May 14: Just ordered 2350 little critters for our little farm and growing garden project!
If you had told me that before the chickens, before the sheep or pigs, we would be worm farmers first, I would scratch my head. Peter has already built the vermiculture stand to hold the bins for our new wiggly friends. We will get it set up later this month.
The joy of planning to restore the spent dirt has been an unexpected journey. Bring on the worms!
May 16: Since it would be silly to name all of our wiggly friends individually, we named them collectively, Gerard (our son, Lars's suggestion). Gave them their first meal of sprouted dry oats and left them in their bags to recover from their trip from PA. We're worm farmers now!
May 19: We got to turn our 2000+ Gerards loose in their temporary home until we can move them down south. We roasted some eggshells and crushed them up into little bits to give them some grit and they got another round of oatmeal. They are healthy and wiggly and weird, and I love them!
May 22: The week started with our worm farm colony staging a coup d'état, the horde seeking to escape its provided worm home, complete with food. Their goal, seize my kitchen. We were shocked to find so many of our "Gerards" trying to leave the comfort and safety of their new, warm and moist (apologies, we all hate that word) worm farm home. After adjusting the light and covering of their abode, they have relaxed and not pulled the escaping shenanigans. We are thrilled! I was weary and leery of stepping on any Gerard when I went into our kitchen. Tonight, we fed them a banana peel and will transport them to their new home in Spotsylvania after church on Sunday. We are hopeful that we can successfully not bring this colony of worms to the brink of death! Big goals and embracing the command of the Lord to Adam to have dominion over the living things...
May 26: Today after church, we drove our Gerards south to Sposylvania and got their new worm city center set up. The homeschool mom in me is turning this into an experiment, tracking which combinations of peat moss, coco coil, egg shell, vermiculite, azomite, oatmeal, and worm food produces the happiest and most productive worm homes. Measured, precise, and scientific? Not really, but I think it will help us learn.
Tomorrow, we will transfer and divide the colony across the 7 new bins, to have 8 in total. I found myself singing the verse of "My Jesus I Love Thee" about mansions of glory for the little Gerards. They don't know what's coming tomorrow, hopefully, all good things for their little composting selves!
May 31: Bananas for the worm bin win! The Gerards that were given banana peel last week, gobbled it up and seem more "wormy" and active this weekend. The Gerards that were given apple slices look like they didn't touch their food, and I had to dog to find them. Bad apple? Maybe, but switching to all bananas this week! Also, about a dozen Gerards escaped the safety of their worm city, only to bake on our front porch, mere inches from our front yard. Sad. I sang a special worm funeral song for them as I swept their little, now crispier selves, into their final resting place...
I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses;
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear,
The Son of God discloses.
And He worms with me
and He squirms with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we wiggle there
None other has ever known.
June 1: Upon closer inspection of our worm city, there was one bin of Gerards (the original) that enjoyed their apples. Interesting!
After monitoring temperatures and humidity around the bins, we also decided to combine the 4 little bins and the Gerards contained therein to one more large container. The larger bins maintain moisture levels and seemed to have happier Gerards. Done!
My less-than-scientific approach to setting up their homes did lead to some interesting conclusions -
1 - The base doesn't matter, peat moss and coco coil seem to have similar qualities.
2 - Vermiculite or egg shells for grit...they gobbled it all, no matter what they were given.
3 - Oatmeal vs. worm food seemed the same, but the bin that had both was the most active!
4 - Bananas and their peels make excellent worm food!
5 - Removing untouched apples and adding them to our regular compost bin (with a couple bonus Gerards) felt like a good and helpful thing to do.
June 7: Prepping worm grit for our Gerards. Baking egg shells at 300 degrees for 10 minutes, then crushing them as fine as I can make them. We also have some frozen bananas we have collected that were destined for bread but will now feed our wiggly critters tomorrow morning. Excited to head south to see how our worm farm is doing!
June 29: Update on our latchkey worms and garden of benign neglect...
After being away for a few weeks, it is good to be back at Riklig Ström to take care of our Gerards and garden! While we were in Alaska, Lars and Markus came down to check on everything, but they didn't do our full routine. We weren't sure how things would look.
Before we left for Alaska, we made the decision to move the worm bins indoors so as to not bake our worm family while temps got dangerously high here in VA. We are happy to report that all 5 Gerard worm cities are healthy and full of itty-bitty baby Gerards! We get that it is odd to have totes full of worms essentially in your living room, but they don't smell, don't escape, and keep quiet...so for now they can stay where they are. We gave them fresh grit, minerals, worm food, and bananas and left them to their worm business.
July 26: It's sorting and sifting day at Riklig Ström!
Rocking my farm apron and muck boots, it was time to get after the vermicompost.
Step one after getting my supplies was prepping two more bins for our ever growing family of Gerards. I drilled air holes, but chose a bit that was too big at first so I swapped out for a smaller one to help prevent escapees. Coco coil was water activated and I turned my attention to sifting.
While I was harvesting the compost, I turned on a Hans Zimmer playlist, and the worms and I played "name that movie." Laughed out loud when a song from Dune came on! Pretty sure that was the Gerards favorite.
4 hours later, I ended up with almost 6 inches of compost (in a large bin) and it became clear that 2 of the original bins had too many worms. Those bins were sifted carefully and the worms were divided into the new bins.
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