the worms live!

As I posted a while back we are now composting all our food scraps and yard waste into a large composter! It was always my intention to start using the big compost bin, and had my old worm composter in the backyard for a number of months untouched. I feared that I had killed all of my worms! When I started we had 300 red wigglers. The worm composter was so successful we were emptying the bottom tray every week as it filled with "compost tea"
After we moved we had many distractions, family visiting, a big wedding and general new house issues and the composting fell to the bottom of our list.

When I saw the "One Small Change" challenge posted by hipmountainmama, I renewed my resolve to start composting again! I moved the large compost bin and began. I still left my old poor worms for "another day" as I thought it may be a lost cause.

I was pleasantly surprised to find so many worms in it I couldn't count them! Those little wigglers are hardy! So my old balcony worm compost bin is half full of compost with food still in there to keep the worms going for some time. I am not sure what to do with the worms now, maybe I will leave them for a while and then harvest them in the warmer weather.

Who knows maybe we will go fishing this summer with some of our own home grown bait! Talk about full circle!

One small change

I have taken up the challenge put forward by hipmountainmama to make one small change for the planet each month between now and Earth Day (April 22, 2010)

I already have a pile of idea's of things I will try and incorporate into my routine, but this months idea has been needed for a long time.
- to compost food scraps!

I had my worm composter going strong for the past year. While we were apartment dwellers it was very important to me to keep it monitored. However when we moved to a house this summer I left the worms outside in the backyard and didn't really drain it properly and check it the same. I know I am a worm murderer. but maybe not. I will check it tomorrow and see what the damage is.

I am going to empty out the old "earth machine" read big black composter the city sells each spring, that was left here by the previous tenets and see if I can use it!

One thing I don't understand is why the spell-check does not recognise the word composter??? How environmentally unfriendly! - but it also doesn't accept homeschooling as a word either- go figure :)