Food waste

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about how much thin plastic was dominating my domestic, internal rubbish bin. I thought this was so peculiar and a significant burden on the landfill to which this rubbish was destined.

 (Source: Tree Hugger)

The second fact is still true, but as I washed my dinner dishes this evening I had a bit of a light bulb moment. At the time all this plastic was going into the bin I was doing a bit of a cook up. I perhaps might not have noticed the complete dominance of plastic in my rubbish bin if I had been mixing all this plastic with food waste as well. However, there is very little food waste that enters my traditional (in urban environment) rubbish stream.

Food waste in my house generally gets separated between the worm farm, the compost bin and the dogs. Hopefully in the near future I will also be sharing my scraps with some chickens too! In fact, I might not have enough food waste to sustain the chickens and may have to actually grow some goodies for them! Amazing.

All green waste from kitchen, including fruit and vegetable peelings, fruit stones, ends of herbs and old and sloppy fruit and vegetables all go to my worm farm and compost bins. The meat wastes and any small amounts of old left-overs go to my dogs! The only food scraps that on occasion goes into my mainstream garbage stream is my onion and garlic skins. Worms don't like these and as such most of the time they go into the normal rubbish bin.

 (Source: Colin J via Earth 911)

Interesting what little light bulbs turn on when you're up to your elbows in grey-water appropriate soaps suds!   Pin It

Long weekend! Woo hoo

What are you planning for the next four days? (For those that are under a rock or live outside Australia, all States in Australia have two public holidays either side of this weekend for Easter). For those that aren't particularly religious or completely un-interested in religious activities here is a list of things that might tickle your fancy to keep you busy for these four days:

• relax;
• vegetable patch planning or maintenance;
• bit of weeding;
• riding your bike along your favourite waterway;
• hang out in a tree (for all those kids);
• setting up a worm farm or a compost bin;
• de-clutter to make space for positive vibes;
• order a rainwater tank;
• plant a deciduous vine on the western wall of your house;
• hang out with family and friends;
• eat fair-trade and/or organic chocolate;
• recycle or freecycle some 'junk' around your house;
• sit on the beach and take in the breath-taking view & when you're finished take some rubbish from the beach;
• go bird-watching;
• visit your local national park;
• see what activities your local Museum or library is holding;
• plan your garage sale to take part of the Garage Sale Trail in May;
• see what you can make out of bamboo;
• have a swim at your local pool, watering-hole, river, creek or beach; 
• go camping; or
• set up a herb garden. 

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Win a worm farm

G Magazine is offering a lucky winner a worm farm from Tumbleweed.

(Source: Tumbleweed)

All you have to do is tell them in 25 words or less why you want or need to start a worm farm. The competition is only open to Australian residents and closes on the 13 March 2012.

Go on give it a go! Visit G Magazine's website for entry details.

There is also a blog entry on their website showing the successes a 12 year old has had in her worm farming adventures. Inspirational stuff and very practical.


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Worm farm maintenance

As the warmer weather is upon us, my worm farm seems to need some tender loving care. I currently have two "stacked" active worm digesting layers, with the worm juice collecting tray below these.

The "first" worm containing layer (the bottom of the two) has mostly worm castings, but I still seem to have quite a few worms wiggling about and I am hesitant to start harvesting the castings for fear of losing some of my precious worm population into the garden, where they currently won't be much use to me. And I am certainly not desperate for this enriched soil in my garden at present (despite my previous post about poor soils).

The "second" worm containing layer is still to build up in significant worm numbers, but nonetheless is churning along. However, it appears I have an extra (unwelcome) visitor in this layer, which appears to me to look something like maggots. After some research, it turns out that these white pupae looking things are in fact entrachyadids. They aren't harmful to my worms or my worm farming, but they do indicate that my worm farm's conditions may be a little acidic at present.

Another thing I have noticed recently is a trail of small brown ants entering over the lip of the "first" worm containing layer. I figure these little creatures certainly have the potential to prey on my worms and so they have to go.

So, what am I planning in the way of maintenance. Firstly, I am going to add a handful of lime to my worm farm once a week in order to neutralise the acidic conditions. Secondly, I am going to add some small "trays" (bought some small terracotta pot trays) under the legs of my worm farm and place a small amount of water in them to discourage the ants. Thirdly, I will move the worm farm a little to try and trick the ants (whoops I lost a worm farm). And lastly, I have read that placing a piece of wet white bread in the middle of the layer will act as an attractant to the entrachyadids, which then allows you to easily remove them. So this will be done in due course.

Will keep you posted to see whether any of my tricks work.

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Fruit fly trap

I recently built a non-chemical fruit fly trap and I have had some success reducing the number of fruit flies buzzing around my place, so I thought I should share it with you all.

I made the trap because I was suffering from an overload of fruit flies around my worm farm.  I have been known to overfeed my worms and give them too many fruit scraps, creating a perfect environment for fruit flies to breed in. This didn't really bother me except for the cloud of fruit flies that would swirl around my head when I opened my worm farm.

After a quick internet search, I discovered vinegar is a solution that fruit flies are attracted to. Makes sense really, since vinegar is similar smelling to the rotting fruit in my worm farm. I then just had to find a suitable container to hold the vinegar, whilst also not attracting my toddler to tip the vinegar everywhere or minimise the amount spilt if she did decide to tip the container upside. My solution was an old plastic "jar". I filled the bottom of the container with white vinegar (about 1/10) and then drilled some holes in the lid. The holes were large enough for the fruit flies to fly in. I then just sat this container on top of my worm farm. Voila!

With this solution I have definitely managed to reduce the number of fruit flies in and around my worm farm. There are still some fruit flies floating around, which is just because I still have rotting fruit in my worm farm, but certainly numbers have decreased significantly and not worrying me at all.

This system does require some maintenance, but not very much though. I have to replace the vinegar every 2-3 weeks. I just chuck out all of the old vinegar and dead fruit flies and then add new white vinegar in the bottom of the container. This is cheap solution and has minimised my environmental footprint, as I have used products around my house (old container), will require very little input over time (just the new white vinegar) and uses no harsh chemicals. No off the shelf product required for me. Hope this solution works for you as well! Pin It

You got to water your worms!

I knew that you had to keep your worms moist, I just didn't know how 'moist'. As you are aware I tried to construct a worm farm at my last residence (see Worm Farm Construction), but didn't seem to be making any head way with the worms and I certainly wasn't drowning in worm juice as some of my friends were. Well I recently bought a commercial worm farm and according to the "instruction" for this kit you are suppose to pour about 5 litres of water over your worm farm each week. Obviously this creates a lot of worm tea and you use this as a fertiliser on your garden. At this rate I will definitely be selling the stuff!

A friend of mine has since told me she doesn't use this method (drowning worms in water weekly) but still manages to get an adequate amount of worm juice. Well, now I am completely confused and don't know what to do. Any tips, advice is welcome. Will have to look at that worm website that I posted a couple of posts ago (see Worm Farming) and see whether the worm master has any advice.

Anyway, I do know that I have too much green waste to put into my worm farm and will have to continue to throw some of this away until we are set up in our new residence later this year. Pin It

Worm Farming

Found the Red Worm Composting website today as I was looking for information how long it will take my worms to get going in their new digs. :) The site looked like a useful one and includes some basics about worm farming with some practical examples and step-by-step guides.

Looks like I should be putting slightly decomposed materials into my worm farm rather than transferring the scraps straight from the vegetable to the worm farm. I just thought my worms might be cold! Pin It

Now we'll be 'cooking' with worm juice!

Recently we left behind my veggie patch and worm farm in Brisbane and moved closer to the beach on the Sunshine Coast. This has been a challenging move for me as currently we aren't growing our own food to any extent and I have literally been chucking great garden waste and kitchen scraps into the landfill bin (the Council rubbish bin). Not a great way to improve your environmental footprint!

Nevertheless, today I am feeling a little better about everything because we purchased a worm farm. Yes, this one is a purchased one. Last time I built one out of styrofoam broccoli boxes and left over flyscreen. The one I have bought is a rectangular one from Tumbleweed, made from recycled plastic and this time I have put in the full complement of the 1000 worms (last time only put in 500 being the cheap skate that I am). See if I can get some better results than last time.

At least looking forward to putting the kitchen scraps (fruit and vegetables) somewhere that will reduce my footprint rather than the rubbish bin. I will post on the progress over the coming weeks/months. Pin It

Glorious worms

Digging in my veggie patch on the weekend, I found some glorious worms calling my veggie patch home. It was a welcome site. These critters help aerate the soil and leave behind lovely nutrients that enhance the growth of the vegetables I am getting out of our patch. The ones that I came across were quite close to the size of my little finger, both in thickness and length. Very joyful!

I look forward to bumping into these creatures more often as I dig around the soil.

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Worm Farm update

Well it is constructed and has a number of worms, babies and eggs, but is it working? I'm not sure. There has certainly been movement and the worms initial "soil" house is starting to move around and some of the scraps I have put into it have disappeared. But I don't seem to have any "juices" yet. I don't know how long this process takes, but I guess I am in it for the long haul!

Keep you posted. Pin It

Worm Farm constructed & in action

What to do on a long weekend? Implement something that you have thought about for a while....for me construct a worm farm. I had done the background research...I knew what I needed to do, the equipment required, the motivation to do it and finally a place to put the end product (the veggie patch).

I had purchased:

1 box of 500 worm farm worms
1 hessian bag

I had obtained from hand-me downs and things around the house:

3 styrofoam boxes
1 flyscreen
1 local newspaper
1 roll of plastic masking tape
some food scraps (fruit & veggie)
1 bucket of potting mix

With all the right ingredients I started work. I patched up the holes in one of the styrofoam boxes with the plastic masking tape. Hope this is enough to ensure that the worm juices don't get lost out of the bottom of the box. The other two boxes I lay a piece of flyscreen on the bottom keeping the holes exposed. The flyscreen ensures the worms don't fall through the bottom of the box but their fantastic worm juice can pass through to the collection box. I then placed damp shredded newspaper in the bottom of one of the boxes, added the potting mix, then the worms and finally some yummy worm food (ie the food scraps).

If you're wondering what the second box with flyscreen in the bottom is for. Well, it is a back up location for the worms. Once they have created enough poo and sludge in the bottom of their current abode I can place them into the second flyscreen lined box with some potting mix and damp newspaper again and then clean out their old digs.

Once the worm farm components were complete, I put the 'spare' house/styrofoam box on the bottom, the plastic taped box in the middle and then the worms' box on the top level of my styrofoam box stack. Over the top I placed a damp hessian bag ensuring the worms have a nice, dark, damp place to hang out in. All this now lives under a hedge in my front yard, near my veggie patch, close to the kitchen and in the shade.

Let's see how we go. Now get to work little munchie worms! Pin It

Worm Farming

I have always thought having a worm farm would be a great idea. Until now though I really hadn't got anywhere in my mostly native garden that would benefit from the nutrient rich output. But now that I have a veggie patch, I will actually be able to utilise the riches that result.

In my droolings of wanting a worm farm I have seen a number of commercially available worm farms, but surely it isn't necessary to spend all that money and utilise new products when I could 'reuse' some older products.

I have done a little bit of research and today went to the green grocer and got some styrofoam boxes (previously stored corn apparently). I got ones with holes in but it seems it would have been better if I had got some without holes (broccoli boxes for example) and perhaps with a lid. So that is my start.

Now I have to purchase the worms and invest in a hessian bag or at least find an old one (for a lid). Once I have managed to source these essential requirements and constructed the worm farm I will post some photos and provide some insights into the building process. Pin It