Top Three Gardening Goals in 2012

I suppose the consequence to writing a "Year-In-Review" article is to write a "Top Resolutions" article. I'm not too much into blog resolutions, but this time I'll make an exception.

I guess I'm just inspired, considering the sizeable amount of material (tips and projects) that went into this gardening blog last year. Imagine, I started with 3, relented with 5, and then finally churned out 10 tips in the article Best Gardening Tips and Projects for last year.

Of course I'd want to continue with some of the successes I've had. There were failures and mistakes, and hopefully, I learned from those. There are many goals (more like "wants") that I can think of for this year, but I'd like to focus a bit on three. This way, even if I'm busy with the regular garden stuff, these three are always on my radar - so to speak.

Vermicompost Applications in the Garden

Once the composting worms are all settled in your vermicomposting worm bins, you may be wondering how soon you can benefit from all this setup. Afterall, you've prepared the worm bin bedding and supplied the composting worms lots of food. So they should be happy.

It would typically take 3 to 4 months before you can harvest vermicompost from the feeding tray. Vermicompost is a mixture of vermicast and unprocessed organic matter. It may also contain worm capsules and small worms. Vermicast is the excreta of worms produced by the action of microbiological life within the digestive tract of the worms.

Feeding Vermicompost Worms in Worm Bins

After assembling the worm bin setup, the next thing to do is to find your composting worms. You can buy composting worms in vermiculture centers or from sellers on the internet. Our garden is so rich with composting worms and so we use those instead. They serve the same purpose and are endemic in our region. We also picked a few worms (African Nightcrawlers) in some composting worm beds from a local vermiculture center.

Composting worms would not be feeding on immediately on fresh raw materials like kitchen and yard wastes so it's a good idea to prepare some ready food in the worm bins BEFORE you would actually be putting in the composting worms. Preparing the worm bins with fresh vegetable waste a week in advance would be good.

Homemade Worm Bins for Vermicomposting - Part 2

The first part of this article discussed some background on how to make a homemade worm bin setup. Also discussed were the components of the worm bin setup. Finally, how-to instructions were provided for making the worm bit feeding tray. In this article the how-to instructions for making the rest of the components of the worm bin setup will be discussed.

Homemade Worm Bins for Vermicomposting

In the internet, there are so many sources of ideas for making homemade worm bins for vermicomposting purposes. Homemade worm bins would range from office or desk bins to pails and buckets. Typically they would have similar ideas on how vermicompost and vermicompost leachate (sometimes called worm tea) are harvested or collected.

Then there are the commercial versions which are vertical worm farms like the Worm Factory 360 and the Can-O-Worms models. These use the stacked trays concept. In this theory, composting worms migrate upwards from one tray to another. This happens when the lower tray is depleted with food and new fresh food is added in the upper tray.