I thought I’d give you an update on the wigglers today. It’s been five weeks since I brought home the red wigglers and their indoor composting bin. They’ve been sitting quietly in a corner of the kitchen and get a margarine-sized container of food scraps once a week. I’ve given them banana peels and potato peels, bits of onion, coffee grounds along with the organic unbleached paper filter, apple cores, carrots, some beans that had gone a bit past their prime, and a stale organic whole wheat tortilla that got lost in the back of the fridge and a few other things. I have added damp shredded newspaper on top of their original peat and compost bedding and this has made them very happy. It keeps them evenly damp and each week when I move the paper aside to bury more scraps I have found many busy worms.
Yesterday when I was feeding them I took a careful sniff just to make sure they weren’t getting stinky. Far from stinky, what met my olfactories was a rich, loamy dirt smell. It smelled so good I stuck my head down close to the bin and breathed deeply. With that yummy dirt smell I know I must be doing something right! Bookman was not home to witness my adventures in smelling and I neglected to tell him about it, but he will know now and will, I am sure, laugh at me. Those of you who aren’t gardeners probably think I am completely bonkers, but let me assure you, there are few things in this world that smell so wonderful as good compost.
I do need to add some calcium to the bin this week sometime to promote and encourage wiggly sex and baby worms. The easiest way to add calcium is with egg shells but since this vegan has not eaten eggs in twenty years, I found out recently I can crush up the occasional Tums and add it to the bin. This will also ensure the wigglers don’t get heartburn. Heh. Though I seem to recall the worm kit came with a small bag of calcium carbonate. Will have to look for it before I go in search of unflavored Tums at the drugstore.
In spite of their quiet unobtrusiveness, the wigglers have become kind of like pets. Bookman asks me regularly when I fed them last. He hasn’t fed them or done anything in the bin at all, but he likes keeping track of their wellbeing and saving scraps for me to give them. We’ve got three more months before I have to worry about moving them into new bedding and removing their compost. There are a number of ways to do it. I will ultimately choose the easiest and least messy which means dumping the bin out onto a tarp is struck off the list.
In other gardening fun, the catalogs have been arriving. I got one the other day that was all fruit. You know, when I first moved to Minnesota from southern California I was bereft since the only fruit I loved that grew here was apples. No peaches or nectarines or plums or grapes or bing cherries. I thought I had moved to a fruit wasteland. I know better now. I can grow cherries and grapes and plums. Even pears. But the wealth of wonderful fruit I have discovered comes in the form or berries. There are so many kinds beyond strawberries that I am learning about.
This last spring I planted blackberries, huckleberries and blueberries. This coming spring I will be planting raspberries, gooseberries, Juneberries and currants. Eventually I might try lingonberries. I’ve thought about cranberries but I’ve heard those sucker like crazy so I need to do more research on those. I am thinking about trying hardy kiwi. These aren’t the egg-sized fuzzy fruit you find in the supermarket. These supposedly taste similar but they are not fuzzy and are much smaller, about large grape-sized. They are, however, very high in vitamin C and have pretty flowers that smell like lily-of-the-valley. They are vigorous perennial vines and I need two for pollination so I need to figure out against what fence or wall I might be able to grow them.
It is so much fun to imagine planting all these wonderful fruits when the thermometer outside is currently reading -5F (-21C) and will be sinking even further during the night. My body might be in the midst of winter, but my mind is enjoying a warm, fruity summer.
Yay for gooseberries! I have a jar that I have holed away since last summer and after I finish the apple butter (and at the rate I am going that should be pretty soon actually) I am going to open it and indulge! How big is your compost box? I have contemplated doing indoor composting, but am still in the contemplation stage! I like hearing about your adventures, though. Hope you are enjoying your break. I am now in the counting down phase of my own since I will have to go back to work later this week …. π¦
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Danielle, I know! I found out they are a native fruit and they don’t mind shade and can often be found growing in maple-oak forests so the gooseberry is going in my front yard in my “Melody garden” The worm bin isn’t very big, it is a medium-sized red plastic storage bin from Ikea with an opaque plastic lid with a big air hole in the top of it. It could easily fit under the sink if Bookman didn’t have so many other things crammed in under there! Enjoy the last of your break!
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I know nothing about gardening, but I so enjoy these posts of yours. Good luck with the planting!
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Nish, thanks! Planting is a long way away but that doesn’t stop me daydreaming about it π
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Oh, please don’t talk about spring yet! I have a whole summer to enjoy yet and don’t want to think about autumn and the harbinger of winter quite yet. Glad the wrigglers are doing their stuff though.
A big happy new year to you Stefanie. Hope your 2014 is peaceful and satisfying with a whole lotta fun thrown in.
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whisperinggums, oh, don’t worry, you still have plenty of summer left to you and I still have plenty of winter! I like to daydream though π
And happy New Year to you too!
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I’ll try not to worry then, thanks π
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You’ll be giving those worms names next! I could just about manage a wormery if it was in the garden but having it in the kitchen would not work for me Stefanie. I’d have nightmares about the darn things escaping and coming down for breakfast one morning to find them crawling up the cupboard doors…
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BookerTalk, heh, well we did name one of them Houdini but I couldn’t tell you which one it was! Bookman had the same concerns as you about them getting out and we found Houdini on the underside of the bin lid the morning after we brought them home. We haven’t seen any outside their bedding since, they have food and good conditions so no reason to try and escape. They can be outside in the shade in summer as long as it is cool shade. They have an ideal temperature range which tends to the cool side but is still well above freezing. Very easy to take care of!
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Before reading your adventure I had no idea that composting is actually keeping worms as pets, and they even smell good too? Amazing. It’s a delight reading your post, Stephanie. I’m with you, my hope is that spring will come sooner. -21C? I can definitely understand your sentiment. Now I’m just curious, where do u keep your compost bin, outdoor?
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Arti, indoor composting is about keeping worms as pets, the outdoor kind isn’t. Yup, they do smell good if you do it right. My worm bin is against the wall in a corner of the kitchen. My big outside compost bin which is now frozen solid for the duration of winter, is outside in a corner of the garden near the house. The worms will stay indoors year round though I could move their bin outside to a shady corner in summer but I fear I’d be likely to forget about them if I did that!
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There is nothing that smells as wonderful as freshly turned loam and compost and there is nothing that looks as beautiful as a freshly ploughed field with all that wonderful earth freshly turned. There are some things about this time of the year that i really love.
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Alex, ah someone who understands how good it smells! Freshly turned earth is one of the best smells around. We are frozen solid for the next three months at least so when I need a fix I will have to smell my worm bin π
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I’m getting some wigglers too! They’re coming next week. I’ve got the bedding shredded and a container to collect my food scraps in. (I have a hunch my littel one will want to name them all “Wormy Worm”).Interesting about the calcium. I’ve saved eggshells for a long time- I usually mix them into my potting soil to improve drainage. Will be giving some to the worms, too.
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Jeane, hooray! Your little ones are going to love having the worms, hopefully they won’t get ideas about feeding them to the fish in your aquarium! I am looking forward to how your adventures in worm composting go!
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Hm. Actually, I’ve read that chopped-up earthworms can be a good treat for certain fish. Not sure if it’s okay for mine, and red wigglers are probably different than earthworms! Maybe if I have surplus population someday I’ll look it up, ha ha.
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I love that earthy smell too, the only one which sometimes betters it is that new book smell. I have had some strange looks from people in bookshops when they’ve caught me inhaling a book. I’ve really enjoyed all of your posts and especially the gardening ones. Happy New Year – when it gets to you!
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oh yes, that new book smell is even better. I would never look askance at you sniffing books at the shop because I’d probably be sniffing them too π
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