tearful update

it's been a while since i've updated and a lot has happened.
the worm bin wasn't able to reside in the nutrtion building storage as we'd hoped - it was moved to the campus greenhouse which is cooled by a giant swamp cooler. i was skeptical at first but it seemed cool enough at 72 degrees and nice and damp. i checked the bin regularly maintaining moisture levels and things were going nicely - no fruit fly issues, the worms were thriving - they were plump and slimy and active. we had the occasional mushroom or sprout but no stinky bin and no mold. plans were to harvest the compost on the last day of class at the childcare with the kids and let them fertilize their garden before summer break.

that was last thursday. i went to pick up the bin and was devastated to find not a trace of a worm! i couldn't believe it. as i was feverishly searching through the scraps i noticed how hot it was in the greenhouse. apparently the water supply to the swamp cooler had been broken since monday - possibly over the weekend. the temperature was 92 degrees at 10:00 am. the outside temperature had been hovering around 110 degrees all week. our worms had baked and and been completely reabsorbed back into the soil in just a few days.

it's taken me this long to be able to write about it and i'm still sick to my stomach.
there was another student in the greenhouse who had taken over tending an instructor's vermicompost and her worms were gone without a trace as well. i don't think she was quite as attached as i was. :,(

the kids and i still harvested the compost and had fun feeding it to their garden.
such a sad, sad end to a really worthwhile and successful project. boo.

fruit flies be gone. . .

our challenge this past week was the capture of a rather large number of fruit flies competing with our worms for their dinner of strawberries and watermelon scraps. the kids and i constructed 8 traps using apple cider vinegar and strawberry tops for bait. the kids were enthralled with the growing number of fruit flies in our funnelled plastic cups.
on thursday we moved the bin to a storage area on campus to fully rid the child care center of the flying pests over the weekend. in mid transport i took the lid off the bin and released as many flies as i could. i also set a jar trap on the bin over the weekend and held off feeding the worms until today - monday.
when i went to feed them mango scraps today - i know, i know, but they love fruit! - the jar trap was full of fruit flies. i buried the scraps a little deeper per rick from salano farms' suggestion. the child care center is clean so i'm going to leave the worms in the air conditioned storage area this week, with traps.
next week i'm going to let the kids harvest some compost. while flipping the newspaper shreds, again per rick's suggestion, i noticed that we have a substantial amount of compost already! serious black gold. quite exciting. worm poop. castings. woo hoo! :)
and i did get the internship at ken singh farms, another yay. i'm very grateful - the gardens are just amazing. i dropped by their farmer's market this past saturday and came home with beets, basil, heirloom tomatoes, a gorgeous cucumber, and an equally lovely melon.
i'll post fotos of singh gardens as well as the harvest in my next blog.

update

let's catch up. the post holiday inspection on tuesday, july 6th revealed a tremendous increase in bin moisture levels - it was soaked! i added a top layer of shredded newspaper and dried off the dripping lid. this was also a feeding day so strawberry and watermelon scraps were added. i've written to rick at salado farms to see if my suspicions are correct that the breakdown of organic matter releases moisture. this additional humidity coupled with the primarily fruit diet has led to an onslaught of fruit flies. tomorrow i'll plant a homemade trap of apple cider vinegar & a small piece of rotting fruit in the bottom of a glass jar with a one way paper cone / funnel taped inside about an inch above the liquid, we'll see how that works. today's visit showed our big fat worms actively feeding on last week's fruit salad, as well as a sprout of some kind where our mushroom once lived. humidity is still high, but controlled and no stinky bin. they still have plenty to eat so i haven't restocked their food supply as yet. tomorrow's post - i'm a volunteer intern, somewhere!

babies, mushrooms, & poop - oh my!

thank you kris, for both reading my blog and being enthused - it really is a fun project.

and we do have babies! how exciting. we also have a mushroom popping up on the side.
this growth confirms that the bin climate is maintaining nice moisture levels.
still no stinky bin after 2 feedings. that makes me so happy.
our worms are active - obviously : ) - and we're beginning to see castings, aka poop!
and that, my friends, is the point. yeehaw!

i'll be checking in today and picking up the week's composting scraps.
i look forward to beginning the composting of cafeteria scraps, hopefully next week.
i'll keep you posted. look for photos of the babies and our mushroom on my next post.

wiggling right along . . . .

it's thursday and bin inspection reveals perfection! so far so good - scraps are greatly diminished, worm movement all around, bin smells like damp earth, moisture level has maintained beautifully.

i took fotos today that i am going to attempt to post (with the help of my 13 year old).

i could not be more pleased with how this project is going. our wormies have been quite obviously dining and we have no moldy food scraps. we seem to have hit amazingly close to the perfect amount for our population and bin size.

thank you so much to rick of salado farms and robert from canyonland worms for their input and guidance. i think we've done them proud!

the plan is to leave the same amount of scraps (from saturday thus allowing 2 days of decomposition) on monday at either end of the bin and let our wiggly friends dine at their leisure all week again.

bravo.

update! wigglers + food

wiggler city had a nice 3 day weekend to get situated. the plan was to use the partially decomposed, week old scraps on monday for their first feeding. i found this mixture of scraps and manure to be dried out and full of maggots. ew-ew-ew!
plan b. i had some scraps from sunday that i picked through for melon, tomatoes, lettuce, and some egg shells & coffee grounds. our bin is 3 feet long, so i placed a palm size pile at each end of the bin just under a layer of bedding to allow the worms to move away from the pile should it start to heat up. i was relieved to find the moisture level of the bin still perfect and wigglers wiggling.
tuesday morning's bin visit also made me smile. no stinky bin, a few worms feeding and around the scrap piles, though not as many as i had anticipated.
this morning i'm taking the camera along for some fotos that i'll post tomorrow.
say cheese! :)

worm bin update - no news is good news!

worms are comfy cozy in their new habitat of dampened newspaer strips and manure. i checked on them yesterday (added top bedding) and today. all is well - damp, dark, and no stinky bin. the plan was to add partially decomposed scraps tomorrow, but rick thinks that may be a little too soon so i may wait til monday, which allows sunday's scraps to decompose for a full week before feeding our wormies.
i'm waiting for an email response from rick to confirm that i understand his suggestion correctly. robert from canyonland worms is also following our progress now - the more the merrier!
next week i'll start looking into setting an appointment with chartwell's to get composting underway for the campus cafeteria and coffee shop.
more when i have it.
side note - my home, outdoor composting is doing fabulous.

worms in motion

i took the bin, newspapers, dechlorinated water, worms, and manure to the childcare center today and had the kids assist in the setup after an entertaining vermicompost roundtable. we shredded the sunday paper together. i dampened and fluffed the bedding to about 6 inches deep. we added the worms together - they're so cute! i sprinkled a large coffee can full of manure over the worms and added a light cover of dampened bedding. while rick appreciated the concept of the clear bin, he also noted that worms like dark and damp. good point, so we taped black construction around the worms' new home so light is kept out and we can lift to view.
i have about 2lbs of scraps from sunday decomposing in manure that we'll add under the top layer of bedding on thursday for our wigglers to dine on over the weekend. on monday we'll add this week's childcare scraps to the bin and proceed daily from there.

arrival of the worms!

this weekend's worm search has been immensely successful. two pounds of red wigglers have been located and purchased and i have discovered a wealth of information and useful resources. membership in the permaculture guild led me to the vermiculture forum where i posted my plea. rick hossman of salado farms in elfrida az, 30 miles east of bisbee, immediately replied that he had boatloads of red wigglers if i was up for the journey. he has been really helpful with tweaking procedures to increase our probability of success.
another response to my post later turned up canyonland worms in carefree, and while i wasn't able to make it to the roadrunner park farmer's market robert was kind enough to meet me on sunday and hook me up with wigglers and advice that concurred with rick's - no need to go crazy aerating the bin. a few holes drilled in the lid are plenty as worms take oxygen in through their skin. rick also recommends manure instead of dirt for grit and allowing organic matter to partially breakdown before the first feed. so grateful for his advice!

the introduction of microorganisms will expedite the composting process. we'll do all of this in class with the kids in charge.
to add the worms just scatter them gently atop their new home of prepared bedding / soil and cover for few days before adding scraps to let them work their way into the bedding. ideally we can set up on monday, save the scraps for the week and add them thursday to allow decomposition over the weekend thereby giving the class more dramatic evidence of decay.
the only variable at this point is obtaining red wigglers in arizona in the summer. they won't survive shipment, they require a temperature between 55 and 80 degrees farenheit. so i need to find them locally. i've tried whole foods, local bait shops, and a couple defunked worm farms. if anyone has a lead i would be thrilled to explore it. i'm going to try prescott and payson (online) and a farmer's market or two tomorrow morning (saturday). i'm looking for 2lbs. if we absolutely have to use earthworms we can, they just take quite a bit longer. earthworms are best at further breaking down already partially decomposed matter.

a plastic bin with a lid and holes drilled for aeration and drainage works perfectly. a minimum capacity of 18 gallons with a 3-4' surface area will accomodate 2lbs of red wiggler worms, an ideal amount to decompose 1lb of daily food waste in approximately 2 months' time. red worms live and eat in the top 6-8" of material so a depth of 12-18" allows for 6-8" of bedding and 4-8" of organic material combined with a shovelful of topsoil for grit to aid the wigglers in digestion.
the bin i found is 1' deep x 1' wide x 3' long giving it a 3' surface area with a 22.5 gallon capacity and is made of clear plastic. perfect. let the drilling begin! that'll be tonight when the drill gets home from work.
the bedding consists of 1" strips of newspaper dampened with dechlorinated tap water. you can dechlorinate tap water by filling gallon containers and leaving them sit out uncovered overnight, this allows the chlorine to dissipate. i've done this for years for our drinking water. the bedding is the the right moisture when it feels like a wrung out sponge. it should be loose and fluffy in the bin so the worms can move through it freely. right before you add the worms, toss that shovelful of topsoil, manure, or finished compost on top of the bedding.

this blog has been created to journal my internship project - a pilot program for institutional composting, beginning with the childcare center at mesa community college and ultimately including the campus cafeteria's food prep waste. the earned credits will be applied to a certificate of completion in sustainable food systems (2011 being the first year this is offered in arizona). the experience will (optimistically) be applied to the implementation of a composting program at tempe elementary schools, followed by a systemwide edible schoolyard program.
a fabulous, gigantic, 3 cubic yard, composting unit is housed on the mcc campus in the garden area. this will be ideal for institutional composting of cafeteria waste. research has brought me to the conclusion that the child center would be better servd by an in-class vermicomposting unit. the advantages are many; hands on and constant accessibility, more rapid decomposition, less contributary organic matter required, not having to travel cross campus in 100+ degree heat to dump, turn, and dampen our mixture, and of course - the worms! there will still be an early morning field trip to the campus garden to donate some of our black gold with some leftover to take home or use in an end-of-summer group planting project.
i've found a few fun, short 'how to' films on line that seem to be child appropriate. we had originally discussed a powerpoint presentation, but i think that may be a bit dry for 7-12 year olds. i'm now trying to gather materials to construct a classroom vermicompost bin.