Like the headlights of an oncoming train...

Which is the end of the sentence "I see spring in the distance..."  Oh, it's a joy to have little plants bursting out of seeds in the laundry room again, and to be planning what to grow, and to be talking to other people about all that, but... it comes at you fast, doesn't it?  Yikes.

On the other hand, it's sleeting on and off outside just now, so I am reminded that it's still February.

Hi there.  I haven't written anything here in a while.  This is for several reasons:

1) Still wrestling with some health issues: the thyroid problems not solved yet and the knee still hurting. But I do have more energy and I can walk, and I'm hoping I'll be able to manage the physical labor of gardening and you know, squatting and kneeling and so forth.  Or else ignominiously scooting about on my butt with my right leg stretched out straight.  Somehow I'll manage it.  At the demo garden I have minions MG interns to dictate various tasks to, but my new community garden plot will need lots of work and that is down to ME.

Here's what it looked like when I was last there in December, by the way:

(It is very, very difficult to take a good photo of an empty garden plot.  Photos will get more interesting as the season progresses.)

I need to get out there again to start getting beds ready for planting.  Whenever it warms up a little.

2) Every time I thought about posting the ghosts of a thousand worms held me back.  That's right; I killed my worms.  It was plain and simple neglect; and yeah, I was sick, but still. *guilt*  They did make some lovely compost for me before they succumbed; in fact, I thought they were doing great and were ready to come up to the next level of my worm bin, and then... somehow they didn't make the journey, and apparently all died from starvation, best I can tell.  And if I'd been looking at them every few days as I should have, that wouldn't have happened.

I'm going to start over in the spring.  But oh dear.  Alas poor worms.

3) Some winters I just don't want to think about gardening, okay?  Especially since I know how many projects I got behind on last summer and will probably not have time or energy to catch up on this year.

But I'm back and I will make an effort to post on a regular basis, here and at Grow It Eat It.  I haven't done a Garden Bloggers Bloom Day in a while; next month there will probably be lots of flowers.  Right now I just have frozen snowdrops, and inside this weird and spectacular amaryllis:

In the MG world, aside from blogging and plotting, I seem to have become someone who stands up in front of groups and talks.  I was asked to do the three-hour introduction to vegetable gardening for the new MG class (I interpreted that as "what do you have to know about vegetable gardening to be a MG" and it went pretty well, I think); last night I talked about container gardening in schools to local teachers; next month I'm doing a spring veggie gardening talk to a garden club; and in April, if I have enough people registered, I'm teaching Intensive Vegetable Gardening again at Montgomery College.  I like putting together the powerpoints and I'm getting better at making the words come out of my mouth coherently, so I'll probably be doing more of this as time goes on.

I'm behind on keeping records already, but next post I'll try to list seedlings already started, and maybe put up some baby pictures.

Train arriving soon...

Worms Survive Despite Unforgivable Neglect: News at 11

I finally got around to putting a new level on the worm bin today.  In recent weeks months all I've been doing is chucking an occasional food scrap in there (worms eat much less than one thinks in the beginning) and not even renewing the bedding.  But they are still alive, and in fact there are baby worms, so things must be going fine.  The Worm Rebel Alliance continues to operate at the top of the bin, but perhaps this impulse to climb will get them through the holes and into the new bin, which has been provided with lots of bedding and some pieces of cantaloupe rind.

Worms, I promise to gaze on you more often.  Now keep making compost.  And please don't climb up the sides between the two bins, or you will be squished.

Diet of Worms

Oh dear, have not made an update in weeks.  I wish I could say I'd spent all the time planting things outside, but due to illness and otherwise busyness I am way behind.  I hope to at least post some pictures and summaries soon.

But for the moment, back to the worms.  This is the sign I put on the bin when we started (the Diet of Worms tag is my son's irresistible addition). It was probably a useless gesture, since no one feeds them but me, and clearly...

...I can't follow my own directions.  I believe those are squash seedlings.  Oops.

Also, I keep neglecting to fill the bin with shredded newspaper to keep the upper parts dry, and as before the more rebellious worms seem to be living in the foodless penthouse (though since they are excreting there, I assume they eat sometime).  And a few had fallen or climbed down the holes into the lower bin (most drowned).

Per directions at Red Worm Composting, I am going to try freezing some food scraps so that, thawed, they will provide softer and more easily digested food for the worms.  It is really easy to feed them too much, but even if I keep the offerings down to a minimum some of it sits there uneaten until it molds.  They do not appreciate crunch in their diet.

I may drill some holes in the top to improve air circulation, too.  So, improvements still to be made, but nevertheless I think most of the worms are working away down below - at least when I poke around I see them moving, and the bedding level keeps going down.

Worm update; and interior squeamishness

It is a dark time for the Rebellion...

The worm pacification strategy seems to be working.  I'm still getting a few little clusters like this up at the top, but not nearly as many.  So on to having a normally functioning worm bin, I hope!

Also, I have an observation to make about my own behavior; this goes under Garden Psychology, if there is such a field.  When I'm outside, in the garden, I sometimes wear gloves, but half of the time I take them off and forget to put them back on, so I'm bare-handed.  And those who have worked with me know that I am not squeamish about picking up worms, bugs, etc., as long as I know they're not going to bite me.

That's outside.  For some reason, this does not carry over to interiors.  Now, long ago I used to be bug-phobic; I'd go all Annie Hall over spiders and so forth, but I got over that, and I can handle bugs in the house... just not with my bare hands.  Out in the garden: pick the stink bugs off the plants and squish them, preferably with gloves on, but I have been known to do it without, and I can certainly take having them crawl on my bare skin.  In the house: I always use a tissue to carry them to the toilet for flushing, or a piece of cardboard to knock them into a jar of soapy water.  Out in the garden I pick up inconvenient worms and fling them away (gently, although I do confess that if my cat is "helping" me garden I let him pounce on the worms.  I'm sure this is evidence of a deep-seated psychosis).  Inside, I use wooden spoons or pieces of stiff cardboard to push my Rebel Worms back to their labor below or to poke around in the Worm Mines to see what's going on.  (On the other hand, I then wash the wooden spoon and use it to stir my dinner, so I'm still sure to gross someone out.)

I suspect this means that, deep down, I don't think bugs and worms belong in the civilized (sort of) atmosphere of my house, which of course they don't, but I'm not sure why I can't touch them to put them in their rightful place, while having no problem doing that outdoors.  The worm bin brings composting indoors, so it may eventually bridge the gap.  Not that I stick my bare hands in outdoor unfinished compost either.

The worms of Monte Cristo

So, things are still a bit unsettled in Wormville.  I was, in fact, rather worried that I had a sort of Worm Rebel Alliance making a bid for freedom, since every time I checked the bin a dozen or two of them were up around the top trying to sneak out.  As usual, the internet came to the rescue, and I found this post, which is reassuring in the "you may have done something stupid or you may have bought stupid worms" way - but apparently it happens to everyone, just about.  (Everyone with a worm bin, I mean.  Though it may bear some thematic resemblance to the embarrassments of adolescence.)

The Rebels Without a Cause are not great in number, so I'm not going to worry much.  From the worm-advice post, I can see several things I may have done wrong.  Potting soil was probably a bad plan, because it can have fertilizer salts in it that can hurt worms.  I didn't add much, but what I did add was Miracle-Gro, I admit (a totally organic potting soil might be okay).  Also, white office paper isn't the best, and that's what I used since we already had some in the shredder.  (My son has since added the remains of a college rejection letter.  I think this is legitimate worm food, and I plan to do the same with all publication rejections I receive.)  And I set the system up right before adding the worms, so the food scraps were fresh and harder for the worms to process.

I poked around down below and most of the worms seem to be settled in and well distributed.  None have actually escaped out the top and none have gone through the holes into the empty lower bin, so they are not entirely stupid.  Per advice, I added some leaves and manure, and filled up the rest of the bin with dry shredded newspaper, which may keep the upper levels drier and discourage questing behavior.  We shall see.

Really one should not equate this management plan with Keeping the Little People Happy so as to suppress revolution.  Worms will not find a better life on the kitchen floor (especially if the cat discovers them).

The worms have landed!

You will actually get to see a flower if you make it to the end of this post. :)

My worms are here!  The package from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm arrived very quickly; good thing I got organized yesterday and put my homemade stacking worm bin together.  I bought three plastic storage tubs from Lowe's; they cost $4.98 each.  Aside from that, all I needed for this experiment were four yogurt cups (anything of similar size will do, but I ate the yogurt), some shredded paper, a bit of potting soil (ETA: probably not such a good idea; see next post), and a mess of kitchen scraps.  And the worms.

The bottom bin remains imperforate and intact.  In it go the yogurt cups as spacing devices.

This bin will catch any liquid that drips down from the higher bins.  Worms need a moist environment, but not an aquatic one.  The liquid will be good fertilizer.

 The other two bins got drilled.  The one at bottom is upside-down so you can see the holes better.  Exciting, right?  Those holes have to be big enough for a worm to crawl through.  I used a 5/16" bit (I am totally guessing worm size here).  The holes around the top edge are just for air circulation and are a bit smaller.

One of the holey bins goes inside the unholey bin.  The other one gets put aside for now; it'll come into use when the worms get really active.  Lowe's had better not discontinue this size of bin, because I suspect I'll need more later.

Inside the bin goes:  a layer of shredded paper a couple of inches thick, sprayed with water; some food scraps (they should probably be cut up more, but we'll get in the habit of doing that); a cup or so of potting soil (garden compost or soil would do, but I didn't want to introduce any foreign worms or other critters).

Worms inna bag!  They came with a warning that they might look a bit dried out and shrunken, but really they weren't so bad (wriggling away in their peat moss!) and they will rehydrate fine.

A view into the dark and mysterious interior. -->

I dumped the worms onto the food scraps, and covered them with some more damp shredded paper, and then put the lid on the bin and set it in the kitchen where it will live.  I am trying not to check on them too often.  They should start eating soon and making what are delicately called castings.  When the first bin has lots of castings in it, I'll put the second bin on top, with paper and food scraps in it, and let the worms migrate up.  Then I can collect the mostly worm-free castings from below, and the bins keep switching places.

I'll let you know if that works out as planned.  So very glad I did this - admittedly, it was an easier step to take than getting bees or chickens, neither of which I've plunged into yet, and much cheaper.  A thousand worms cost under $20 plus shipping; $15 for the bins... not much of an investment for something that should yield enough compost to feed all my potted plants.  I'm excited!

I'm less excited about the freeze warning for tonight, considering everything out there that's in flower - my blueberries at the link, magnolias not quite done yet, cherries making pink snow everywhere.

Viburnum 'Mohawk' now out in full bloom - wish I could share the scent with you, but we don't quite have the technology for that yet.  A sweet clove scent that perfumes the air twenty feet away.  (Just imagine it.  It'll get the worms out of your nose.)  It's a short bloom even in years when it goes off properly a month later; I'm afraid the freeze may make it even shorter, but we can hope.