It's only been 3 months since we started our worm compost bin. Click for the 1st post<. The guidelines suggest re-bedding your worm bin after 6 months. We couldn't wait! Hahaha. It seemed that they were rapidly consuming the food we fed them and creating a lot of vermicast so we decided to "harvest". This photo collage to the left is in chronological order. The top is what the top layer of the bin looked like when we decided to harvest. We removed the newspaper layer to get to the decomposing food and worms. There are thousands of other insects and things that also live amonst the worms and help break down the food. (Btw, their "food" is our vegetable waste and coffee grinds.)
We made a pile for the large chunks of paper & food, a pile for medium chunks & a pile for finer vermicastings. After that, we sorted through to get as many of the chunks of things out to be re-bedded. At the same time, we are also separating our worms. This is so we can see how much our worm population has increased and so that we can put as many of the worms as possible back into the new bedding.
This is what our worm ball looked like when we started 3 months ago. It was a quarter pound of worms at that time.
This is our worm ball when we harvested & re-bedded couple weekends ago. We weighed them and they weighed a little over half a pound. This is great because they are estimated to multiply at an average rate of twice it's weight every 6 months under ideal conditions. This means our conditions must be a little better than ideal because they have more than doubled their weight and population in only 3 months! Whooo hooo! This is good news to me because a quarter pound of worms to start with cost $40! I'm glad my worms have more than doubled it's value. Too bad my money in the bank doesn't do that. :P
We have set aside our vermicastings in a different containter that I'm keeping watered. I'm trying to let any baby worms and sneaky worms that are hiding in it consume what ever food is left in it. I'll try to separate as many worms out of there in a few weeks and then be left with the compost to add to the plant soil.
We love doing this... I'm thinking of starting multiple worm bins at different stages so we can harvest and play with our worm friends more often. I know some of you must think it's gross. There is no smell and the worms are cool... literally. They have a therapeutic affect on you. It is relaxing to have the vermicast (worm doots) flowing through your fingers and squigly worms dancing around in your palm. It also reduces your waste and provides you with nourishing compost and "compost tea" for the plants around your house!
A couple weekends ago we stopped by at the Orchid and Bonsai Show at Kalani High School. It's been years since I've stepped into the Kalani High School cafeteria (that's my alma mater). I received some complimentary entry cards which are more like reminder cards. The orchid organizations that organize the show just ask for a donation at the door.
There were many beautiful orchids to look at and/or purchase. I was amazed at how they are able to get them all to bloom for the show. There must be some secret trick to that. There were some really interesting ones that had scents. Even some that smelled like chocolate! I tried to find a vanilla orchid there, but nobody had any. There were some super small orchids. The flower actually looked like a "normal" orchid, but it was soooo small. Like a half a centimeter in size or so. That was amazing!
Another feature at this show was the miniature Japanese town. Take a look at the photo. Almost looks like I took a picture of a real Japanese house in the country. It's really neat. Someone should bring their train set and set it up to run along the Japanese town at the next show! :)
A few weeks ago, Kelli and I went to the KCC Farmers Market for an early morning walk and some shopping. It was the weeked prior to the Farm Fair weekend which meant the next weekend the farmer's market would not be at KCC. It was a nice morning and that also made it very crowded at 730am!
We bought a watermelon that we just ate yesterday. It was very sweet and only cost a couple dollars.
We also bought some pre-cooked luau (taro) leaves because Kelli wanted me to make some luau stew.
Luau leaf is a very firm dark leaf. It takes hours to cook down into a soft mushy consistency. It also takes a lot of large leaves to end up with a pound or so after it's cooked down. It's something like the way spinach cooks down, but takes much longer.
First I browned some boneless beef shortribs in a large pot with some olive oil, salt and pepper. After it had nice color I added canned chicken broth to cover the meat so it can simmer for an hour and a half or so (until tender).
After it was tender enough so the meat would almost fall apart if poked with a fork, I seasoned it to taste with basics, Hawaiian Sea Salt and some pepper. Then I added the pre-cooked luau leaves to finish the stew.
It was great that the leaves were pre-cooked (and sold frozen). It only takes a few minutes to finish after adding the leaves to the pot. We made a large amount so that most of it could be refrigerated and eaten later during the week.
