July 2, 2006
Compost
We bought multipurpose compost from Homebase. Nothing grows in it. The plants don't die, they just stay exactily the same size. Dan planted four wee lettuces in a pot of the compost and, I swear, three weeks later, they were exactly the same size. Also French Marigolds and a wee climber that Dan'd mum grew from seed - last year the plants were rampant. This year, they have three leaves.
Bizarre.
March 7, 2004
The Earth Moved
I've just finished reading Amy Stewart's excellent 'The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms'. It's not as specialist a read as it might sound from the title - it's wonderfully readable and the worms themselves so fascinating that everyone should enjoy it.
Read my review at Blether for more, or see Amazon UK or Amazon US to buy. Also be sure to visit the author's site - Worms of Endearment.
February 3, 2004
1,000 new charges
Today we became responsible for another 1,000 or so lives. Yes, our worms arrived from Worms Direct, in a big white bucket with 'Live Worms' pasted on the side. The bucket contains worms and some established bedding - mostly made up of worm casings - which should ensure a quick and stress-free move into their new home. I checked over our home-made worm bins, and made a few preparations for tomorrow's relocation - drilled some ventilation holes in the side of what will be the started bin; made a carpet cover for the top bin; soaked some newspapers to act as a barrier over the mesh on the bottom of the starter bin.
The worms won't be moved until morning. If moved at night there is a chance they will become disoriented and rather than making new beds in the bottom of the bin they might go upwards and escape the bin altogether almost certainly resulting in death. So the morning light will let them know which way is up, and hopefully they will settle quickly.
Once established we can expect them to eat nearly double their weight in scraps every day, so the compost bins may suffer. I have a plan though...
January 30, 2004
Worms Direct
Earlier this week a customer settled up with us for the balance of the half pig we sold him in October. He's been very happy with the meat, the only thing he'd change next time would be the size of the joints. Being novices we didn't really know what best to ask our butcher what to do with the carcases, and some of the gigots turned out to be rather large. Had the pork been supplied unfrozen this wouldn't have been such a problem, but it was very deep frozen. We'll know better next year.
Anyway, the wee bit of money coming in has now gone straight out again - on worms. As mentioned previously my dad has built a budget wormery for us. The only ingredients needed now are the worms, some bedding and plenty of tasty waste for them to chomp through. Well, the first two ingredients have now been accounted for thanks to Worms Direct - I've ordered a Worm & Bedding Kit which should be with us next week some time. It was a painless e-commerce experience, and judging by the reviews on the site we won't be disappointed with the product. I'm excited by the prospect of a worm colony of my very own, I will strive to be a responsible and caring guardian.
January 25, 2004
New bedding
We're, well I'm, lucky enough to have a horse. For those interested, Smokey, or Munro of Millfield, is a 15.1hh grey Highland gelding. He'll be seven in May and I've owned him since August 2002. Owning Smokey has been the fulfillment of a lifetime's dream and I could bore for Britain on his positive attributes (many) and shortcomings (few).
Anyway, last winter (2002/03), Smokey worked very hard to provide us with copious amounts of dung. Every morning when I mucked out his box, I would put on my "Marigolds" and fill a large skip with the "hard stuff", shaking off excess shavings, and bring it home in the boot of the car.
We were, at that time, bringing into cultivation an area of rough grass behind the garage. So each morning, about a square yard of ground was covered by a thick layer of dung. A black polythene sheet was rolled forward over the dung and weighted down. Come spring, the polythhne was removed, the soil lightly worked and potatoes planted. What a crop! And barely a weed showing.
Over the summer of 2003, I invested in rubber mats for Smokey's stable. A thin layer of shavings goes on the mats each day to soak up excess moisture. The mats are great, but the dung seems to get very broken down into the shavings and it's very difficult to remove it without loads of shavings attached.
So, we're investigating using hemp as bedding. It's a wee bit more expensive per bale than shavings but it is, according to the bumf, four times more absorbent. But the real plus is that we can get organic hemp, it's sustainable and best of all, it rots down into quality compost in eight weeks.
The main problem is sourcing it. To get it at a reasonable price, you have to buy it by the pallet load. So, we're going to buy a few bales locally next weekend, to try it. If we like it, we might have to bite the bullet and buy a pallet load.
We're going to try it as bedding for the hens as well. We use shavings currently so when I do the weekly clean of the chook ark, I remove all the dung into the compost bin, as free of shavings as possible, then remove the shavings. Using hemp should let me remove everything into the compost bin.
We'll keep you posted of developments.
January 10, 2004
Wormery on a budget
We compost extensively, with everything which can be composted ending up in one of our 5 bins. Even at that though there are times of the year when we struggle to find room for everything, so we decided to explore the wonderful world of wormeries.
The commercial offerings are very impressive, but tend to have a price tag to match. Being thrifty, and having a very handy dad, I decided there was no need to shell out over 50 quid on what is really just a stack of boxes. Lo and behold a search on usenet revealed a gem of a site with plans for a cheap, homemade wormery.
A quick trip to Poundstretcher and we were the proud possessors of the necessary plastic boxes, and a rake around the garage produced just enough mesh to do the job, and the remainder of the end-of-roll carpet we bought to put in the back of the Land Rover, which will do nicely as a top cover and insulator. Total cost 5 quid, but we still need to add a tap. I'm off to order worms now, and will report progress here and put an article on the site in due course. Current plan is to keep it in the garage, at least for the colder months - it should be an ideal environment, and hopefully we'll have a thriving colony chomping its way through our waste in no time, producing lovely compost.