Food Security - Project Proposal - Next Steps - 2024 01 23

 


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Happy Worms - 2025 08 31

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  Worms are thriving on a mix of cardboard, sterile compost dirt from the municipality, coffee chaff from a local coffee roaster, alfalfa pellets, kitchen compost and clippings from mowing the yard. I have not been an exemplary gardener this year. I have been trying to do too many things everyday and falling behind on everything. I did not have a plan when I laid out my beds in the spring and I created areas that were difficult to access for watering. I don't know which volunteer plants to keep and which ones I need to remove or at least reduce. I tried soaker hoses this year but because my plantings are in clumps on raised beds, a lot of the water is falling in areas that don't benefit the plants I am cultivating but it does benefit the plants I don't want to cultivate. My rain barrels are catching rain on the west side of the house but most of my garden is on the east and south side of the house. I have to carry every gallon from the rain barrels around the house to throw...
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Starting a worm farm - 2023 06 01

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Today I visited  Burnaby Red Wigglers  and met Bintoro Gunadi, founder and Soil Biologist. It was fascinating having him explain what the worms are, what they need, and what to expect. I took home two handfuls of worms and a bag of worm cocoons and inoculum.  When I got home my gardening friend, Honami, stopped by and showed me how to set up my worm nest in a food waste bucket. We added leaves and torn up paper to the small amount of food waste in the bucket. Then we tipped the bag of worms in, covering them with the inoculum. We left them to do their magic with a lid on the bucket, carefully placed in a shady area out of direct sun. Going forward, we will put the garden waste in the outdoor bins, and that is also where we will put our coffee grounds. They are too acidic for the worms to enjoy. So now we have a kitchen compost for food waste that is growing worms. I cannot explain how satisfying it feels to have this worm culture start up. The worms are so quiet and ...
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Worm release - 2024 12 19

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  Yesterday mid-morning I went to check on the worms in their bins and found the floor littered with dead escapees. I had just changed out another pair of bins the day before - removing half the volume of worm castings, leaving as many worms in the bin as possible, and then refilling the bin with compost soil from the city, alfalfa pellets, greens from the garden and cardboard topper. As I swept up the little carcasses I realized I could no longer manage the work of looking after the worm bins through the winter. I am currently overwhelmed with recovering from caregiving, re-organizing my household, and getting my own health back after dental surgery.  I talked it over with my dear husband and decided to re-home my worm bins to the garden for the winter. I am adopting the hugelkulture method of gardening, creating hills of composted dirt on top of composting leaves and brown materials. To re-home the worms I tipped each bin upside down on the hills of new soil we brought in la...
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