Compost Mishaps

So I may have gotten ahead of myself on the composting front. The worm bins are going so well that I thought I should take it to the next level; bokashi. This is a Japanese anaerobic method of composting that basically pickles the food and then you put the pickled scraps through a regular composting process. Why go throw the extra hassle? With bokashi you can put in dairy, meat, and bones which you can't do in a worm or regular compost pile! So after a few weeks of research, I took what I like best from several sites and came up with this...

1. Buy a plastic, sealable bin making sure that it will fit in a trash bag just in case this experiment goes horrible wrong. Some web sites sell bokashi buckets that have a spigot on the bottom to catch the "tea" to use as fertilizer. I skipped this to save money, and since I have worm "tea" I don't think I need anymore fertilizer.
2. Most folks purchase pre-made bokashi bran. This bran is inoculated in effective microorganisms (EM) (good bacteria). They then layer the bran on the bottom of the sealable container put food scraps over that and then another layer of bran with a weight of some sort over that so as to keep air out. You continue layering until the bin is filled. You can then let the entire bucket ferment for a few weeks and take the pickled food and put it in you your worm bin, regular compost, or dig it into the ground. Being a DIYer, I found some web sites that talked about people who used newspaper which is much cheaper than bran. I also decided against buying EM solution. I went to the home brew store and bought lactobacillus.
3. To get the bacteria started, I put it with molasses and warm water kept it in a warm spot over night and then put it in my bin with shredded newspaper. As a test, I took a few handfuls and put that in the small plastic baggie. The plan was to allow everything to ferment for two or three weeks, dry out the newspaper and begin a bokashi bin.
4. I had mixed success. The newspaper molded instead of fermenting, and I now have a giant bin of funk! However the newspaper in the baggie is perfect. The only mold color is white which is okay and the mixtures smells sweet and sour just like it should. I have come to the conclusion that the problem with the bin was it had too much exposure to air.

In my next attempt, I want to make this even more of a DIY project. I plan on making my own EM solution from a old Thai farmer recipe. (Check out this site for the info.) Yes I recognize the fact that I probably shouldn't be trying to do more of this myself considering it didn't go so well the first time but it is just ingrained in my personality to always strive for more self sufficiency. Now the question is how to get a get the bin of mold out in the trash without Jeff noticing...

The starter yeast with molasses and oats.

Newspaper shreddings- pre crazy mold!

Master Composter

While I have heard of master gardeners, I was surprised to see a program for Master Composters being offered by our local cooperative extension. This sparked my interest, and I quickly signed up before really contemplating how much work this might be! It felt like high school biology and chemistry class rolled into one; it surprised me how much science knowledge was involved. Of course, I should've realized that nine hours of training would go beyond just throw stuff in a pile and let it rot! It was a wonderful course, and I feel so much more prepared to handle issues that have occurred with our compost piles. The class also taught us how to set up a new worm bin so now our basement hosts two worm bins! When I came home from the class, I announced to Jeff who was in the bedroom,"honey come out to the living room to meet the new members of the farm!" After a brief pause, "Dear, what did you bring home now.....?"

Check out this great web site for a ton of resources to help set up your composting game!
http://www.cce.cornell.edu/Environment/Pages/WasteManagement.aspx

Apple Pressing Tantrum

Everyone has their limits and today mine were tested by a formidable pile of, what else, but apples. Yes, I said apples. Part of our DIY lifestyle means that inheritantly some days just are going to be more complex than they should be and there is no one to blame but yourself. The day started off normally, I woke up and went down to the basement to feed and tend to the managery of creatures. First I check the chicken's water and feed, then I make sure the worms are moist enough and if not spray them with a little water, and lastly I feed the fish and check their PH and Ammonia levels. (Jeff and I take turns with the morning routine, but I wake up earlier on the weekends.) This morning the chickens had dumped over their water so they were out, and when I replenished that you would have thought they hadn't had a drink in a week. I felt so bad. Then I checked on the worms and couldn't find them! I know they have to be in there since I have a bin underneath them so if they escaped they would be stuck in there. However, I couldn't find them as I dug around in the mess of dirt and leftover egg shells, half rotted blueberries, and green onions. I am not sure what to make of this development. I am really hoping they haven't died in there. I make a mental note to read up on this on the internet later. Lastly to the fish. Here I discover that the bubbler has stopped working and that the algae has grown so much I can no longer see in. Hmmm....well perhaps the two problems relate so I pulled the bubbler and whipped it off. (Very gross and slimy) That did the trick, but I still had to solve the larger algae problem. As I struggled to see into the large green tub I was able to make out that yet another fish had died. I am getting frustrated as I can't determine why the fish are dying.

Moving on with the day, I decided to do a load of laundry before Jeff woke up. This means I needed to get the newly homemade detergent out of the bucket and into the old store bought laundry detergent jug. (I do this rather than use it directly from the bucket because it is easier to use.) Well as I was pouring the goo into the funnel something got stuck and as I tried to look in the funnel I dropped the bucket spilling the light blue jello like detergent all over the floor. Lovely! After cleaning that and finally getting the laundry done, Jeff and I head out to the pet store to pick up a few algae eaters and a fish net. After the last fish died, I had to pick it out by hand and to say the least I am soooo over that.

Upon getting home, I put the new algae eaters in the tank, still in their bag from the pet store, so the water temperatures adjust, and Jeff and I started getting ready to press apples. We decided to make some more cider so we can "backsweeten" the last batch that came out so very dry. (Backsweeten is cider talk for adding something sweet after it has finished fermenting in our case new cider.)

As I have written about, I was really frustrated by our apple grinding issues. The first batch we used a small cuisanart. Jeff felt that didn't really help us be independent (since it is tied into the grid) so the second time we used a large bucket and beat the apples with a long board. Well at this point, I put my foot down and insisted we use the cuisanart. Things were going along okay until about the half way point when I cracked. I just couldn't take anymore of the grinding apple sound, the sticky goey messy everywhere in my kitchen, and the fact that we had been at this for two hours and were only half way done! Jeff looked over at me and asked if I was okay. My response was a five minute whining session about sticky apples and why can't we be normal people who buy cider at the store. After getting over myself, I finished up processing the apples and I began to really think about why we don't just buy cider. This morning we saw organic black beans that cost $1.99 for a pound. We laughed because Jeff and I have several old jars filled with organic black beans from our garden and the incredibly cheap price was a joke compared to the effort we put into the getting ours. So why do we live our lives like this? We can't say we save money. The chicken coop and feed out weighs the eggs we get from them, we drove three hours to get the fish and I have spent a small fortune at the pet shop with nitrate testers, PH drops, etc, the garden also is a money pit although not as bad as the other projects but with the time and supplies we don't come out ahead. So why do this? Jeff and I have different reasons. I know he is more concerned with peak oil and needing these skills sets. I also worry about this but, today being the exception, we have a blast with our hobbies! It is greatly quality time together. We work out challenges as a couple, laugh at our mistakes, and our relationship is strengthened by the projects. Also the quality of food is out of this world. Nothing beats getting to enjoy food you grew yourself canned during the peak of freshness in the middle of the winter. So, for me, I get all the benefits of reducing my carbon footprint (some of the projects others are total carbon hogs), quality time with my husband, and preparing us for a potential emergency. Even with days like this it is worth the trouble.

Note the color difference between today's the the ones from last month.

A Pound of Worms Really is a Lot of Worms!!!

Today the mail carrier dropped off our pound of red wiggler worms. (I really have to hand it to not only our carrier but all mail carriers. The weird stuff they must see everyday and just handle with a smile is amazing!) Anyways the worms arrived and Jeff called me (mid manicure I might add!) when I got home I was surprised by how small the box was but once I opened it and the small cloth bag inside, it was a mass of squirmy worms! There was basically no padding just one section of news paper around the bag. I pulled out the worms and, per the directions, poured them into my prepared bin and added a half of cup cool water and covered them with wet newspaper and left them alone. The cloth bag had the name of the worm farm on it so I thought it would be cool to save it, and I threw it in the cupboard we keep our reusuable bags in. Well a few hours later I was running out to pick up something for Thanksgiving and went into that cupboard to get a bag. It was then I noticed that several worms had stuck to the inside seams on the bag. I am not sure how many worms might have escaped into the cupboard! Oops! I am not going to tell Jeff about this little mishap right away- let use this as a test to see if he reads the blog! (I'll keep you posted!) The long and short of the day is that most of the worms made it safely to their new home and hopefully soon we will have some wonderful compost that we can use on our indoor garden.

A Pound of Worms, Chickens Eat Their Egg, Disco Lights and Homemade Hooch ....just another boring Sunday

In light of the fact that we emptied our compost into the garden and that it's too cold in our climate to start a new compost, we decided to get into vermaculture. Basically this is indoor composting but with worms to prevent odors. I took an old plastic trash bin, drilled holes in to the bottom, put in shredded papers, cardboard, and a few kitchen scraps then moistened it with a spray bottle. I put the entire thing in the extra chicken poop bin that we don't use any more (yes, we cleaned it out first!) This is the YouTube video I watch on how to set this up.



I called several bait shops to order red wigglers (this is the type of worm you need to use in the system) however they are not being sold this time of year so I had to resort to ordering them online.

I was going into the chicken coop to collect eggs when I noticed that there was a shell on the floor. I am guessing that this is more evidence that Scabby is laying now. The other chickens ate their eggs when they first started to lay so it would stand to reason that this is Scabby's reaction to her new found skill set. I cleaned up the shell, put a few more golf balls and river rocks in the pen and hoped for the best. (To see the full post on how we handled this the first time click here.) I did still collect two other eggs so lets cross our fingers that Scabby doesn't give the same idea to Big Crown and Cluck.

The next project of the day was setting up the LED light for my potatoes. Originally I had ordered this light for the Meyer lemon tree we are growing in our living room; the lights are in the blue and red spectrum for optimal plant growth. However Jeff took one look at it and told me there was no way we were going to have our living room look like a cheap night club! Banished to the basement, I had to figure out a new way to use the light. I thought about what grows well in containers and decided I had enough herbs in the living room set up, so I will try potatoes. One of my co-workers gave me a potato grow bag as a wedding present so I was already half way there. I just had to hang the light fixture. The seed potatoes should be coming on Monday. (I wanted to just take regular potatoes from the grocery store but Jeff did some research and found that you really do want to spend the extra money for seed potato since you have to be very careful about potato seedlings since potatoes are notoriously susceptible to plant disease, and you want to be very careful and use only seed potatoes certified as disease free).

We ended our evening by making homemade bread (by hand- one of Jeff's favorite things to do). We used a simple recipe for plain whole wheat bread. Its so easy to do, but mixing and kneading the dough takes a surprising amount of physical labor. We didn't realize making homemade bread could give you muscles! The smell of bread baking in the oven is almost better than actually eating it. Tonight we decided that we couldn't wait any longer to try our first batch of homemade hard cider. The cider was exceptionally dry and slightly effervescent. Alcohol content is a mystery as we don't yet have the tool to measure specific gravity (how you determine alcohol content). Jeff likes the natural dry cider flavor, me.....not so much. Woodchuck cider, it was not..... but at least it wasn't vinegar! Jeff is looking into ways to sweeten it.