Worm Bin Check-in

What better thing to do on a cold, dark & wintry night, but to harvest some worm castings!

This being my first time harvesting worm castings with the bucket system I have here- I wasn't sure exactly if I'd be able to tell what is what.  So, I pulled out a tarp, a rubber glove, and got my nose ready!

This all comes after the bucket spilling a couple days ago- you can see an earlier post- and the bucket's been waiting in the basement.  I have to wait till night to do such an endeavor, because with baby Rosemary toddling around, it is very hard to keep a messy job from becoming a messy baby and an even messier everything else!  Not to mention, Rosemary's first instinct when she sees the worms is to pick one out and stick it in her mouth!

So, nonetheless, I geared up.  I took the 5 gallon bucket and dumped it on the tarp in the basement with a light shining on above it (this helps keep the worms buried because they don't like the light).  I left them like that for several hours till I had a chance to get back to them.  When I found the next moment, I got to digging around with my hand, evaluating the situation.

Here's what I found:

-lots of eggshells.  Though, many were filled with castings, they obviously take a long time to breakdown.  So I am considering if I want to put so much of them in the next round...

-lots of little cherry tomatoes.  They must not like the acidic taste.  So, tomatoes I will now put in the compost bin instead (of course, unless they're still good- and in that case, I'll give to the chickens).

-much of the newspaper bedding still in tact- very water logged, clumpy, but still identifiable as newspaper.  Much of that I either composted (if it seemed more newspaper than castings) or put into the casting harvest bucket.  I will pay attention in the future if it seems they like to eat some bedding materials more than others....

-lots and lots of worms!  Who knows how many are wriggling around now in an orgy of activity.  But they seem pretty happy, so that is good.

-The worm casting harvest ended up almost filling up a 30 lb (30 clay litter) kitty litter bucket.  I'll hold onto them till Spring, sprinkle it out on the garden.  Or sprinkle some onto indoor plants, depending on who needs it.

Reflections:
-will put less eggshells in, no more tomatoes, and I am considering if I want to continue putting coffee grounds in or not.  Of course, the worms like the coffee - so there's ton of food in that way that won't have to be added to the compost-potentially making it more acidic than I want.  However, when it comes to harvest time it becomes very difficult to tell what is what- since worm castings look similar except that they don't smell like coffee and they are a bit more sticky.

That's the general gist of it.  How I replace the bedding is an experiment in progress.

But enough of all that now!  It's time for bed!

To dream of worms making love and soil expanding!

Goodnight!