Mama's Worm Composting

Bay Area Worms Pick Up

I have been sick... FOREVER. I don't know if it's my children who are to blame or my own bad habits (ahem... I wonder which is at fault here...). Anyways, I've slept enough in the past three weeks; now it's time to work, sick or not! Someday the sun will come out, this cough will go away, and I will make a million dollars selling worms. :-)

I wanted to take a few minutes here to address the concerns of my local peeps who are coming by to pick up worms from me. Many of you locals from Berkeley, San Francisco and Oakland choose to just come by instead of ordering online. This is just fine with me, but here are a few things you should know...

1. This vicious beast will meet you at the door. 

Don't worry, he's friendly, and he just wants to be the center of attention ALL THE TIME. He will meow at you. He will rub up against you. He will act interested in your bag of worms, but really he just wants you to love on him. 

2. This other vicious beast has become more interested in my worm sales of late, and he may make an appearance if you are lucky. 

His name is Cutie Pie, and this is why:

 

3. Vicious beast #3 usually hides.

4. The children are beasts of an entirely different sort. One at a time, they will probably ignore you. When paired you are likely to hear a fair amount of screaming. Screaming works best to bug mom when she's busy with clients.

5. The house will be a mess. My house is always a mess. It is my dream to one day have a maid every single day. Sigh.

6. Expect chaos, generally speaking.

Here's a couple of extra tags for ya:

berkeley worms, bay area worms, san francisco worms, oakland worms, alameda worms

Good worming, and maybe we'll see you soon!

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General Worm News

Well, things have been less than rosy around here, thus the lack of posting on my part. I was zapped by the winter bug that is always "going around", and after a week of misery got zapped again by the bacterial bug that sometimes attacks after the cold bug. Anyways, two weeks later and here I am, just starting to be healthy once more.

Due to my illness we never did a large harvesting of Saaba's worm composting garden. However, as her family was getting ready to move and packing everything up after the fire, they invited the neighborhood to come over and harvest as they pleased. I daresay we fed lots of folks lots of kale in the past several weeks! I never harvested my red wigglers, either. This was partly because they just looked so happy and healthy in their trench, and partly because I could barely get out of bed. Anyways, Saaba has moved along now to a far off land, so if I want my garden back I'll have to make friendly with the new neighbors. We'll see if they can measure up. :-)

In other news, I've been experimenting with feeds of late. Two options have recently become available to me: rabbit poop and chicken lay mash. The rabbit poop is a new development entirely, and the chicken mash is new because my retail delivery route takes me right by a country feed store. Initially I was certain that the worms would prefer the poop to the corn mash, but I was quite mistaken. While it's clear that they are eating the poop, they are positively swarming around the chicken mash. I have fed it dry and sprinkled over the top of wet bedding and I have mixed it with water and fed it in little mounds on top of the bedding. Everything I read indicates that chicken mash should not be mixed in with the bedding or one runs the risk of turning the bed "sour", or too acidic. Keeping the mash on the top enables the worms to retreat away from the feed if it should start to cause problems. So far the only drawback I see to the mash is the presence of some unground corn. Obviously, the worms are going to eat the smaller particles first, and the larger particles get left behind until they, too finally break down enough to get ingested. Anyone got a flour mill for sale? 

The poop, while I find it to be a great alternative feed, is quite expensive. So I think I'll need to find my poop elsewhere. Ahhh, the endless search for the perfect poop. Will I ever have my reward?

I hope this post finds everyone happy and healthy. Come on, spring!

Good worming!

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Horse Manure and Other Disasters

My stupidity is something that seems to know no bounds. As I fumble my way through life, motherhood, marriage and business, I am constantly reminded that I should have read the directions beforehand. But NOOOOO, heaven forbid I should do that. I'm just your run-of-the-mill, lazy American who prefers wine and tv in the evening over studying books about how to live life better. Or how to feed worms better. Or how to not kill them en masse.

Long story short, that lovely steaming pile of horse manure I collected the other day, drove to the warehouse, and shoveled out of the back of my truck into a large, steaming mountain turned out to be too alkaline to use as feed. WAAAAYYY too alkaline. You may remember that I am trying to FIX a problem of alkalinity in my worm bedding right now, so no, I wasn't too stoked about this new development. Especially after all of that shoveling. Please note that pure horse manure is a great feed for worms; it's the manure mixed with the shavings soaked in alkaline horse pee that poses the problem,

Garden forums to the rescue; I read a bit about how to change the acidity of compost using off-the-shelf products from a local nursery. So far it seems to be working, and the manure is starting to become more acidic. I tested a small part of my windrow with the new feed, and the worms actually seem to like it just fine. That's ok for now, as I need to get rid of the aforementioned mountain of poo, but I don't like the idea of continually treating their feed this much beforehand. I'm going to experiment with some fresh food, some corn mash, and some precomposted material from a local compost company to find a good balance of nutrients for the little fellas. 

I guess the moral of the story is simple: ph matters. Don't be an idiot like me and forget just how much this statement is true. It's one thing for you home composting folks to not pay too much attention, but as a farmer with half a million worms' lives on the line it's time to take my head out of the wine bottle and study up. 

Lesson learned? Test the ph of the material BEFORE you let them load the truck with their tractor!

Good worming!

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Do You Want to Sell Worms?

If you've thought about selling worms yourself in the past, but aren't sure how to get started, consider dropshipping worms to your customers from Mama's Worm Composting. This new dropshipping program I am offering is available to legitimate businesses with a business license and resale license. For now, paypal is the only method of payment I can accept, but in the near future I will be accepting credit cards of all types. 

Worms will be presented in a package with your business' logo and information and will be shipped via Priority Mail. Alternately, you may order a large quantity of worms and resell yourself locally. 

Interested? Email me with your questions!

Good worming!

Buy worms here!

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Our Beautiful Worm Composting Garden

   

Just wanted to provide a quick update, and possibly the last update, about our lovely worm composting trench garden. I visited the garden a week or two ago and took the pictures above. Notice how HUGE that leaf is in comparison to my foot (it's a mustard leaf). Those mustard plants alone make me feel so warm and fuzzy inside. :-)

Sadly, over the winter break while Saaba was away her kitchen burned down. Seriously. Since my friends who are lending their garden space are renters, this means they'll be moving sooner than later (they're still on holiday). And bye bye worm composting garden. Well, I can say that I had a great experience digging my hands in the dirt (for a change... instead of poop...) and actually growing something instead of killing it! Now I just need another friend in my neighborhood to pilfer land from! 

The worms continue to make their way throughout the garden, though they are also starting to breed right in the trench. I'm happy to say I'll have a lovely harvest of red boys when I dig out the trench in a couple of weeks, and more than enough will be leftover in this garden to continue enriching the soil all around the yard.

Stay tuned for pictures of our final harvest in coming weeks. The cauliflower, artichokes and broccoli will have to wait and be made a housewarming gift to the new tenants when the house is fixed. But I'll show off pics of mustard, kale, lettuces, beets, potatoes, chard, and a bunch of other random vegetables that I can't remember when we cut them all in one fell swoop. 

Good worming!

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Worm Bin Critters

One benefit, or at least unexpected experience, of having a worm bin is the introduction of a variety of critters into your life. When I first started worm composting it never occurred to me that I might be dealing with more than just worms in my bin. The first time I saw a helper mite I was horrified, not understanding whether the critter would eat my new red babies alive or simply hang out. Of course, at the beginning of one's first worm composting project the simple process of food breaking down is completely disgusting and sort of horrifying, so the thought of other bugs being part of that process can sort of turn your brain to mush. Over time, however, dealing with a variety of bugs may still make me scream, but they are also good indicators about the health of my system. 

Now don't freak out by this next little part; these are critters I see over 700 square feet of worms in a warehouse and may not represent your personal little worm bin at home. 

Slugs, for example, are gross and trouble-causing as they can actually eat the small worms, but they indicate a healthy system for worms. White mites as well. Rolly polly bugs indicate a healthy, but overly dry, system. Maggots mean I've got some dead worms that are being feasted on by housefly larvae, a problem. Spiders are just inevitable. Mold usually occurs when the food source (usually fresh food) isn't buried appropriately; the worms don't go for it fast enough because it's on the surface and then it starts to mold. Fruit flies or fungus gnats, sadly, mean a healthy system (though I hate them with every fiber of my being and try to kill them at every opportunity). Ants mean the bedding is too dry. 

All of these monstrous critters I've seen and squealed my surprise at over my worm farming ventures. So take a look at the article here, which shows images of a variety of worm bin critters, to familiarize yourself with the possibilities. That way when you someday see an innocent helper mite you won't freak out and dump the whole bin. 

You know, all this time that I've been doing this now, I still yell and scream when I see a spider in the house. And guess who gets called on to kill it? My loving husband. I guess I'll never be TOTALLY desensitized. 

Good worming!

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That’s One Big Pile of Poop!

 

Yesterday was manure hauling day. Unfortunately, due to my unintentional late-morning nap (it was so awesome), I didn’t get a chance to unload the truck at the warehouse (that lovely task awaits me later this morning). Check out the steam rolling off this pile of poop! Such things make me  happy for unknown reasons. One person’s steaming pile of poop is another person’s rose garden, I suppose. This particular steaming pile of poop represents some nicely precomposted worm feed.

I found a publication a while back that discusses the best food sources for red worms. It had indicated that horse manure was considered one of the best possible choices for feeding my little red herd, but I decided that I would try cow manure instead given the lack of bulky materials in the mix (hay, shavings, etc.). Boy was this a mistake! I know a fantastic worm farmer who clearly has a system for making cow manure work well. He precomposts it and uses additives to get the ph level to an acceptable neutral. However, years and years of experience I have not. When I got my cow manure, I used it straight up (though it WAS precomposted). It was waaaay too alkaline, and my poor herd of adult worms paid the price of my stupidity. The babies who were born into the mix, however, are thriving (and thankfully plentiful). Since it’s always been their environment from birth, they seem to like it just fine. Slowly I am starting to add more acidic beddings to the mix to try to balance the ph while not shocking and killing all my babies.

So, back to horse manure I go. The reason I had started to stray from horse manure was not the quality of the manure, as the worms clearly loved it the best over any other food source. The shavings used in local horse barns were the problem. While they didn’t seem to hurt the worms, they didn’t break down quickly, either. The result? Difficult harvesting. In an already financially-and-fancy-equipment-challenged business, anything to make harvesting easier on myself I tend to embrace (thus, the cow manure fiasco). But there’s just no getting around the fact that a poor worm farmer simply must be up to her elbows in poop and spend hours and hours harvesting.

My solution? From now on I will precompost the manure on-site at the warehouse and not feed it until it has broken down enough to pass easily through a trammel screen harvester. And I suppose a proper ph meter would help me as well.

Good worming!

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Worms Eat Toxic Waste

The subject of worms eating toxic waste has fascinated me in the past (see another blog post I wrote here on the subject). I've been poking around on the internet looking for more information on this topic and found a great article by National Geographic writer James Owen about a "superworm" that has been discovered in the U.K. The worms in question have been found to tolerate a variety of wastes including heavy metals and arsenic. While the toxicity of the soil remains the same, something that happens within the body of the worms seems to convert the toxic substances in question into a form that is accessible to plants. This article is talking about even using plants to mine heavy metals with, ie: process the metals that the plants have within them instead of digging into the land. 

One thing I find interesting, and infuriating, is that worms can eat toxic waste and all sorts of horrible stuff, but if my ph levels are off they die off en masse. What gives?

Fascinating stuff! Read it here.

Good worming!

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A Mighty Worm Composting Farm

  

Ta-da! I would like to introduce my first large-scale worm composting system! I only partly-permanently injured my back making this thing, which is a 6'x12' flow-through worm composter. You can see by the pics that my carpentry may be a tad lacking (note the lack of support beams on this thing... it's quite wobbly). However, the friendly folks at the warehouse were more than happy to tell me where I went wrong, and I will soon be stabilizing it with diagonal beams on the sides and reinforcing the ropes along the bottom. My hope is that this system will allow me to breed a ton of worms, feed from the top without any mixing, harvest pure castings from the bottom, and provide tons of airflow for my little buddies. My good neighbors over at the West Oakland Greening Project (fancier website soon to come courtesy of yours truly) are making me a second one that looks just the same as this one. If these monster composters work, then in a few months I'll have a fleet. 

While I'm waiting, I have dumped out every single smaller bin I have and have created windrows. I was trying to explain to my masseuse friend last night just WHY my back is such a mess. It took a lot of gesturing and mathematical calculation for me to get across the fact that I have 400 square feet of manure piled two feet high which requires constant attention and turning. She was horrified.

And speaking of horrified, yesterday at the warehouse involved a black widow spider (if you listen really closely, you can probably still hear me screaming) AND a ridiculously friendly rat. These are two occupational hazards I was really not counting on. It's a good thing my neighbors are 1. Men, and 2. Have really big feet. 

The holidays were beyond nutty for the Cantwell family. Let's just say thank GOD for preschool (and thank GOD it's back in session!). My loving husband was so kind as to buy me an extremely powerful drill for Christmas AND a back brace! I'm in tough-mama heaven over here! 

That's all for now. Here's hoping my back holds out for the transfer to these 4' high bins. 

Good worming!

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Worms and Cold Temperatures

Recently I traveled with my family to Florida for our annual in-law/Disney World vacation. I fed my growing herd of worms 100 pumpkins before I left and didn't give it another thought. A few days into our trip, however, I saw some pictures a friend had posted on Facebook of the amazing SNOW our area had received. This may not be a big deal for many of you reading this blog, but snow along the California coast is rare, indeed, not to mention potentially devastating for my unprepared worm business. 

That afternoon I wrote to my landlord and asked her to dig around in one of my bins to make sure there were still signs of life. She did so and got back to me to tell me that, while the worms seemed alive, they were sure moving at a very slow rate. This sufficed to calm me for that first day, but I must admit that I was a bit panicky for the rest of the trip. By the time we returned home at 2am several days later it was all I could do to go to bed instead of racing to the warehouse to save whomever I could.

The next morning I arrived in the 40 degree temperatures with a heating coil and my own heating blanket to place underneath my  bins in hopes of saving, but not cooking, any surviving worms. The thermometer read 40 degrees in the bedding, far below the optimal range of 55-77 degrees that red worms prefer. However, when I started to dig around in there I noticed something unexpected: the worms were FINE. Happy, in fact. Many of the worms had congregated around the pumpkins where there would have been extra heat as they decomposed. But I was surprised to find thousands of baby worms, the most vulnerable to the temperature drop, active and wriggling throughout the bedding, not just by the warm pumpkins. 

The lesson? I think the lesson I learned is that worms seem to prefer to be left alone. And even in extreme temperatures they can thrive. Now, I wouldn't want to test this theory much further, and it still remains my wish that the bins warm up again. However, I feel pretty good about leaving my buddies on their own over the Christmas holidays. 

Just wanted to share my experience with everyone.

Good worming!

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