Essential Wormery Maintenance

Emptying the wormery went to the top of my list this week - with the decomposing matter only inches away from the lid, I kept finding worms making an escape bid. Tecnically it should have been a simple job. . .

Legend; Remove the top few inches of rot, to be put back in later, as this is where the worms are supposed to all hang out, then empty the rest (what the pros call 'black gold") into the garden or to mix for potting compost. It's supposed to be a rich crumbly, earthy substance.

Reality; Remove top few inches - worms everywhere, so remove next few inches. Keep going; more worms than anticipated, get over a foot down into the composty stuff - still endless worms. Continue (what else to do?) Storage box now full (see above) so start using sack. Keep going. Yet more worms. Start to wonder if worms can suffer from overcrowding. Sack now half full and still no sign of the black crumbly stuff. Am looking at slimy potatoes and tea bags, and a large worm community. Finally strike a fine vein of black gold before establishing that the worms have also populated the bottom of the bin.
So, end result - two bags of worms and tea bags to go back in, and half a bag of almost compost.

Anyway, the job got done and I added lots of ripped up newspaper to the slimy worm mix as it went back in, to dry it out and stop it getting water-logged. As you can see, it's a dirty job, but quite frankly I didn't mind!

Best of all, I got to spend about two hours outdoors - that's the longest it's stopped raining so far this year. Consequently I am feeling a much saner person this evening. As yesterday was officially Blue Monday, I am calling today Turnaround Tuesday, the first day of the garden calendar '08.

Wormery moved into the Warm

I should have done it about a month ago, but at last I've managed to move the wormery into the shed before it gets any colder out there. I hauled it over by adding some shredded newspaper and giving it a good stir up. The worms seem to be thriving - there are hundreds of 'em, young and old, all eating and presumably breeding like rabbits. They're still producing plenty of liquid feed too - I don't really know what to to with it at this time of year (it only keeps a few months) so have been adding it to the garden, though watering is the last thing the garden needs right now.

Fainthearted Beware

I spent a lovely couple of hours pottering in the evening sunshine today. The main task was to revitalise the Wormery which I have been struggling to get right since I set it up last November. It has been waterlogged a lot of late - I think I have put in too many teabags (a lot of tea gets drunk in this house!), so I have been adding newspaper regularly. Today I made a concerted effort to mix the whole thing around and get some newspaper right to the bottom where the problem is worst. I also added Calcified Seaweed as I went along, to keep it from getting too acidic. Oddly, I always find the worms in the same corner of the bin - I have no idea why.

After a good mix up it all looked (and smelt) a lot better.

In reference to the title, here are the pictures. If you eating, look away...








You can see why they are called tiger worms.



And here's a botttle of finest liquid feed, distilled by the worms over the last two weeks (I think they are on a go slow in protest about the conditions in there).












The early peas are starting to look like peas now.

I put in some more broad beans to fill in gaps from non-starters and re-potted some parsley that had seeded itself from last year. It looks a bit straggly but it might catch up. I potted up some chives last week - a root that was given to me by a friend (Win). I put it in a pot which has copper tape around it - last year the slugs enjoyed it far too much. The copper tape seems to be working and it is looking well. I sowed some cucumbers in pots - am trying two outdoor varieties, Marketmore and Burpless Green. I sowed some sweet peas too, for a bit of colour in the veg garden. I love this time of year.