Posts Tagged: gardening

Sustainable lifestyles — No Comments
7
Jan 10

As the worm turns

August, 2008

The humble worm is a superhero.

Spiralling food prices and global soil depletion are leaving people to starve abroad and making it harder to make ends meet at home. The industrialised world’s response is to massively over-use petrochemical based fertilisers, ship food products all over the world, and send tonnes of unwanted food to fester in landfills.

This wastes nutrients, causes pollution and drives climate change.  Enter the worms to save the day. By getting to know your worms, recycling your scraps and adding the result to your veggie patch, you can help solve all these problems at a stroke.

So here’s how to help save the world – one mouldy potato at a time.

Building your worm HQ

When you picture worm farms, you may be thinking of a sprawling, evil smelling, squirming heap. But it needn’t be so. A properly maintained farm does not smell, and these days there are indoor and outdoor worm farm designs to match even the most refined designer tastes.

The scale of your worm farm will depend on the space you have available and how much food waste you want it to deal with. The first thing to do is to work out the average amount of scraps your household generates in a day. Collect all your potential worm food (see below) in a container for one week, weigh it, and divide the weight by seven. This irons out those Sunday blow out fluctuations and the times when you might eat out. Allow approximately 2m² surface area (or a volume of 60 litres) for every 200 grams of food waste per day. Don’t be daunted by the size of your scrap heap. It’s not compulsory to worm farm all your food waste, and every bit helps.

Making the farm as easy and convenient to use as possible will radically improve your chances of success. Consider the location of your worm farm carefully. It should be relatively near the kitchen and/or in a spot which you pass often, so you can drop off food easily and check in on the team. Think about how big it can be if you want to be able to move it without unloading it.

Worms like temperatures between 10 – 25ºC. Ideally, your bin should be in a sheltered spot that gets some sun. You will need to ensure it doesn’t get too hot, and insulate it well if it is outside in colder seasons, otherwise the may freeze to death. Old carpet on top of the contents is ideal for this.

Commercial worm contraptions are on the market for around $150, but it’s more creative looking for a container and converting it for the purpose. Old bath tubs are perfect as they are a good size and come complete with drainage. Old recycling bins, where they have been replaced with newer models, are also good, but wooden containers are better as they provide good insulation and have the added benefit of absorbing excess moisture.

Worms need to breathe, and like to work near the surface. Your warm farm needs to remain damp, but not waterlogged. Whatever you use should only be 20 – 40 cm deep with a relatively large surface area (about 40×40 – 60 cm). Also, if your farm is too deep it can prevent the necessary air getting in and make it awkward to work on. A shallow container also allows for better aeration of the bedding.

Depending on size, drill or punch eight – 12 holes about 10mm diameter in the bottom of the container for aeration and drainage. If contents become too wet, drill more holes. Raise your container up on bricks or wooden blocks to aid air circulation and drainage. Place a tray underneath to capture the excess liquid. It can be diluted one part juice to 10 parts water to make an excellent liquid plant fertiliser. Worms do their thing in the dark, so you will also need a cover, but one which does not seal out the air. This preserves moisture and prevents scavenging animals from tearing through your scrap collection. Weighted down corrugated iron is a popular and effective option.

It’s not hard getting the staff these days. Two species are especially suited for worm composting, Tiger Worms (Eisenia fetida) and Red Worms, (Lumbricus rubellus) also known as red wriggler or manure worms. For each 400 grams of food waste you will need between 500 grams – 900 grams of worms. That’s between 1,000 and 2,000 of the little fellas. But don’t worry, you can always start small, and wait for them to breed. In the ideal conditions they will double their number every 40 days or so.

The easiest way to start your crew is to buy worms direct from specialists. You can find them on Trade Me and in the Yellow Pages. 1,000 worms cost about $30, but some council run schemes offer them at a discount. A cheaper, more fun, but more haphazard way is to collect them from mature manure heaps. Or if we want to economise and socialise you can get some from a fellow worm farmer. Members of Permaculture in New Zealand (www.permaculture.org.nz) are good people to try. You can pick up your worms and pick the experts’ brains at the same time.

To bed your worms down, tear or shred paper, make it damp and add it to your container with a little soil until it is 10-15cm deep. This layer shouldn’t be too wet – it is there to help air circulate. Then load in your worms and the appropriate amount of food scraps, and your planet saving work has begun!

Worms prefer their meals crushed up as small as you can be bothered. They ‘don’t do spicey’, garlic or onions. Other than that they will eat most kitchen vegetable/fruit scraps or peelings, shredded paper, tea bags and leaves, coffee grounds and filters, crushed egg shells, bread scraps, leftover cereal, cottage cheese, plate scrapings, biscuit crumbs, even ice cream.

Avoid adding too much left over citrus or acidic fruits, like oranges, lemons, grapefruit and kiwifruit. These make conditions too acid for the worms. Deal with garden waste in a normal composter – otherwise the heat can kill your wriggly friends. Meat/fish scraps can only be included in moderation and should be buried (not too deeply) in the bedding to stop odours and discourage flies. Also avoid adding oils, as they turn things to slime. It can help the process to add a little semi-mature compost once it is past the heating stage, or aged horse manure. The micro-organisms they contain help soften up the waste for the worms, as well as providing additional food.

If your worms end up eating their own castings, they will die. So your worm farm will need refreshing about once every three months. If you have a suitably large container, you can make this easier from the outset by feeding the worms at only one end of the bin for at least a week before clean-out time. Then take the bedding/castings out of the unfed end of the farm and add it to your garden. (This will remove about half to two thirds of the material and some of the worms.) Place the remaining material in a separate container while you clean the bin and add new bedding. Then replace it and add some scraps. The worms will move out of the old bedding in a couple of days, ready for next time.

You can put the castings you remove from your worm farm, and the diluted liquid fertiliser, directly on your garden. Watch it grow, eat the contents, put the scraps in your worm farm. Repeat.

Sustainable lifestyles — No Comments
7
Jan 10

How green is your garden?

July, 2007

If you find your garden is more about battling with nature than harmony with it, why not try some of these environmentally friendly ideas?

Don’t just grow grass – grow food! Fill a handy tub or two with a kitchen herb garden to add a fresh touch to the air and to your cooking. A few home grown organic veggies can be a real source of satisfaction, and not just for the stomach. It cuts down on the fossil fuels used to get your dinner to your plate and can be a healthy educational pastime for the kids.

Go native! Growing native plants helps bring back New Zealand’s natural treasures. Because these plants evolved to deal with local conditions, they generally require less pest control, fertiliser and watering. Whether it’s the iconic kowhais, pohutukawas, kauris, or lesser known species, check out what you have the space and conditions for.

Store your own rain clouds. Plants don’t need grade-A drinking water. They do just fine with rain from the roof or the remains of your bath. These are also fine for washing your car. Covered tanks and water butts reduce demand on local supply systems which are expensive and put pressure on the environment. To avoid wastage, don’t use sprinklers. Soak the base of plants early in the day or in the evening when things are cool.

If you can’t be bothered to dig, don’t bother! Organic no dig gardens are a great solution on heavy clay or very poor, silty soils. Clear a sunny spot, build a 1.2m wide sturdy box about 40-45cm high from rot resistant timber, brick or concrete blocks. Add several thick layers of old newspaper to the bottom. Add a layer of clean, weed free straw up to about one third of the height of the box. Fill the rest with a mixture of good weed-free soil and high quality compost. With small openings for your seeds, and a little care and attention you should get healthy plants, with no weeds, no sweat.

Waste not want not. Load a 3ft by 3ft heap or bin with a balanced mixture of ‘brown’ carbon rich material, like dried leaves, straw, and wood chips, and ‘green’ nitrogen materials like fresh grass clippings and kitchen scraps. Properly managed, it becomes soil improver in a month. Leave gaps in your stack or turn it, and keep it moist and warm.[i] For health, hygiene, and ease you shouldn’t compost meat, fish, dairy products, oils, pet waste, coal or coke ash, disposable nappies or this magazine (surely you would keep it forever?)

Avoid using peat. Another advantage of making your own compost you can be absolutely sure it’s not being dredged out of valuable wildlife areas, unlike certain soil improvers we could mention…

Put your worms to work. Wormeries use less space than compost, get rid of kitchen scraps faster, and give your kids something to scare their friends with. You need a container about one square foot for every pound of waste, with drainage holes drilled in the bottom. Fill two thirds with well-soaked shredded cardboard or paper. Add a pound of redworms (Eisenia foetida) for every half pound of waste, load your container up slowly, and keep it moist and warm.

Live and let live. Careful planting, physical barriers, organic pesticides and night time slug-spearing removes the need for chemical pesticides which may harm your health, the environment, and the birds and insects which help control garden pests. You need to be vigilant, get in early and keep a tidy garden to be successful. But you can also get ahead by selecting non-genetically modified disease resistant plants from the outset.

Turn off the gas guzzlers. Do you really need all those noisy power tools coughing pollutants into your fresh air? Less lawn means less mowing. What doesn’t grow vegetables can become orchard, or beautiful wildflower pasture. If you really love a little lawn, consider cutting it with an electric or manual push mower.

Get rid of the patio heater, or remove the gas canister and turn it into a bird feeder. The great irony is that their seemingly futile mission, to heat up the entire outside world, may actually succeed if enough of us keep using them. But the devastating effects of climate change would make this cold comfort indeed. Put a jumper on. It’s not cool to be hot at the rest of the world’s expense.

Solar lighting is now a familiar sight in Kiwi gardens. Spending a little more on units that will last ensures the environmental benefits are not cancelled out with frequent replacement.

Go visiting! Gain inspiration and ideas by visiting open gardens, garden centres and organic centres near you. Many of them have wildlife walks and cafes so you can make a day of it. Or join up with friends and neighbours who are green gardening and swap growing tips, recipes and food to form a real link between your community and your land.

Make it fun. Spending time in the garden is such a great low energy using pastime. Make sure your landscaping and design includes plenty of nooks and crannies for the family to get away from it all.