Saturday - worm farm visit

On Saturday morning, we finished the grading in front of the barn entrance. It turned out to be mostly gravel under the soil, so I added some compost to the area where I want to put Hollyhocks. I also planted some chive transplants. I love chives for their early greenery and their buds/flowers. Oh, and I like to eat them too.

During the afternoon, we drove to Richland Center to visit a worm farm. We met the Urban Worm Girls there and visited their current worm supplier. We learned a lot and met a really nice worm farmer too.

This farmer raises his worms in manure from the farm, which I was glad to learn. (We ran into a worm farmer at MOSES who raised his worms in peat; that is just plain wrong in my opinion. Using a non-renewable resource to raise worms - after all, worms eat just about anything!) Anyway, on this farm, long manure beds in a machine shed are filled with worms. During the winter, they will cover additional manure and compost and during especially cold stretches, cover with a tarp, but otherwise the worms are in the open machine shed.

This was their worm separator. This is a repurposed seed cleaner.

Finally... back to Wisc

We haven't been to Wisconsin since the end of February. There was still snow on the ground when we were there last!

To say that we are desperate to go, is an understatement. We are leaving tonight.

We meet with an NRCS agent tomorrow morning to walk our farm. We have many concerns that we would like their guidance on: namely our invasives and our water/erosion issues. Several weeks ago, Bill and I sat down with colored pencils and a huge survey of our 20 acres. We plotted out lots of things: new shop location, two pasture areas, orchard, growing fields, new access roads, beehives, woodland revitalization (using permaculture). We sent a copy to the NRCS agent in advance so he could get an idea of what we want to do.

We will spend the rest of Thurs working on the farm. Bill hopes to get the tractor running and I am going to start disassembling the house (pulling down beadboard paneling for re-use, removing cabinets to save for the workshop, before starting demo).

We are also meeting with our farm mentor on Friday to work out the schedule for our mentorship. We are greatly looking forward to talking with him again and seeing his farm. We met him briefly at the MOSES conference.

And on Saturday, we are visiting a worm farm. The Urban Worm Girl worm supplier is not far from us - we are visiting his farm to see his operation.

There's more...

On Monday, we are traveling to Manteno for the 1st CRAFT field day of the season. The topic is hoophouses and it is a work day so we are going to put up a hoophouse. I am so glad Bill is going too - he has lots of experience bending conduit for running electric wires (Chicago city code; wiring must be in a pipe) so I know he will pick this up in no time flat.

I am greatly looking forward to this farm-filled weekend!

Illinois Renewable Energy Association

I will be leading a workshop on composting with worms on Sunday in Oregon, IL at the Illinois Renewable Energy Fair. Stop by and say hello if you happen to be the fair.

On being a vermicomposter

I've gotten a second job. I'm a Junior Urban Worm Girl. What does this mean? I'm attending green fairs and having fun telling people about the joys of composting with worms.

My friend Stephanie started a company called Urban Worm Girl about six months ago. Her mission is to educate folks about worms and vermicomposting. She does in-home worm setups, speaks to schools and has worm parties. The interest in her services has been quite overwhelming; so much so that she needed some help. I have agreed to help her as I can. So I drove out to Elgin this past weekend and worked a booth at an environmental fair. It was great fun. I was so busy that I was unable to break for lunch. People are curious about the worms and the process. My worms were the star of the show. I wanted to take some photos, but I was so busy that I never got a chance.

Supper tonight was tuna with homegrown greens (sorrel, lovage, chives and lemon balm) in an oil & vinegar atop homemade bagettes. Ahhhh... spring! Eating from the yard again - I've missed it!

Worm tower & my worm friends

Worms (reddish, pink) in the worm bin tray. You can also see some squash rind and some shredded paper in this picture.




This is a worm in the lid.

This is the tray. I'm able to get worm tea from the tapper.

I love this worm set-up. Its got different layers of trays so I can feed my worms on several layers at a time. I've been really careful about not feeding them too much - which I hear is the most common mistake in new bins. For the first two months, I have only fed once a week (although probably 2+ lbs of scraps, which is a lot) and then didn't open the bin until the following week. It seems to have worked well as they seem to be multiplying.

We started this in Dec 08. We've always been composters, but composting in the city is difficult (mostly b/c of rodents). Plus, in the winter you are essentially just tossing your scraps into the pile and they freeze. I don't have a manure or straw component to my outdoor bin so its doesn't run hot like a lot of outdoor compost piles. My indoor worm bin allows us to compost year round and I'm able to use the castings as seed starter. I'm experimenting with different "recipes" for seed starting (i.e. more or less castings, etc.).

Plus - I think they are neat.

One thing that I don't like: its plastic.

Soil block makers

I received my soil block makers for seed starting.

No more plastic! No more attempts to try to disinfect those little plastic trays from year to year. I am on a mission to eliminate plastic from my life (impossible, I know - but one can try, right?)

The past several years I have been making pots out of newspaper. Those are great, except, there is only one size and you can't really transplant or move up in size in newspaper. Things like tomatoes fairly quickly outgrow their little pot. Plus, after 6 to 8 weeks, the newspaper pot tends to get a little wilty.

So, I caved and purchased some soil block makers. I did find some instructions for making your own online, but Bill doesn't have time so I broke down and bought them from Seeds of Change (love that company, although my jury is still out on their new seed packaging).

I'll take a picture soon, but I planted up 60 onions a few nights ago. I also have arugula going in an old cookie sheet (its an experiment - for eating now - I don't know if it needs more soil depth).

So far, I think the blockers will work out great. I got a whole tray of finished vermicompost last night to add to my mixture. I'm also going to try that straight as a seed starting medium.

I'll also do a post soon on my worms and my worm tower.