Berries Banished

After 12 days of berry feasting, the worms have finished virtually all of them. There are a few small green pieces of tops I can see if I sift around, but other than that- all the red fleshy stuff and the rest of the leafy parts are GONE.

While investigating, I saw tons of cocoons and all different sized worms- hooray! I don't know how I'll ever know- in pounds - how many worms I have now that they are in the wigwam, but I guess I'll be able to tell by how fast they eat X pounds of food. I'll just weigh the food from now on and keep track of how long it takes them to finish.

I also finished screening all the castings from the old bin, FINALLY. It took them forever to dry out. I have giant bucketful now to use in Lilliworm's first worm casting tea bags.

What are worm casting tea bags, you ask? They are regular tea bags filled with worm castings (instead of tea) that you leave in your full watering can overnight. The good bacteria and nutrients from the castings leach out, turning the regular water into a nutritious organic plant drink (for plants- not you).

Wigwam Modifications

After the big berry feed last week (still not completely gone!), I noticed something was up with the wigwam. Problem: whenever I tilted up the giant black cover to look in, the condensation on it would run down until it dripped all over the floor in a big puddle. Not good. My bin was becoming a miniature rain forest.

I didn't have this problem with my other bins. The old bins had screened tops and allowed plenty of air circulation (check the pics).

Time for action. My husband likes the worms a lot more when they present him with an opportunity to show his dexterity with power tools. He was more than happy to cut a big circle in the wigwam cover with a jigsaw. I caulked in some screen over the hole, and the wigwam is fixed.

Enjoy the fresh air, wormies!

Berry-licious Worm Food

Working at America's Favorite Traditional Amusement Park has its perks, but unless you are a worm farmer you couldn't appreciate what I got today: an entire day worth of strawberry tops- about 7-8 pounds- from the funnel cake stand! A wormy culinary delight!

Strawberry tops are great worm food for two reasons:

1. They smell DELICIOUS and don't send me delirious from a wicked waft when I open the bin to peep.

2. They have a great mix of watery fruit that breaks down quickly and a green part that takes longer.

Did I mention they smell FANTASTIC?

Just to experiment with timing, I didn't food processor-ize this time. I'll let you know how long the worms take to finish the whole strawberry smörgåsbord. I have two worm bowls in waiting, so they better hurry it up.

In other news, I am almost ready to debut my exceptionally cool logo. You'll be so jealous.

While you wait patiently for the grand reveal of the official trademark of Lilliworm, get inspired to break out of your own cubicle nation.

Just How Fertile Are Worm Castings?

I'll tell you.

This is a snapshot of my bin just three days after putting in about six pounds of left-over tomato slices.

You got it- all the tomato seeds sprouted.

Inside the container.

In pitch darkness.

Those puffy dark brown worm castings must be the greatest plant food ever to have sprouted seeds in just three days in the dark, which makes me pretty darn happy.

After work today, we biked on the Youghiogheny River Trail, which is part of The Great Allegheny Passage- a 150 mile network of biking/hiking trails (we only saw 10 today). We turned around at slightly freaky Dravo Cemetery, which the Elizabeth Township Historical Society is supposed to be up-keeping (so says a sign), but I beg to differ. It was WAY overgrown and weedy.

Some headstones have the engraving worn off, but one had the eeriest epitaph: "As you are now so once was I, as I am now you soon shall be, prepare for death and follow me."

Spooky!

Saving Pods? Eggs? Cocoons?

After some research online, the little pellet thingees I've been picking out of the old bins really are cocoons filled with worm eggs.

I'm retrieving as many as I can with the primitive worm egg retriever (PWER) I've devised. I sort through the bin with a gloved hand, scoop up the eggs at the front of the PWER, and then tap them into a glass holding bowl.

Once my eyes start crossing, I dump them into the wigwam to join their friends and families. I would feel bad leaving any worm (or its cocoons/eggs/pods) behind while the rest moved on to bigger and better housing!

I don't think I mentioned this yet, but the biggest, greatest, fastest, free-est food processor ever died on me a few weeks ago. I admit it may have been from overuse/abuse. I LOVED that thing and what it did to giant food scraps, and I loved to hold that button down and watch all that scrap turn to MUSH! So much so, I'm afraid, that I held it down a little too long, and pfftttt.....it died. My brother took it apart with great intentions, but it was fried, fried, fried. So I was back to using my miniature one again.

Tonight, the big bad processor was born again, as I picked a Black and Decker version up at a crazy discount store for less than $20. It is HUGE, and did a bang up job on THREE BOWLS at once! Which, my husband quickly pointed out, was exactly how I broke the last one- putting too much in and running it too long. I guess I'll try to be more gentle this time around.

A Whole World of Wormers!

Finally, an online community I can appreciate!

I joined vermicomposters.com a few days ago, mainly so I could put my very own pinpoint on the cool map documenting the names, locations, and scrap amount recycled by all the worm-lovers who join.

The worm pics on there give me a slight case of the willies, but the forums seem to be full of friendly, low-worm-tech-speak comments. Some of the worm/ recycling/ vermicomposting sites I've read are so verbose and scientific, vermicomposters.com is a refreshing, light-hearted alternative.

Moving into the Worm Wigwam

The worms made the big move from their bins to the Wigwam yesterday. As the directions explain, the Worm Wigwam is different in that you keep feeding the worms and layering bedding, over and over and over again on top, until the whole mountain of worms and bedding and food and poo gets near the top. Then you crank the magic handle, and the poo falls out the bottom. (The hope is all the worms have migrated up with the fresh food each time and don't get cranked out.)

First, with the help of my trusty husband, we mixed up a big bin of peat moss and shredded newspaper for the bedding with lots and lots of water. About a half a bale/bunch of peat moss seems to hold about two watering cans full of water.

Next, we put in four layers of newspaper pages on the grate at the bottom then about six inches of the bedding. We loaded in the worms on top, just basically pulling them out in clumps from their bins. Then a little more bedding, then a little food mush, then some more bedding. Quite a production.

So the finished bin with everything looked something like a giant mulchy mountain in a big green barrel.

The worms crawled right into the new bedding, no problem.

I noticed a rescue mission was needed in the old bins, as not only were a few smaller, faster, friskier, slippier worms still in there, but also tons of little worm cocoons.

Crazy how you find things just when you need them- I used a thick blue straw off a souvenir mug from America's Favorite Traditional Amusement Park, with the top cut off into a little spoons shape, to scoop out the worm cocoons- sigh- one at a time.

I've got through two bins so far, and it is a snoozer of an activity. Plenty of time to think about environmentally friendly endeavors!

Speaking of which- I got logo options from a fantastic graphic designer yesterday. It was exciting to see some visual interpretations of Lilliworm, and it jump started my brain in terms of what else I might be able to accomplish with my environmentally friendly endeavors. Hopefully in the next few posts, I'll be able to pick a logo that gives the perfect look and feel to Lilliworm!