Sorry for those expecting a deep and meaningful post. This is more a random thought and funny observation to be honest. People search for some funny stuff and here is a sample of the terms that led to my site in the past day.

• male feline urinary system
• unique birds
• worm farm images
• australian gardens
• chai plant
• kitchen
• tropical australian flowers
• wormfarm removing maggots
• worm farm creatures
• starbucks loyalty card
• can i place blow fly maggots in a worm farm

I am a little concerned about that last one. I mean why would you?

That said it seems a lot of people are still interested in vermiculture. I better resurrect my kit!

Well today I found a number of very healthy looking Blackjack Zucchini seedlings. My head said walk away you know that is your nemesis plant. However, my heart said you can grow these. So I now have another lot of Blackjack Zucchini to try my hand at. I have decided that I will be potting them in some temporary pots tomorrow.

The temporary pots are recycled pots for larger plants in the garden. This will give the plants something to grow in and prevent getting root bound in the current seedling tray. It will also the easy transportation of the plants to Wollongong next week. Once in the Gong I will be performing another recycling tub conversion to a planter.

In order to make a few changes to this attempt I have bought a bag of Debco Organic potting mix. The reason for going with this alternative planting medium is that I wish to eliminate the RichGro Pro Mix from being a potential contributor to my previous disastrous attempts to grow this plant. This medium is coarser and does not contain the soil wetting agents or slow release fertiliser that the Rich Gro does, however given that I will have an abundance of worm juice and vermi compost that should not be a problem.

Why will I have an abundance of the worm produce? I will be deploying a second worm farm in Wollongong. In fact I am seriously considering going larger and marketing the worm juice and compost. That does need a considerable amount more investigation. However, a second farm is a certainty. The construction of that farm is yet to be decided. I am considering the Cheap Worm Farm Construction idea, but that is largely dependent on the above plans.

From this article there are two things that are certain:

1. All attempts will be made to grow these plants successfully, I am sick of having a nemesis, especially one that I enjoy.
2. I am yet again in need of more worms.

This week and weekend has been very wet in Sydney. It is basically miserable and is preventing me from doing a number of things, including gardening. As a result there has been a devout lack of gardening posts on the site of late. Today is no different in terms of the weather as it has been steadily raining all day.

This is a bit of a bonanza for the garden in preparation for the move with all my plants receiving a monumental soak. The plants were struggling at times with an extended dry period prior to this rain setting in. The plants have now had an extended soak and are looking healthy once more successfully recovering from their heat stroke or other dilemmas.

Generally the garden was coping, however as happens with container gardening the combination of thirsty plants and evaporation the moisture was leeching quickly. Those plants that I had mulched in the two sessions I mentioned in my Mulching Day post were doing better than the others. However, it is fair to say that most of the plants were spending the day starved of moisture and looked forward to a daily drink.

On this problem I have some products to try and fix this that will deliver moisture, and liquid fertiliser directly to the roots of the plants in a truly recyclable manner. That said given our impending relocation to Wollongong I am holding off implementing these measures until the plants are settled once more. Back to the plants.

The plants that have benefited the most seem to be the 2 varieties of lettuce and spinach. The Green Coral lettuce was suffering due to its transplanting. This would not have been a major issue, except the heat caused it to continually dry out and struggle. Now it has regained its former vigourous growth and green foliage.

The Red Coral Lettuce was already struggling prior to its transplant. Remember this is the lettuce that looked like a Christmas tree. I had to free it from its previous dilemma, and then it was struck by the heat extremes and the constant lack of moisture. It is now looking very good and finally beginning to spread and look more like a lettuce than a Christmas tree. I am happy for that as I have been unable to havest anything from this plant to date due to it being a runt when bought, then crowded by the Green Coral lettuce in the shared accommodations.

My perennial Spinach was also struggling with the heat. The paradox of this plant is that it loves full sun, however that means that it dries out constantly and then wilts. This plant was starting to benefit from the rather deep mulch that I had placed around it on Mulching Day, however the constant soaking has turned the plant right around. It has once again resumed vigorous growth.

The only plants that a really struggling are a number of very immature sun flower seedlings. They are struggling not through a lack of care, but because something has pecked off their leaves. The stalks are thus back in the home made green houses and are remaining green. With luck they may produce some new leaves and grow, however that is more hope than anything.

So all in all the garden is very healthy, which is good news given that in less than 10 days time they will be facing a new challenge in a new post code. The weather in Wollongong will be reasonably similar to Sydney at this time of year, if anything a bit milder. That is a good thing for both the garden and the gardener in my opinion. As such I do not expect much of a culture shock for the traveling plants. The plants will have some months to adjust to the area, prior to winters onset that will be a few degrees cooler than Sydney.

In terms of moving the plants we shall be using a truck and ensuring there will not be wind shock on the journey. So I expect the plants to travel well and simply assume a new position in the yard of the new digs. The thing that I will need to prepare for transport with much more care is my worm farm.

I have been trying Google over the past few days, however drawing a rather large and consistent blank on the subject. I am thus thinking that I will drain the worm juice, remove any usable vermicompost to some storage containers (to use at the other end), and then tether the three layers together. The tethering should keep the layers in place and reduce the chances of the farm separating in transit. If anyone has experience, or knows someone who has had experience, in relocating a worm farm please let me know of any ideas.

Fingers crossed I will get a shot at the garden tomorrow as I need to dig out my black mondo grass from the front garden bed and plant it in some pots. I am buggered if I am leaving the plants that first kindled my interest in gardening behind. They are good to look at and drought resistant, and thus need to come.

Thats it for now, and please any fellow vermiculturalists with experience relocating worms please contact me via a comment to this post.

I have checked the worm farm today and was greeted by a magnificent site. Worms wonderful worms everywhere. The little buggers have bred prolifically and have a large food reserve to chomp through.

There was still the unmistakable aroma of maggots. However, on inspection I removed the milk soaked bread. The bread stunk to high heaven, and although I saw no visible signs of maggots I am sure they were present. I came to this conclusion after stirring through the compost with a stick. I located less than 12 maggots in the system. I also exposed many more worms.

So although I am not 100% certain that there are no maggots in the system I am willing to claim victory. My worms have excelled and are now munching through the mountain of food. In 2 – 3 months I should have a nice supply of usable material for planting of fruits, vegetables or flowers. Now I just need to work out how best to get them to Wollongong when we move.

One of the less pleasant jobs that I completed today was checking on the status of the ongoing maggot war that all began when there was a disaster in the worm farm caused by the infamous green bottle fly and a piece of unidentified Christmas meat. After the hideous task of manual removal last week, that claimed the life of my new gardening gloves, I decided to see the current state of affairs. I hoped that the below was true for the worms.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them. – from “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon

Upon opening the Can’O'Worms I could tell from the smell that there were still maggots present in the system. I was expecting this as I was sure that I had not eliminated all of the scourge last week. I though was happy to see a number of worms attacking the decaying mangoes, peaches, and plums that were casualties of the recent warmth in Sydney. There were a lot of worms present on the top layer considering the inherent lack of material for them to live in. It would appear that not only have the worms withstood the invasion of the maggots, but indeed flourished and multiplied significantly in numbers. Below is a picture of the magnificent worms fleeing from the light.

I then thought that I best check the second layer. Again I was ecstatic to see nothing but worms tilling this layer. Just last week this layer was the most maggot infested of the three layers in the system, though that was moved around last week anyway. This layer looks to be very rich in nutrients and will be a great source of fresh planting materials very soon. A great result for the worms, however the stench was noticeably stronger.

After taking a few breaths and preparing myself for the likely sight on the next layer I checked it. To no great surprise I was greeted with a terrible rank stench and a cluster of horrid maggots wriggling around on the lowest layer. The image below shows these despicable critters doing nothing but gorge themselves on what would otherwise be good quality worm food.

On closer inspection though I saw that the worms were playing stockman and had corralled the maggots into a small area within the third layer. Worms truly are an amazing creature.

I have thus deployed the milk soaked bread trick once more. Basically the idea is that you soak bread in milk and once it is milk-logged place it in the worm farm. The maggots take to this like a fly to honey and in a few days you can easily remove them and elimate the problem. This trick gave me very limited success when deployed last week. I believe this was due to the large size the maggots were that prevented them from traversing through the system to the waiting trap. As such I have made it much simpler for my prey to be lured by placing the soaked bread directly onto the cluster of maggots.

So with luck in 2 to 3 days I should be able to easily eliminate the majority of the remaining maggots from the worm farm. If I can do that I shall claim victory and have a celebratory drink of a Little Creatures brewery product.

Today I performed the horrid task of removing maggots from the worm farm. As mentioned in my Disaster in the Worm Farm post these horrid creatures invaded over Christmas and quickly became the dominant critter in the worm farm. As per the advice of a number of sites I placed milk soaked bread in the farm. This produced limited success. I though will try it again next week to hopefully remove the remaining pests.

I was thus expecting to turf an incredible amount of material, if not the lot. I was thus pleasantly surprised to see that the worms were launching a fight back. There seemed to be an abundance of worms, so I suspect they have managed to breed over Christmas which is great news. The worms had in fact almost taken over the top and bottom layers, thus banishing the majority of the maggots within the second layer.

The second layer stunk to high heaven, thankfully my nose was blocked and I could only get a hint of the stench. and was by far the most empty. This is due in no small part to the maggots physiology that is simply made to chomp through materials. Unfortunately, their produce is pretty useless in it own right, although the worms process that further. At any rate I spent an hour or so going through the semi-decayed materials and removing any maggots, or suspect materials (including a tetra pack that some put in there). I believe I have removed 80-85% of the infestation. Which is great news.

I have also reorganised the layers so that the bulk of the processed soil is once again on the bottom layer. The second layer has a considerable food source on offer and the top layer has some scatterings. I will be slowing the feeding down until I am confident the worms have managed to win the war against the horrible maggots.

I am though much more confident that the worms will endure and commence producing large volumes of compost and worm juice soon. I am in need of more worm tea as I have today exhausted my bottled supply. I felt it best to fertilise and water everything today due to the warmth of both yesterday and today. The spinach had wilted significantly during the day, however after the watering and fertilising is looking fantastic once more.

On the water front I am essentially out of rain water. The great weather of 2 to 3 weeks ago has ceased. I am hopeful though it shall return shortly. I thus have had to resort to mains supply today to water the plants. I am still watering from a watering can though to ensure that I do not overwater due to a never ending supply of water.

I will keep you up to date on how the worm farm tracks over the next week or so. I am confident that I have largely restored the balance to the ecosystem, however the war is not over. Not yet. I will also be posting a blog in the coming days of a fantastic fly control system that is available from the big kids toy shop that is both economic and environmentally friendly.

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later but disaster has struck in the worm farm. The worms are not the only creatures in the compost, which is normal. However when checking various layers today I saw a pulsating mass of white. On closer inspection it was a group of horrible maggots all eating the compost. I felt physically ill upon seeing this and then decided to inspect other layers. I have found that each layer is laced with the horrible creatures. How did they get in there?

Picture Credit: Joseph Berger, United States, Bugwood.org (Creative Commons license terms)

Clearly, sometime over Christmas some meat that had been infected by one of the hundreds of green bottle flies that mysteriously appeared has been introduced to the worm farm. Unfortunately the ideal condition for the health of the worms is also a flies breeding ground. The maggots have now taken over. There is still a heap of worms in the system, but I must get the maggots out as I do not want to breed flies. I could think of nothing worse actually.

After performing some research I have found that the suggested technique is very straight forward. The removal of the maggots is performed by baiting them with bread soaked in milk and leaving it for 2-3 days. This apparently is a maggot magnet and will allow for their collection and removal from the farm. I will be throwing the maggots immediately in some boiling water, so the final disposal should be quite simple. But it is a pain in the backside. Given the numbers I may well be performing this task over the course of the next week or so. Needless to say I will be being much more vigilant in vetting what goes into the worm farm ecosystem.

Another suggestion is to dust the farm with lime. I will thus be getting some soon and adding it to the mix. I will though be careful to use this sparingly so as not to impact the quality of the produced vermicompost. If too much much lime is administered it will simply be passed straight to the compost. Not all plants appreciate lime, so it could have a negative impact, rather than the expected and required positive effects.

Some of the posts on blogs and forums from experienced vermiculturalists suggest to ignore the presence of the maggots. I though can not do that. I simply can not stand the thought of bringing the world even more flies than occur naturally. I must remove them.

Finally, the research also suggests that I am feeding my worm friends too much. At present I am sure this is correct as I do not have the commonly suggested 1000 worms per head of residents. Thus, I need more worms, and I need them soon. Unfortunately when I was last at the big kids toy shop Bunnings Warehouse they were out of stock. Yet had more Can’O'Worms farms than were able to be counted. Does not really make sense to have a heap of the farms but no worms in my opinion. I am sure that will soon be fixed. That said I am considering an alternative suppliers for the interim purchase to help clear the current plethora of available food. This will also deny the maggots of their food source.

I will post an update soon and let you know how I go.

Well unless you live under a rock we all know that the Christmas season has been and gone for the year 2007. It amazes me the amount of effort everyone expends on what amounts to half a day. Days, weeks, and months of shopping for gifts and ensuring everyone is covered, including those friends and relatives that are not seen for years on end. Socko and I for example did not sleep Christmas eve and were up cleaning, wrapping and generally preparing for the arrival of the hordes. As it turns out both Brother in Laws and the Sister in Law also had no sleep.

The South Coast crew began driving from Batemans Bay at 02:15 am, an insane time, but an appreciated sacrifice when they arrived at 07:15 am. It was fantastic to see them and spend the day with them. Their sacrifice of sleep and sustenance was much appreciated. The local Brother in Law was up all night wrapping presents. His cooking efforts and selflessness on Christmas day was great. Cooked a great ham amongst other things.

My Mother also gets a special mention with the cooking efforts. We had so much to eat that I am sure most of the desserts did not even get touched. In particular my favourite wine trifle. Traditionally my cousin and I would demolish a large dishful between us. Last year I think I ate about half of it on the day. This year I simply had no room for anything on Christmas day. I though have made a huge dent in it on Boxing Day.

The gifts were insane. It took about 2-3 hours to get through them all. My personal highlights are the iPod Classic (160GB), a much needed and funky Potting Bench, and a Coopers Home Brewing Kit. Looks like I have another hobby, so I am going to see how it goes, who knows this site may become the Beer Brewing Gardening Geek site soon.

The overall highlights on the gift giving was the surprise stunt pulled on the nieces with a bike each from the Brother in Law, a new 7 piece outdoor setting for the South Coast Crew, and a Gomier adult tricycle from Frasers Cycles Taren Point for my Mum. The latter brought my Mother to tears of joy and appreciation. Just the week before she commented to me:

I wonder if I can get my leg over my bike

The bike in question there was a standard two wheel pushbike, though it was a great lead in to the surprise that laid in wait. Unfortunately we will need to go back and have the crank modified to allow my Mum to ride it due to double knee reconstructions restricting the bend my Mum can get in her leg.

Today we have been to the post Christmas sales at Big W and the big kids toy shop Bunnings, yes the curfew was broken again. However, we managed to pick up a truly excellent Talon tools garden kit from Big W in a hard plastic cover for under half its’ original list price. It has pruners, both standard and long handelled, an electric hedge trimmer and several other needed tools. I have also finally found a pair of garden gloves that felt comfortable, so they were also picked up. We also procured a plant fountain. We bought one for the Sister in Law for Christmas and decided that we would also get one. It will be hosting some show ponies to attract bees.

From the big kids toy shop we managed to pick up a stylish black planter for more tomatoes, some bulb mix for some of the 50 Glaidioli bulbs, 4 bags of the Rich Gro Pro Mix, corn seedlings, various tomato seedlings including a Black Russian, seed raising materials, and a lebanese zucchini complete with a developing fruit. I know the zucchini is kind of cheating, but heck you can not look a gift horse in the mouth.

So tomorrow looks like I will be planting and arranging the garden. That is fine with me!

On the growing front, there are another half dozen ebony fire chillis ready for harvest. The Grosse Lisse tomato also is producing, at this stage it is one fruit but its been a struggle to get it doing much at all, so am proud that I have got it going finally. The Beefsteak tomato has about 6 fruits developing, as has the Grape tomato and Cherry tomato. The Cherry tomato has been heavily fruiting in spite of it being about 6 inches tall. I suspect it needs a bigger pot, but am hesistant to move it with the current crop of fruit. Also developing nicely is what is increasingly looking like a heavy crop of Yolo Wonder capsicums. I hope this turns into a monster crop as I will be going stir fry nuts.

The plants actually missed out on watering over Christmas. They did however get a rather generous soaking of worm juice on Christmas eve. They have been watered tonight and will love the drink.

Anyways, I must go and grab some grub, left over Christmas dinner, mmm roast pork roll sounds good!

Over the past few days I have been suffering with a rather severe back ache. It is severely limiting my garden activity, as well as impacting the Christmas preparations. We are done in terms of gift shopping, but there is house and yard cleaning to be done. That activity is also impinging my garden time. That said I had to break my self enforced curfew today and visit the big kids toy shop Bunnings today for some supplies.

The primary reason is that the four bean seedlings that did not get trellis space at planting really need something to climb. So I managed to get two more pieces of downpipe trellis. I will be once again cable tieing these back to back and training the sprouts up the trellis. It will give the seedlings a good start. I do though have a concern that it will not be tall enough. I do though believe it would be possible to join more in a vertical position. This will require an anchor stake, something that may not be possible in a pot.

Also, we spotted some horrible little caterpillars attacking my newly fruiting beefsteak tomatoes. As such we knew that we needed to take some action immediately. Due to the nature of the holiday season, especially when hosting the family dinner, we have elected to take the easy way out. As such we purchased some chemical pyrethrum based spray to kill the pests dead. This also necessitated a garden pressure sprayer. All well and good and the tomatoes have now had the treatment. I though will be trying the suggestions from Rid Pest Control Services in the future.

We also picked up another three storage tubs to be converted into planter tubs. One, or two of these will hold the carrots, corn, and other vegetables that will be grown from seed. The others will be hosting some Australian wildflowers, gerberas, poppies, and sunflowers. These are aimed purely at attracting bees to the yard to ensure the vegetable are getting sufficient polenation. Also, they will add a splash of colour and vibrancy.

We also procured two more bags of the fantastic Rich Gro Pro Mix potting mix. This will be used for the above projects.

I will be taking a look in the worm farm soon after Christmas, as they have been busy with another litre of worm juice harvested last week. I am thus optimistic that there will also be some worm castings available to further enrich the potting mix. So I still have 5 litres available even after using it this week. Needless to say the worm juice will not go to waste and will certainly be put to good use.

Also, tonight we had a BBQ. Rump steak and sausages was the meat on offer, and it tasted great when washed down with Grolsch beer. I also managed to try the ebony fire chilli I harvested last week. Socko sliced the chillis up and licked her fingers. Socko is not a keen spice-a-holic and we could hear the effects upon her from 10 feet away after verifying that she was indeed fine I was prepared for the fire that was to come. I tried the chilli and it is definately up there in the heat steaks. The seeds had been removed for drying, and reuse next year. So I can only imagine the heat had the fire crackers been left in the chilli. I was also to try the mystery chilli, but after the ebony fire I thought better of it.

The salad that accompanied the barbecue was also nice. It contained some of the Ku Chai (garlic chives), the first time we have used it. It worked well within the simple garden salad. We also used more of the parsley, not that it looks like we have used any of the stuff, it is simply growing prolifically. No doubt it will get a hammering in the coming days across Christmas. The mint, that has gone nuts in a largish pot, will certainly be getting a hammering as Socko is going to prepare a Jamie Oliver Ezy Peezy Ginger Beer recipe. It will be good to taste, and good for the plant.

The worms are also living it up with a lot of egg shells being introduced to the general fare of salad greens and tea bags. The egg shells are coming courtesy of my mum that has moved into overdrive with preparing Christmas food. We must surely have a life times supply of short bread, rum balls and fruit mince pies in the fridge. Not to mention the White Christmas that I prepared last week. If anyone goes home hungry from our place on Christmas day then there will be something seriously amiss with them.

Well today I have once again spent too much money in the big kids toy shop Bunnings. This time I went with the intention of purchasing 1000 more worms for the farm, however over $90 later I walked out with:

• 500 Worms, unfortunately the 1000 packs were out of stock, as such I have settled for an additional 500. These cost less that 30% of the shop.
• Some Basil seedlings. It was one herb we did not have in the garden as no one seems to use it. That said I have picked some up for use as a natural mosquitoes and fly repellent. Two things in abundance in our area.
• 8 x Bean seedlings that my Mum is keen to plant and grow.
• 2 x Downpipe trellis that the beans will have to climb. They will be laid out back to back.
• 6 x Carrot seedlings. The variety grows in little round balls, so should be an experiment worth undertaking.
• 3 x Rich Gro Pro Mix that I love so much.
• 1 x Storage Tub to be converted to a planter like the original two.

So as a result of this visit I am banning myself from the big kids toy shop until the second week of the new year.

On the good news front the Beefsteak Tomato has fruit. 2 little ones in fact. They should be good for picking soon and I hope this is only the start of the crop. The mysterious chilli is also producing strong fruit. They are long, slender and green. They look like real rockets. I am still yet to attempt the ebony fires that I harvested last week, though I may do so now.

Many of you no doubt have seen my recent Worm Farm and The Many Gifts of a Worm Farm articles. Also, as you may have read I am considering a second farm, however being budget aware I am not too keen to fork out for another Can’O'Worms. I have though found a nice way to build a worm farm that is both inexpensive and reuses one of the most common and hard to dispose of storage boxes, the polystyrene box.

The polystyrene box is great when moving breakables or shipping items that require insulations, such as tropical fish. However, once empty can become hard to dispose of and becomes nothing more than a nuisance. Even when broken up it consumes a large volume of space in the bin, and due to its inherent construction, it also consumes space in a landfill for years to come. As you can tell I am quite passionate about this as we have a number of these stored for the pending move and I know that once we have moved that we will have these things hanging around for months to come. I am thus quite looking forward to reusing these as a worm farm.

The idea has come from the Worm Farming article posted on the City of Ryde web site. The approach takes advantage of the longevity of polystyrene. The irony is that this is the facet that makes polystyrene a menace to the environment and is being used to assist the environment. By reusing these boxes we can improve our own gardens and reduce landfill. Surely that is a win all round.

Basically, the construction is simple. The steps are:

1. Obtain 2 polystyrene boxes of the same width and length.
2. Obtain 1 lid that will fit the boxes.
3. Carefully pierce holes in the base of 1 of the polystyrene boxes.
4. Place the pierced box on top of the other. The base box will collect the liquid fertiliser, or worm tea.
5. Build up a 10-15cm bedding of shredded paper, leaves, and finished compost.
6. Add 1000 worms. Check out “the big kids toy shop” (Bunnings), your local garden centre, or Google worm farm to find out who sell worms in packets suitable for worm farms.
7. Cover the farm with damp hessian, paper, or carpet scraps. This locks in the heat and moistness, whilst blocking out the sun.
8. Wait a few days, and then begin adding food scraps etc.

I would suggest that you could add more containers as needed, however given the dimensions of most polystyrene boxes that would be a lot of waste.

I am considering constructing one of these in the coming days. Especially since Hamper King delivered frozen hampers in polystyrene boxes on the weekend that are superflous to our needs, and the current stack of cardboard, we have a heap of food for the worms to process. If I proceed I will post pictures as a step by step guide.

I thought that I would compose an article on what I have learnt about gardening to date. Of course this focuses on my experiences in my little urban patch. Here is the list and my thoughts behind each principle learnt.

Expect Failures
No matter how good and diligent you are, some plants will fail. For example I have a thriving Zucchini seedling out the back, yet two out the front planted in the same base material and receiving similar sun are struggling like the billy-o. I expect that they will soon be fed to the worms for reprocessing.

Expect Success Beyond Expectation
At the same time of expecting failures you also need to expect success beyond your wildest expectation. I am for example trying to work out what I will be doing with the plethora of chillis that are either here, or en route. For me I will be distributing that amongst family members and preserving the remaining crop.

Premium Potting Mix is Worth the Extra Coin
Premium potting mix is indeed worth the coin. Plants that are in the premium potting mixes such as the RichGro Pro Mix that is enriched with Seasol, Osmocote, and Ezi Wet are thriving. Those in the cheaper standard potting mix, such as that available from Coles, although for the most part are alive are not exactly thriving. Definately fork out the extra few dollars and get a premium mix.

Worm Farming is a Must
If you have the room a definate requirement is a worm farm. The farm produces a magnificent liquid fertiliser and a supreme compost. Both of which provide established plants a great boost or a kickstart for new arrivals. Also, it helps keep the costs down, as you can appreciate liquid fertiliser and rich compost purchased from the garden centre is expensive, and when you are worm farming is a completely unnecessary cost. Also as a real advantage your rubbish bin will not be as full or smelly.

I Need More Worms
Currently in my Can’O'Worms I have 1000 worms. I though now believe I require a considerable amount more. As a rough idea I have read that you should have 1000 worms per household member. Given Christmas is days away, and we are again hosting the family dinner, we will no doubt have stacks of peels, fruit and vegetable waste. As a direct result I will be adding at least 500 more, am considering perhaps adding 1000. I am also considering a second Can’O'Worms and utilising the stacks of cardboard that I currently have.

Recycling Rocks
Recycling our own waste is both good for us and the planet. Gardening offers a wealth of opportunities for reuse. For example, worms will eat our food scraps, paper waste, and cardboard. Also whilst on cardboard it is great as a pot liner to prevent water simply seeping straight out, further in the pot it provides a barrier for insects and other bugs climbing in. Finally, on paper I am about to embark on making my own jiffy pots using wet newspaper and the many seedling pots as a mould. Essentially its a paper mache jiffy pot.

Planning
Gardening, in particular gardening for cultivation, requires planning. It is silly to pick plant varieties that require deep roots or a need to achieve a tree size for growing in the urban environment within pots and tubs. Also, need to ensure that the chosen varieties needs are going to be met.

Dedication
Dedication is a must for any gardening project. Although many plants will survive a few days of neglect, few will sustain that for very long. Especially when contained to pots and tubs. The urban gardener needs to keep the water, nutrients, and defences up.

Keeping Felines Away is a Pain
For me I have learnt that keeping near wild cats away from the garden is a real pain in the keister meister. Cats like those currently next door are once removed from being feral. I do not want them anywhere near my garden, especially the producing plants. However, keepng them away is a real pain and requires its own commitment. I am looking forward to obtaining my CATWatch in the new year. Hopefully that will reduce the burden.

For now that is the end of my current learnings. No doubt this will expand over the coming days, weeks and months to come. As I have said before, I am a novice, but learning fast.

During recent posts I advised that I had used some of the composted materials in recent plantings. All of those plants are taking off. However, the rich compost is only part of the benefits of worm farming. The second benefit is the natural liquid fertiliser that is produced. This morning I decided that I would bottle that rich source of nutrients into some empty soft drink bottles.

So I went to the worm farm with two 2 litre Coca Cola bottles and one 600 mill Lipton Red Tea bottle. The idea was to drain the worm farm tank into the smaller bottle then fill the Coke bottles. Quickly I filled the 2 Coke bottles and had to get another 1.25 litre Coke bottle. That too was promptly filled, however the drain rate from the farm was greatly reduced. I then drained the remaining worm juice and half filled the Lipton bottle.

So I now have just under 5 litres of rich and natural liquid fertiliser. That will last for some time as I will be diluting it in the watering can. In fact, by the time I get through the current stocks I should be able to perform a new harvest.

Addendum
Tonight I have used some of the worm juice on the plants. It stinks to high heaven until diluted. I shall let you know the outcomes, especially around my struggling zucchini seedlings. With luck the burst of nutrients will see those plants turn around and become strong once more.

Some months ago we decided that we would like to begin worm farming as a means to remove much of the vegetable waste that we are generating through being humans. We have decided that simply throw it in the bin to go to the local land fill we will feed the worms and produce an endless supply of useable fertiliser in the form, of worm castings, for use on the garden. Much of which will in turn return the worm farm for processing.

The one we decided on had a modular system where you start with one layer, and when it is at capacity add a second layer. The process continues once more, so at any point in time there is a maximum of 3 layers in service. When you harvest you take the lower most layer, empty it, and then add it back to the top. We have been running with the 3rd layer for about 2 months and it to was approaching capacity. As a result I decided that I would look at harvesting some of the worm castings.

Upon inspection I found that there were several thousand worms working their magic still in the first layer. This was a bit surprising as the food source in this layer should have been largely exhausted several months ago. That said they must still be deriving some nutrients from this layer as each dig I performed exposed a minimum of five worms. I think they have bred as we started with a thousand worms. However, there seems to be a monumental amount in the farm.

I then inspected the second layer and found that the worms had clearly been at this level and processed everything they could. All that was in this level was about 2 or 3 corn cobs and what looked like an avocado skin. The rest was bare clean plastic. I was shocked at how well the worms had processed this layer. It also explained why there were very few worms evident in the top most layer. Clearly traversing the great plastic divide was too much for the worms.

Today, I have decided I need to check out how encourage the worms to move upwards quickly. Clearly I can not produce enough vegetable waste quickly enough to fill the layer in the next month. As such I relied on my good mate Google and found the NSW EPA Worm Farming article. Within that it provided an easy answer to my problems, shredded, soaked cardboard.

As previously discussed I have heaps of cardboard available at present and I have a few sources of rainwater at present. So I have just filled the second layer, and half filled the first layers of the worm farm with cardboard. This should provide the worms with the perfect excuse to move from the first layer to the two rich food source layers.

I hope so as my half barrels have arrived from Deals Direct and I am keen to use worm castings with them to supplement the RichGro potting mix.