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Permalink Reply by Michaele Fitzpatrick on October 7, 2007 at 8:44am

Darin (my husband- he still needs to sign up on the website but is a slow food member as well) and I would love to sign up, so put us down for 2. Is it really only a dollar? We have been saving scraps for a few years now and are composting them in a contained area that he built in the backyard. We have plenty of volunteer worms in our compost, and we water and turn on a semi regular basis, but we would love to learn how to speed up the process and to keep the volunteer cantaloupe and squash from growing out of our compost (although the few sqash plants that I kept produced some not bad squash!)
I have no idea if we would like a vermipost bin or not, since I really don't know that much about them. I guess we will learn at the event!
Thanks so much,
Michaele Fitzpatrick

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Permalink Reply by Andy Ciordia on October 8, 2007 at 11:48pm

Robin & I will be in attendance too. :) I might want a wormy bin. I've been meaning to but I never have tried vermiposting.

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Permalink Reply by Saamy on October 16, 2007 at 10:29pm

I would be very interested in learning more about composting and vermicompost. I want to do it at home!

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Permalink Reply by David L. Jennings on October 18, 2007 at 7:53pm

I made my own worm bin. After assemblage I placed it outside in shade in August. They died. I started over and moved it inside. They lived. I check every few days. Turn up the contents to see if the worms are still alive. Tells me I'm doing it right, I guess. I will keep the post alive while I create another IE, find the site about how they are made and provide you with a link. OK I am returned. Here is the linkhttp://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/Easywormbin.htmI
I guess it was way too hot the first time. I guess it's up to the worms to tell you what to do. This is how it is with the organic method of growing plants.
I bought the bins from Kmart. Maybe I should have washed them out in a mild solution of chlorine, like 10 to 1. Better still, fill them with tapwater, let it stand a day or so and discard. I figure a red wiggler worm is a sensitive creature to harsh chemicals, like practically anything biological. I have no idea how rapidly they replicate. But...I figure you simply check the contents every few days. If you see more worms than what you put in from the little container I bought at a bait shop, you should add more food scraps, more newspaper strips, a fistful of soil, sprinkle water on it and go from there until the bin is full of worms. Then you do the same thing with the second bin. What's left is worm castings and composted soil. You save it or you apply it. I enjoyed posting this. Please do a search on the Oasis Turnip.

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Permalink Reply by David L. Jennings on October 20, 2007 at 7:22pm

I won't be able to attend. Darn! But...here's what I have done. I studied up on composting. Then I got to work. I started out collecting stable waste from a stable on US 29 in Concord. Bunch of 5-gal buckets. But that is not all one needs, as I learned. Worms don't want to live in stable waste that consists of horse droppings and this confetti-like sawdust. Still, you have the carbon and nitrogen ingredients and some necessary microbes. To make a pile you need the brown stuff and the green stuff. So where does it come from? Well, what I noticed in my driving errands were the black trash bags on the curbside that folks leave out for the garbage collections. I gathered them. In the truck. In the back seat. In the front seat. I pulled them out and then I vaccumed. Didn't take long. What I learned is that some bags contained more leaves (brown stuff) than grass clippings (green stuff). Also, some of the residents use these fancy mulching lawnmowers, so all the stuff in the trash bags has already chopped up. You want more brown stuff than green stuff anyway. I would drag the bags to the garden site. I would dump out a bag's worth, dump a bucket of stable waste on that, add a bucket of water, and repeat, until the pile was about 4ft. high. There was still plastic covering lying around, so I covered the pile with it. I learned that covering the wet pile will speed up the composting process. So every few days, I fork it up, water and recover. Meanwhile I keep making new piles. When the first pile is finished, I will simply transfer it to the raised beds I have constructed with materials that I gather from dumpsters at these housing developments about 3-4 miles from the garden site. You know, 2x4s, etc. I saw them up and bang them together with a few nails.

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Permalink Reply by Paolo on October 25, 2007 at 9:02am

Please sign me up for this event. I really would love to participate. I am planning to start growing my vegetable garden this year and it would be great to learn all you can teach me about composting. Thanks! Paolo

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Permalink Reply by Paolo on October 25, 2007 at 9:24am

Thank you Tracy!
I read: Location: TBD, what does that stand for?
I am a recent Charlottean! :)
Ciao, Paolo

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Permalink Reply by Paolo on October 25, 2007 at 9:52am

Grazie!
Ci vediamo Domenica!

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Permalink Reply by Amy Hayes on November 3, 2007 at 3:44pm

Hi there. I'm new here, but would be interested in a compost refresher. I've had compost heaps in the past, but in a differest state. I could use some tips on using materials that seem to be plentiful around here, like pine needles. So if there's still room for two more, my husband and I would like to come. We also MIGHT be interested in the worm bin.

-Amy

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Permalink Reply by Amy Hayes on November 3, 2007 at 5:38pm

Thanks, Tracy. Unfortunately, we don't have any folding chairs. Will anyone laugh if we show up with real, wooden chairs? :) We have a couple of lightweight flea market type seats we could bring.

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