moistened shredded paper, gives the worms the privacy and darkness that they crave. Now place the worms on top and give them time to disappear into their new home. After this, be sure to use a sprinkling can to lightly water on top of these layers so that there will be a uniform wetness to the red worm bin. It is important to note that if you provided for adequate drainage, the excess water will quickly run off a nicely moist bedding for the red worms to thrive in.

Feeding the worms may initially take some adjustment. Always separate all vegetable leftovers from the meat and dairy products. Now, you can feed them daily, using the dump and run method. You gently, but firmly peel back the top layer of the bin(s) and place the food item(s) and then place the shredded paper layer back exactly the way you found it. Or you can feed them weekly by placing a layer of vegetable slurry fairly deep within the bin for the squirmies to munch on.

So what do you need in a worm bin? You need adequate depth for the worms to bury themselves in the bedding and adequate drainage and ventilation. That’s about it. A depth of 3 inches or more will meet the needs of the worms and either individual trays stacked on one another or one huge bin will provide the ventilation needed

Stay tuned to Part IV

Growing your own red worms is easy if you remember a few basic rules. Worms need oxygen just as humans do, only their exchange site of Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide is their skin instead of lungs. Therefore, worms need adequate circulation. Worms also live in temperatures that we are able to survive in as well-45 to 95 degrees. Red worms are different than the garden variety or even the night crawlers and should be grown in bins and not in soil. The purpose of red worms is to decompose vegetable matter waste whereas garden worms open up the soil for oxygen to reach the plant roots.

Do feed vegetables, leaves, eggshells, and some fruit rinds to the red worms. Do not feed them any dairy or meat products and limit grains as well. Our goal is to make an odorless compost, one that does not overheat and thereby kill the red worms or one that does not attract rodents or other animals due to dairy or meat products used.

A layered approach seems to meet the red worms desires for darkness and nondisturbance and keeps the smells down of decaying vegetable matter. One starts with a thick layer of shredded moistened cardboard that is the wetness of a wrung out sponge. Next, a layer of either soft vegegable matter such as table scraps or a slurry of the same that has been pulverized in a blender. Using a vegetable slurry is helpful allowing for a fast start in multiplying your worms since they do not have to wait for bacteria to breakdown the vegetables. In this manner, the now-sedentary worms do not have to expend much energy in obtaining the food. Hence, they can grow more quickly. This is a great way to have a multitude of worms with very little work.

Stay tuned for Part III

Today with the concern that we are slowly poisoning ourselves it is comforting to know that there is an all organic alternative to chemical fertilizers. Vermicomposting refers to the turning of our vegetable garbage into a soil additive called Worm Castings.

The natural fertilizer contained in worm castings is very high in nutrients. Take a typical soil. Worm castings contain several times the available Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K); and three times the available calcium(Ca). Nitrogen is hard to supply to a soil since it comes in volatile forms such as an ammonia-like gas that quickly dissipates or is bound so tightly that the plants cannot use it. However, worm castings allow for the slow release of its nutrients to the soil, making them readily available to the plants roots. How is this done? Basically, via the breakdown of organic matter, humus is formed. Humus contains humic acid which loosely holds onto N, P, K and Ca It has been found that a soil composed of 15% worm casting is optimal for the growth of plants. More that this, there is no observable difference in plant growth.

Now, soil castings take longer to break down or erode that regular soil. How is this possible? The red worms digest the vegetable matter as well as some paper and/or cardboard by passing it through their crop, muscular gizzard, and intestines where it is ground up and mixed with their enzymes and mucous. Hence, this mucous coating remains on the worm casting and quickly dries to provide a barrier to resist being eroded by water. In fact, worm castings also take 2-3 times their weight in water and so help to keep a soil moist.

Stay tuned for Part II