jenny.shadegarden

  This is the basic organization of the ideas I am exploring to turn our property into a demonstration project for sustainable city living.  The underlying impulse behind this initiative is a 21st century adaptation of the 'back to the land' movement of the 1970s. Instead of migrating out of the city to take up rural properties, this initiative brings rural, sustainable, organic farming practices to urban properties. At the same time, it rebuilds neighbourhood strengths lost in the 20th century pursuit of consumerism, materialism and individualism. These ideas work best when implemented as a neighbourhood collaboration, in the spirit of early, cooperative community building, where the many and diverse strengths of individual group members contribute to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. In this concept, any city property becomes a candidate for contributing to building food strength, neighbourhood self-reliance, water conservation, and emergency preparedness. A...

  This is so interesting. I aerated my worm bins and in the process added alfalfa pellets and coffee chaff to help dry out the wet food and bedding. I did not understand the difference between food and bedding, and also, what IS food or bedding. It turns out alfalfa pellets are food. Coffee chaff is bedding. What the worms are eating is the bacteria that grows on the food. Sometimes they eat bedding too, but it takes much longer to be edible for the worms as the bacteria does not grow as quickly on the 'brown' bedding. Bacteria grows quickly on the 'green' food. When I checked the temperature of the bin the day before, the thermometer was registering the temperature as slightly above least favourable (too cool).  I thought I needed to turn up the heat in the worm barn and I adjusted it slightly upward. This did not make much a difference to the temperature in the bin. However, the day after I added the alfalfa pellets, the temperature had climbed into least favourable a...

It is hard to see in this photo, but I believe there were two ravens in a tree the other day. Way high up. They were much, much larger than the crows that flew nearby. We are in the middle of unprecedented change in our organization of family, work, property management, food sustainability, climate change, demographic pressure. Our household is in the middle of it. We are homeowners in our 60s. We are providing housing for adult family who are unable to fend for themselves (frail elder mother, disabled brother). The work we have done in our previous lives to generate cashflow is no longer sustainable due to our age, and the family caregiving responsibilities we are providing to our frail elder. We are also at an age that the work we do needs to satisfy our values, we need to feel that our work is building strength in the family and in our community. At one time our property was surrounded by a 30' cedar hedge and covered in lawns. Our food source is the local grocery stores - the q...

  I noticed the temperature in the soil was on the low side. The needle was pointing at the top of the blue zone. When I dug down to find the worms, they all looked a little quiet, not moving immediately when I uncovered them. I was afraid they were dying off in the bins. I turned up the radiator in the worm barn and the needle has moved into the yellow zone. I dug down through each of the bins from corner to corner and to the very bottom of the bin. There seemed to be more worms and they were definitely more active when I disturbed them. My feeling is that the increase in temperature had a beneficial effect on their overall well being. I'm no longer afraid I am killing my worms. They look pretty good. UPDATE 2023 12 28 - I have since learned that the temperature in the worm bin also indicates the heat being generated by composting activity of bacteria processing the 'green' organic material. The ambient temperature in the worm barn is important because we do not want the b...

I did not look up what it means to aerate the worm bins. I just did what I thought would work. My bins were looking a little too wet and I was having some bug evidence that might the case. The bins smell fine. A nice, fresh earthy smell. When I shifted the worms into the new bins I laid down a new bedding in each bin. At that time I did not know the difference between food and bedding and I mistakenly put a layer or two of food into the bedding layers. I also did not mix the layers of bedding so the material was stratified rather than a mixture.  At the same time, I have not actually removed any worm castings from my original worms. Each time I have moved them into larger bins I have just kept the previous clump of unprocessed material and worm castings in one piece. I lay the clump at one end of the bin on new bedding.  This time I was curious to see if I could differentiate worm castings from unprocessed material. I also wanted to know where the worms were in the bin and how...

  I found these bugs in my worm bin catch tray - where I collect the worm tea. This is a new setup and I haven't had much water flowing through. I added water to the bottom of the tray and the bugs rafted on the surface. I'm wondering if these bugs are good for my worms or should I work to remove them from the bin? Right now I have poured them off into a separate tub and cleaned the worm bin catch tray. UPDATE 2023 12 21 - the bugs have been identified as Springtails. Not harmful but they do indicate there might be an excess of moisture in the bin. I'm going to pour this collection of Springtails into the garden.

  Yesterday I re-binned my three worm bins into new containers. The bins are aerated on the bottom, sides and lids. The aerated bins set into a second bin to catch the worm tea. The bottom of the bins are lined with a bed mulched leaves, coffee chaff, and potting soil. When I set up my last set of bins I did not aerate the bottom of the bins. Instead, I lined them with layers of cardboard. When it came time to move the worms, I just rolled up the cardboard and shifted the entire collection of worms, castings and unprocessed compost into one end of the new bin.  I have a heated room under our front porch that is always kept just above freezing because that is where the waterlines run into the house. So the worms will be kept at a constant temperature. That said, the room is also sealed to be moisture proof and there is no air movement. I think I am going to need to go down every few days and leave the door open just to let the air circulate. Today - 2023 12 06 - I checked on th...