Extend Your Vegetable Production

Extending your vegetable production well into the fall & winter months.

There are various ways to keep a plant producing for you longer than the usual summer months.  You may have noticed at the end of the warm weather, some plants start to look done in, not as vibrant as they were.  The cooler temperatures and shortening days will tell them it’s time to quit making food/seeds.  Your goal is to provide the plant with summerlike conditions longer to keep it producing.
If you own a greenhouse, put some of your plants in pots and move them into the greenhouse when the weather starts to cool off and give them a good feeding of fresh compost or vermicompost.  Option: you could keep watering it with some fresh brewed compost tea during its indoor production season.   Add a grow light at the top of your greenhouse to emulate longer days.  Remember that tomatoes do need some darkness and slightly cooler temperatures at night to produce good fruit.  You are trying to imitate nature at the peak producing time.  Add heat if your climate gets too cold outdoors to warm the greenhouse.
If you have not planted some of your vegetables in pots, you can pull up a whole tomato plant, roots and all, and hang it upside down from the rafters of your greenhouse.  This method does not produce as long as the potted plants, but will surprise you with how long it goes on, enabling the plant to turn all the green tomatoes red until you harvest them.  Option: try doing the tomatoes both ways and compare the taste, time span and trouble each takes.  A lot of other vegetables can be done the same way with great success.  Some of the best vegetables for growing in pots so you can move them into your greenhouse are:
Tomatoes (of course)
Eggplant
Onions
Potatoes
Green onions, chives and most herbs love it in pots.
Flowers
Peppers
Bush type squash
I’m sure I haven’t listed everything, but you can experiment with others.
Another way to eat your own produce year round is to grow with hydroponics.  If you already use hydroponics, you know how easy it is to have all the vegetables you want year round with succession planting.  If you are not already using hydroponics, you may want to try it out using one of 4 season greenhouses.com’s tabletop hydroponic plant systems during the winter months.  That would be summer months if you live south of the equator. 
How To:
Extend you gardening season…

If you have a greenhouse that you start your seedlings in, you can move your plants back into that greenhouse when the days start to cool and your plants will keep producing much longer.
Place a greenhouse blanket over your greenhouse to maintain temperatures during the cold months.
Heat your greenhouse if the temperatures drop drastically.
If you do not have a greenhouse, you can create a mini greenhouse effect by covering some of your plants, especially at night.  Tomatoes do not like to get a lot of cold rain, so a simple opaque poly panel above them will work as long as it does not freeze.
To protect your outdoor plants from freezing, cover them with whatever you have on hand.  A bucket, plant umbrellas, blankets, tarps, old quilts have been used in the past.  A cardboard box works well.  Put a rock on top of it if it gets windy where you are.
Water towers (those funny looking things that insulate with water in them) are good.
Buy a portable shelter from 4 seasongreenhouse.com to place over the garden spot or a portable greenhouse that can be moved over your plants.
Water your plants at the roots if you expect a mild frost.  The moist ground helps to insulate the roots from freezes.
Row covers that are plastic or fabric, wooden shelters and any other thing you can think of, like a burn barrel, all will help to insulate your plants from early frosts.
These methods are especially good for an unexpectedly early frost.
Be sure to uncover your plants as soon as the sun hits them.
Sometimes a mulch piled high will insulate your plant enough to get them through an unseasonable frost. 
Give your plants a second wind with a judicious dose of compost or vermicompost.
Warm the water in a can placed in a warm or sunny spot before watering your plants with it.  Consider a water barrel painted black to heat water in passively.
Cover entire rows of vegetables with straw.  You can place bales along the sides of the row and sprinkle loose straw over the plants between the bales.
Plant cool loving vegetables later in the outdoor season that will thrive outdoors even when the temperatures drop a lot.  These would be the same seeds you planted real early, like snow peas, carrots, turnips, onions, chives, beets, parsnips, celery, celeriac, greens of all sorts, parsley and many other herbs.  Most of the root crops will keep well in the ground and actually grow on the sunny days with just a heavy mulch around them.
Start new seeds indoors or in the greenhouse and garden indoors.
Place wind breaks around your garden to cut down the chill factor.
Plant a wind break of evergreen shrubs or trees.

Feed Songbirds

Most people think they should feed the birds that visit their backyards during the fall and winter months, but if you feed them year round they will visit your feeders during the spring and summer months as well.  A steady supply of seeds may encourage more batches to be hatched out, and babies keep the parents very busy going back and forth to find feed for them.

 

 

Birds can be pretty picky about what they eat, and where they eat it.  The following chart gives the food, feeding, bathing and nesting preferences of 12 of the most common backyard visitors in North America.

BIRD                         FOOD                       FEEDER PREFERENCE            BATH     NESTING

 

Robin       Hulled sunflwrs/mealworms   tray on post, ground              yes       trees, ledges

Chickadee Sun/safflower seed/niger       tubes, trays, cages                 yes      cavity, house

Titmouse   black oil sunflower                  tubes, trays, cages                 yes      cavity, house

Hummingbird  Nectar, sugar water           flowers, feeders                  mister      tree branch

Grosbeak   sunflower seeds                    tray on post or table               yes      tree branch

Doves           mixed seeds                          ground, trays                          yes      trees, boxes

Goldfinch       sunflower seeds/niger          tubes, trays                            yes       tree

Cardinal        black oil sun/safflower           trays                                       yes     shrubbery

Finch            sun/safflower/niger                tubes, trays                            yes     shrubs,pots

Bluebird       mealworms                           trays on posts                        yes       house by field

Orioles         sugar water, oranges           feeders, trays                        yes      tree branch

Jays             peanuts, sunflowers               ground, trays                          yes      tree

 

Feeding year round is not a gaurantee you will see your summer visitors year round.  You have to remember some birds migrate.  Contrary to common thinking, birds will not become overly dependant upon your feeders and starve to death if you suddenly stop feeding them.  They will simply rely on other sources of food.  Bird feeders usually contribute about 25% of the total diet of birds.  If temperatures drop below freezing in your area, the feed from feeders may help some birds survive the cold, especially if snow has covered other feed sources.

So, get ready to wake up to the sound of birdsong.  You may also get to see some chicks being raised and learning how to fly.  I especially enjoy seeing birds take baths.  Plan a place where you can sit out of the way of the feeders and still observe the birds.  You will want to place feeders at least 20 feet away from your greenhouse to prevent messes on the glass and accidents to the birds.  Bird mesh will also keep them from trying to fly into the glass in the summer.  A chair inside your greenhouse makes a great vantage point for observing birds while they go about their business.

 

Make a Bouquet Garni

A bouquet garni is a classic French combination of herbs and black peppercorns used to flavor soup, stocks and stews.  Traditional recips call for wroappin the h erbs in cheesecloth for easy removal before serving.  A coffee filter can be substituted for the cheesecloth.

 

 

 

Place bay leaf, thyme, fresh parsley and peppercorns into the cheesecloth or filter and tie it closed tightly with clean string before adding it to the pot.             

Make a Seed Press

I have two sizes of seed presses.  They are custom made to fit inside the open seed trays I use in the greenhouse.  You can make yours any size you would like them to be.  A good starting size is 12" long.

What you will need:

• A short piece of 2x4 wood of the length you want it, or whatever the length happens to be.
• A fairly large handle with screws.  You will find a large smooth rounded metal handle is going to give the best long term satisfaction.  Mine is a hollow aluminum, smoothly rounded and long and high for easy finger grasping even with gloves on.  It's called a gate handle.
• A screwdriver to attach the handles with the screws.  Screws will stay in the wood much longer than nails will, which is why I suggest them.

Center the handle on one 4" side of the wood and screw it into place.  Your done!

Put together the 2.8 HP Chipper/Shredder

Your UGC Chipper/Shredder will arrive by UPS in a fairly large and fairly heavy single box. If you do not have a handy dandy cart or lots of excess muscle, figure out where you are going to put it together before it arrives and ask the driver to put it there for you. Close to good light and tools will make it easier to put together.

Tools you will need to assemble the chipper:

• Phillips screwdriver
• The metal wrench tools included with the chipper
• Socket wrench to fit the nuts that come with the chipper

The first thing to do, of course, is to remove the machine from the box. Easy, right? wrong! The interior box is very tightly fitted into the outer box, so you will need 2 people to extract one from the other, or use a box cutter to cut the sides away.

Then you can take everything out of the box to see what's what.

It comes with instructions, but I found they were not very elementary about the steps, so thought I would show you how I did this.

This is sorta what it looks like without the boxes around it.

I turned the box upside down and slide the box off the top.

I did that twice before I could see the contents.

Then spread it all out so you can see what's what.

 

 

 

All this stuff came out that box in the background!>

Now you want to pick up the instructions and parts list and review it before you get frustrated and come back here for the how-to.

The first thing you want to work on are the wheels, getting them attached to the legs. You will see two wide flat metal brace panels between the two sides of the cart that steady the frame. Turn the frame so one of the braces is on top towards you. The other brace should be on the side. You will see holes punched in the metal frame to hold the wheels and the feet. The holes for the wheels are along the side of the frame as it sits upside down. The holes on the very bottom of the frame will be facing you while it is upside down, and they are for the feet.

 

Look at the picture provided in the instruction sheet to see how to insert all the parts for the wheel. Leave the wheel cover (#3), off-it will snap on last. The picture shows how the assembly goes together, fitting a large washer over the bolt head (#5), then the bushing (which is the long hollow tube (#6) next. Then you insert the bolt screw-end into the smoothest side of the wheel and push it through all the way and put it through the outer side hole of the frame.

 

 

 

The wheel should be on the outside of the frame. Using the open end wrench that came with the chipper, hold the bolt with it while you place the washer and nut on the other side of the bolt where it comes out the other side of the frame. Use the nut wrench to tighten it all up.

 

 

Then you can snap on the cover.

 

Now for the feet: The instruction sheet calls the big rubber thing a 'foot cover' that fits over the 'stand foot'. The dipped out end of the 'foot cover' fits over the metal frame, insert the 'stand foot' into it and then a bolt that will go through to the other side. You will put a washer and a nut on the opposite side of the frame to bolt it on. You will need a tool in each hand to tighten it down tight. Your bolt should not stick out of the stand foot surface.

 

 

Time to take a break and admire your progress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now we come to the part that is ellusive! The instructions say to "Place the motor housing on the stand and attach with 3 M6xM40 screws." That's all it says! First you have to find the holes the screws are going into and then figure out how the housing sits on the frame. This is easiest done while everything is upside down. Lay the heavy motor housing upside down on the ground and you will see 3 screw holes. Place the frame over the motor housing so that the rectangular opening in the housing bottom is under the part of the frame where the same size opening is and the feet are attached. That opening in the housing is where the chipped up material will come out and enter the chip bin and should be at the front of the frame. This is the time and place to insert the screws into the 3 holes and tighten them down real good.

This is one end of the chip bin. Slide this end in first from the front of the chipper frame that you have now turned right side up. This handle should be on the end where the wheels are. Make sure the handle will go down all the way, thereby locking the bin into place with the motor housing. Your chipper will not operate unless this handle is locked into place.

Attach the handle to the top of the frame above the wheels. There are two special desinged nuts to attach it with. You will want these very tight so the handle doesn't wiggle around.

This picture does not show the correct position of the handle. You will want to adjust it to the upward position before tightening the nuts.

 

The completely assembled UGC Chipper/Shredder without the chip bin in place.

 

Now insert the chip bin from the far end first putting the end of the bin with the interlocking handle in first. Slide it all the way back and lock the handle in the up position. Your chipper will not work unless it is locked. It also will not work without being plugged into electricity, so move it to a place where you want to use it where there is electricity. You can see the cord is kind of short, so you will probably need a heavy duty extension cord for it.

You should look at page 6 of the instruction sheets to get an overview of what the buttons will do for you. Then go out and practice those buttons by shredding some of the thin trimming branches you have piled up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Use your UGC Chipper/Shredder

Make sure you use a heavy duty extension cord to plug your chipper into the electricity.  Then make sure the interlock safety switch on the bin is in the up position.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Take a look at the top of the chipper and you will see the enlarged side of the feeder slot.

Here it has a small twig sticking out of it.  This is the spot you want to aim your material into to get the best connection and chewing action from the blades.

The little twig you see here is probably not going to get too chipped up unless I put some more twigs with it to make a more solid connection with the blades instead of just wrapping around them.  Sometimes holding on to smaller stems is helpful also as long as you don't put your hand into the feeder.  You should also wear eye protection when working near the feeder.

 

 

Here you see a bundle of twigs put into the feeder at the same time to facilitate better chipping action from the blades.

 

Once you have done a bit of chipping and you notice the chipping action is not working well, look to see if the already chipped material is piled up in the front of the bin and not allowing more material to fall through the exit chamber.  Wiggle the chipper a bit to make the bin contents flatten out.  It might also be helpful to work on a slight incline so gravity will help the chipped material fall backwards into the back of the bin.

 

 

  This is the inside of my compost tumbler with shredded material mixed into it. It looks  much better than the twigs in the chipper in the previous photo.  

Very small items like straw and leaves do not need to be shredded, and sometimes the tiniest stems will pass through the chipper intact.  They will usually decompose with the rest of the material.  You can always sift them out of the finished compost if they do not, or if only partially decomposed, they can go back into the composter for another session to finish them off.

 

 

 

 

When the bin is full or you are finished chipping, you will need to lower the interlocking bin handle before you can pull the bin out of the stand and empty it.  You will pull it out from the end on the opposite side of the handle.

 

 

 

 

Then you can unplug your chipper/shredder from the extension cord, cover it and store it until you have another bundle of twigs and stems to chip up.

TIP:You can use your chipped up twigs and stems as a mulch for your flower bed instead of putting them into the composter, although if composted they will feed your beds about two to three years faster.

What is Compost?

Compost: Decayed organic matter used as a fertilizer.

We view compost as something we make, but Mother Nature has been making it since creation. It stems from the natural revolving of the seasons. In the winter the ground is absorbing moisture from the rain and snow that falls. In the spring when the sun warms things up seeds sprout, and they grow all summer until the autumn, when the plant wants to sleep or die and regenerate itself.

The process of regenerating shows up most readily in the making of seeds and the drying up of the green plant. In the autumn when leaves fall we see this process most vividly. If we let the leaves lie on the ground when they fall, the winter rains and snow will begin to break them down, causing them to rot. The soil under the leaves contains micro-organisms (tiny creatures) that also eat the leaves and help to break them down to the elements they are made up.

It is like taking apart the castle you built with tinker toys as a child. In order to put them away to use again later, you must first break the castle down into the individual elements to store them and have them ready for the next time you want to build something with them. This is what nature is doing with the leaves and all the other plant matter that first turns brown, dries up and crumbles easily, then the dirt and the moisture work on them to break them down further, leaving behind what we call humus, or decayed organic matter. The decayed matter is now at a stage where the elements are available for plant roots to absorb them and use to grow big and strong and put out fruit or flowers for us to enjoy.

Compost in progress

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Do I Want To Make Compost?

The way compost is made in nature, it can take as long as 3-5 years before the materials completely break down and become available to growing plants. By making our own compost we can quickly give it to our plants to ensure they will be healthy and strong. The way we scrape the ground smooth to put a house on it removes any decayed organic matter that might have been lying there. The ground that was scraped away contained broken down elements from years of nature working on the surface and below.

Every year, the seaons bring growth & decay, again and again. Eventually it breaks down enough to become available to the new plants that are sprouting. Now that you have a yard full of dust, you want to change it into something green. It just makes sense to put back what was removed so the plant will have something to feed on. This demonstrates what a person is attempting to do when they make compost to use in their yard, pots, garden and flower beds. The plants know what they need to grow, and if it is not there you cannot expect the plants to be happy.

A healthy vegetable plant will produce lots of tasty fruit to eat. A healthy flower plant will produce big, beautiful flowers. Healthy plants resist disease and infestation better than unhealthy plants. Compost also amends (or improves) the texture of the soil, adding 'tilth', which is just the right amount of water-holding ability and perking ability. If your soil will not 'hold' water, like sand, the water will flow right through it very quickly, making it available for the plant only during the short time it is there. Water is necessary for the roots to be able to move the chemicals from the soil up to the plants. Without a consistent supply of moisture, they cannot feed, and therefore they won't grow and produce the way we want them to.

One the other hand, if you have a thick, hard, clay like soil that does not allow the water to penetrate the surface or drain through it, the plants will drown from lack of oxygen at the root level. The roots need a proper balance of moisture and air to be grow. They are very much like humans in this respect, they need some of each, and not too much of either, thankyou. They say "Man does not live off bread alone" (he needs a glass of wine, too).

Making compost also helps Mother Earth renew itself more quickly. If we take the materials that would ordinarily be sent to the landfill and turn it into something beautiful and useful, we are contributing to the end good instead of the end problem. Every city has an overburdened landfill site. Landfills don't decompose materials, they bury them alive. They have found that newspaper is still readable after 20 years buried in a landfill. If you multiply that newspaper by all the papers read by all the people every day, think about how big the landfill is getting! Studies have shown that the biggest impact on recycling is made on the home level.

If you want healthy plants, a healthy earth, and a healthy sense of having done the right thing, then you do want to make compost.

How Do I Make Compost?

The essence of making compost is combining four simple ingredients:

1. Organic (natural) materials, like newspaper, leaves, grass, fruit and vegetable scraps...
2. Soil, which contains the tiny creatures we call micro-organisms that actually do the work.
3. Water
4. Air

If you have a pile of leaves or a bag of grass clippings, you have the makings for a compost pile. The air, water, and soil are everywhere. All you have to do is gather up the organic matter and mix it with the other ingredients. There are various ways you can do this process, some take longer than others to finish. I have composted in all the ways known to man and can tell you from that experience, that you will get the quickest and most complete batch of compost by using a compost tumbler or similar compost maker.

The Compost Tumbler 9.5

The tumblers allow you to easily control the ingredients in the perfect porportions to allow the process to work in as little as 2 weeks. If you want your compost, and you want it now, a tumbler is the only way to get it. Conventional piles will take years to finish composting, bins still take months and lots of back breaking mixing to finish, as well as being exposed to varmints. If you have a huge amount of leaves (consider yourself lucky), you can stock pile them until you need them. They may begin to break down before you put them into your tumbler, but that's ok. You can keep them in anything to keep them from blowing away.

If you have a compost tumbler, you simply fill it 2/3 full with leaves or other brown material like pieces of plants, grass clippings that are dry, add something green (like fresh green grass clippings, plants that you have pulled up, kitchen scraps, etc.). The brown material can be shredded newspaper or other paper, branches and prunings. The woody material should be shredded up first so it will break down quickly. The smaller you make the particles that go into your composter, the quicker it can be eaten by the tiny creatures and turned into humus. You can run your lawn mower over some leaves, use the catcher, and then dump it into the composter. A shredder machine is nice to have for the woody materials, but if you don't have one, just set the tree trimmings and the like aside for now, and use the more breakable materials.

First Week Compost

There are a few theories about how much brown material to green material to put into your composter. I have read it should be a 30:1 ratio, brown to green; some say it should be 50/50. If you know why you are putting the different things into your composter, you will be better able to judge for yourself what goes in and how much. The goal is to convert all those leaves and other materials into "black gold" (fertilizer) quickly.

Some of your material is dry or processed, like leaves and newspapers. This should make up the bulk of the ingredients. You also need to add something that is green, because fresh green material starts to break down quickly and will help to activate the decomposition quickly. As soon as you cut it, grass starts to convert its chemistry to Carbon Dioxide, and this process creates heat. When the micro-organisms in the soil get warmed up, they start munching away on the brown material, trying hard to eat themselves out of house and home. They will be multiplying at the same time, and so the process begins to speed up as the days go by, and they will generate some heat themselves, and now you have what is called a "hot" compost. You can feel the heat from the outside of the tumbler when they are active.

Compost in Progress

You will need to add some moisture in the beginning, and check it once in a while to see if it needs more moisture. You do not want to keep it too wet. The most important part of speedy decomposition, I believe, is adding air to the pile on a regular basis. You turn your pile by tumbling your compost maker, which infuses air all over the pile. If you were just using an old fashioned pile or bin, you would have to shovel it all over to get the air inside and the outer materials nearer to the center where they can break down more easily. Most gardeners and composters are not inclined to do all that shoveling every day. With a compost tumbler, it's so easy to do it by turning the tumbler or the handle. You can then open it up and look inside to check on progress and moisture levels.

During the decomposition process, the compost will change in looks and smell. At first you will smell grass clippings as they give off their carbon dioxide. Then you will start to smell the different levels of decaying from the different materials, and all of it will become darker and reduce in volume. It is actually much easier to monitor compost in a tumbler than in a bin.

Composters

Composters come in a variety of styles and sizes. Sometimes picking the one just right for you can be a chore. The customer service desk at 4SeasonGreenhouse.com can be helpful, but you still have to make the decision. There are a few things to look at that might help you.

It is really hard to know just how much of the finished compost you will be able to make or how much you will want to use. Your ability to make compost is based on a variety of factors. How much lawn do you have? How often do you mow it? Do you use a grass catcher on your mower, or do you rake it? Do you have a lot of trees in your yard? How about shrubs and flower beds? They shed leaves too. And there are trimmings from the flowers, bushes and trees as well as deadheading scraps, plus garden scraps. How large is your garden? The larger your yard and garden or extensive your beds are, the more composting material you will have, as well as needing more compost for them.

Now, how do you convert all this data into, "What size of a compost maker will handle it all and make as much as I need"?

You will not be composting a whole years worth of organic materials all at the same time. During the spring months you will probably have some springtime cleanup from raking out beds and trimming shrubs that need spring trimming. Do you have hedges that need some shaping up after the winter snows? Are you planning to scrape up lawn for new beds this spring? The sod can be composted. All this material will be turned into compost probably before you start cutting the lawn, which will then become an ongoing chore throughout the summer months. The more lawn you have, the more clippings you have. This will keep your compost maker pretty busy during the summer. What are you going to do with all the compost you have made so far? I am always surprized at how quickly my compost gets used, and you can never have 'too much'.

Tumbleweed Compost Tumbler

• It can be spread 1-2" thick in pots, beds and garden, even the lawn. It gives everything a mid-season boost to keep on going strong. Container plants have a finite amount of nutrients to draw from, so giving them a a new layer of compost will make more nutrients available to them. Every time you water, the goodness is leached down to the root system.
• Summertime compost is excellent to use as a repotting mixture. You can add as much as you want without worrying about burning roots.
• It can be used to start a late summer/fall garden to boost the soil for the late crops to flourish.
• If you have houseplants that need to be moved up a pot size, use compost in the soil mix.

You can see the uses for compost can be nearly endless. You usually can keep a composter busy all summer and well past fall with all the leaves that need to be recycled into "black gold". You will find making compost out of something you used to send to the curb in a black bag is a very satisfying feeling.

Generally speaking, once you get into the pattern of composting, you will find you have or want more materials than you first anticipated, and you will find new uses for the finished compost. That seems to translate into, "Get the biggest compost maker you can physically handle, because this idea is going to grow along with your garden".

One last consideration in choosing which compost maker to purchase is the price. I make this the last consideration, because size will influence the price to a degree. The best deals are not always the cheapest. The amount you pay for your compost maker will be reflected in the materials, ease of use, and features. If you know how you are going to use your finished compost, you are half way there.

 

Composting Helps

Tumbleweed

If you are composting the old-fashioned, hard way, you will need a manure fork or shovel to turn your pile as often as you can stand all that exercise.

• If you are composting the smart, modern way, all you really need to accomplish the task is a compost tumbler.
• I find having a bin to hold the excess material that will be used for the next batch is very handy to have.
• The very informative little book you get free of charge when you buy your composter at 4SeasonGreenhouse.com will tell you everything you need to know about composting in your composter, and what to expect. It's called 'Home Composting Made Easy', by McDowell et al.
• 4SeasonGreenhouse.com sells compost thermometers to use to test the interior temperature of the compost. They have a long probe to get to the center of the material. It will tell how hot your pile is. There are two models to choose from. A handy gadget to have when you are composting in the cooler months.
• A Backyard Moisture Meter is probably the most helpful gadget for someone new to composting.
  

  Geo Bin

  Knowing how wet to keep your compost can be tricky.
• Compost sifting screens are nice to have to sift your finished compost.Anything that is too large to pass through the screen can be crumbled up, or returned to the composter. If you are using your compost in seed starter mix, you want it uniform and small in size so the seeds do not have to struggle to emerge. A sifter can be used on any soil.
• ComposTumbler Covers will insulate your composter in the cold months, helping it to keep on working in spite of the temperatures outside. Keeping your composter out of bitter winds will also help.
• Compost Tubs are placed under your composter to catch any liquid that runs out of your composter, which is called compost tea. The tea can be used to water plants with. Houseplants especially love it.
  

  Activator

• Kitchen Compost Buckets with Filters do exactly what they say they do. They will prevent your compost scraps from smelling up the kitchen and attracting gnats before you can have a chance to take it out to the composter. In fact, it works so well that you could forget it's there. The nice wide opening makes it easy to dump and clean out. 4SeasonGreenhouse.com offers two styles to choose from. They are perfect for the busy working couple that gardens on the weekend.
• Compost Activator is a packet of dried micro-organisms that jump start your compost. They become active as soon as they become wet in the pile. You just sprinkle a handful in the composter, spray with water and tumble. It is especially useful in the cooler months or when you do not have a little leftover compost to start your current pile. It can be used if there is not garden soil to add to your compost.
• Compost Tea Makers will make and store up to 10 gallons of tea to have available when you need to water your garden or anything that grows. They take fertilizer tea to a higher level.
• 
  

  Chipper/shredder

  Chipper/Shredders

  like the UGC chipper/shredder 4seasongreenhouse.com sells, are probably the very best compost helper you can have. It will make all the material you are going to compost a more uniform and smaller size which will enable it to decompose faster inside the tumbler. Chipped material is also easier to tumble.
  

 

Gathering the Goodness of Herbs

Not sure how to harvest and handle your herbs? Here is a quideline for harvesting and drying them:

Marjoram in bloom. At this point, let it set seed to save and share.

• Most herbs have their highest concentration of oils (which produce the flavor) right before they bloom, making it the best time to harvest.
• The best time of day to harvest herbs is in the early morning, before the sun has hit the plant. The leaves have the most essential oils at this time.
• Dry your herbs as quickly as possible in a cool dry place. Don't use the oven or microwave.
• When storing, keep the leaves whole if possible. Break up the leaves only when you are ready to add them to the pot.
• People have a tendancy to view the herbs potential by it's size. Since dried herbs are shrunken and smaller, they think they need to use more of them, compared to the fresh herbs. It is actually quite the opposite. The dried herbs have concentrated their flavors, so you use less of them. When using fresh herbs, make sure you use enough of them to get the impact of flavor you would get with the dried herbs. The rule of thumb is: Use more if it's fresh, if dried, use less.

Here are some harvesting tips for some of the herbs and how they generally are used in cooking.

Angelica: Harvest this biennial in late summer of first year or in spring of second year. Cut bright green young stems to ground level. Candy young stems by boiling small peices with sugar water, then drying the pieces. Chop and add to ice creams or mousses, cut into shapes for garnish.

Basil: At the end of the growing season, before the weather turns cold, cut the entire plant to the ground. Strip off leaves and dry. Dry stems. During the growing season, you can pinch off the tips of the plants before they flower. Dry the leaves or blend them and freeze them in cubes for use in pesto, soups, sauces, stir fry,etc. The dried basil stems can be used in place of wood chips when grilling or smoking.

Fennel: Gather flowers when they turn bright yellow, before the seeds form. Dry them on a tray, then rub them between your palms. Shake through a sieve to remove larger stem pieces. Use fennel (it will be like a powder or pollen) in soups, on roast pork, fish and shellfish.

Lavender: Harvest the flower spikes when they have full color, but before the blossoms open. Hang bunches of the spikes to dry, then you can strip buds off the stems and store in a jar. You can grind the dried buds with sugar for baked goods, add buds to spice rubs, or infuse them in milk, cream or syrup for desserts. Use whole dried stems for decorating the top of cakes or puddings.

Lemon Verbena: In late summer, cut plants back by half. For earlier use cut sprigs just above a leaf joint. Hang sprigs to dry or grind the leaves with equal parts sugar and store it in the freezer. Use this sugar to sweeten drinks or desserts. Use dried leaves for infusions.

Marjoram: Gather sprigs of leaves before they flower for fresh use. Once they look like they are budding, cut whole stems to the bottom and hang to dry. Marjoram will multiply by root shoots, so saving seeds is not necessary, but if they do go to seed, harvest them for starting new plants or seed swapping. Marjoram is used in French spice blends, soups, stews, stir fry dishes, pototo dishes and blends for baking breads with herbs.

Mint: Cut spearmint or peppermint nearly to the ground, just before it flowers. Dry stems upside down in bunches, then remove and store leaves in a tightly covered jar. Dried leaves are used in teas or recipes, especially lamb recipes.

Oregano: Greek oregano is excellent dried just as the stems begin to bud. Cut about 2/3 of the stem and dry in a well ventilated place. Once dry, strip leaves from stems and store in jars. Dried oregano is used anywhere there is tomato, pizza, sauces, breads, herbal blends, salads, pasta, chicken, fish, and olives. It infuses well in salad oils and vinegars.

Rosemary: You can harvest right off the plant nearly year round, but for best flavor, cut off side shoot sprigs from a healthy full plant, dry upside down in a dark place. Rosemary will fall off the stems if disturbs, so a mesh bag over it or screen under it will help to preserve your harvest. Crumble the dried leaves into meat dishes and hearty breads. Rosemary sprigs are used fresh in BBQing to lightly flavor meats. Rosemary will also combine with some sweet dishes.

Parsley: Will grow year round in milder climates. If you need to harvest yours, cut them down to the ground and lay out on trays or screens to dry. Parsley is used everywhere, so dry plenty.

Russian Sage in bloom. Used mostly for landscapes.

Sage:

Sage is much improved by drying. Cut plants back by 2/3. The plants will grow back full and healthy in a few weeks, and you can harvest a second crop later in the summer. Dry flat or hang in bunches to dry. Remove the leaves when dry and store in a jar. Use dried sage in poultry, fish, vegetables, mushrooms, garlic, apples. Use fresh sage to flavor and garnish drinks and dishes.

Tarragon: This herb is delightful in dishes. Tarragon chicken is an old favorite. Once your plants are full and healthy, cut 1/2 of it off the top. Don't cut more than that or it might not survive. Hang your harvested stems to dry in bunches. You can use it fresh or dried. Use tarragon to make herb butter to use with seafood, chicken, asparagus, beans, beets, carrots, and summer squashs.

Thyme: Let it flower, then cut it back. When the plant grows back again, cut down only 1/2 and preserve these stems. Don't harvest too close to autumn. Give the plant time to recover again before it gets cold, so it won't succumb to frost. Hang your sprigs in a well-ventilated place to dry, then store the leaves in a tight jar. Dried Thyme is used in herbal blends, stock, stews, soups. 1 teaspoon of dried thyme is equal to 1 tablespoon of fresh leaves.

A note about your herb plants. If you do not wish to dry your herbs for use in cooking, cut off the herb stems as noted above anyway, to ensure a lush healthy growth next year. The stems can be burned as a fire starter or composted. You can also just lay the stems on the floor of a shed or barn to repel insects.

 

Preserve Your Food

There are various ways to keep your fall harvest lasting long into the winter months. Different foods each have their way to be best kept. Historically, keeping food for long months was necessary to survive. In one respect, that hasn't changed. We want to survive WELL, remain healthy, and enjoy what we eat, not have to work too hard and have it all make sense in our modern times.

People are busier nowadays, but not necessarily with making food. Most of the average person's time is consumed by other activities, which makes the preserving of our own food an activity that must fit into our lifestyle. Since there are so many lifestyles, you will need to pick and choose what methods are best for you. Here is a list of some of the ways to preserve a harvest so you can use it all year round.

• Succession planting outdoors
• Succession planting in the greenhouse
• Succession planting in pots indoors
• Grow-lite tabletop systems
• Heated greenhouses
• Drying
• Canning
• Pickling
• Cool storage
• Freezing
• In ground storage (in garden under mulch)
• Indoor hydroponics
• Plant choices
• Cold frames

I hope I haven't forgotten anything. Here & at 4seasongreenhouse.com, the emphasis is on expanding your choices of how you will extend your growing season. Of course, the best and most thorough way to do that is by growing year round in a greenhouse, either in soil beds or using hydroponics. Some of the older, tried and true methods are still valid for certain lifestyles, but if you are going to set out to learn the best methods of preserving a harvest today, we highly recommend growing year round over other methods, such as canning and drying.

Fresh is always best, for many reasons. The best reason is flavor - its why we garden in the first place. You can go to the store and buy what is needed to stay alive, but does it make you happy? If you are a gardener at heart, or a vegan looking for the ultimate in nutrition and taste, or concerned about how food gets to your table, or just want the convenience of growing it in your own backyard, then growing your own food to sustain you and your family is your best option.

I happen to know how to 'can' tomatoes (they taste mighty good in the dead of winter) and make green jeans out of green beans and dry fruit and vegetables in a dryer, make my own raisins, etc. This summer I put some ears of corn and some packages of green beans from the garden into the freezer to enjoy later. I am not going to be able to have them growing here during the blizzard season, so that was my best choice for those vegetables.

Some vegetables are not worth freezing or canning or drying. Asparagus will 'can' and freeze, but who wants to eat it that way? I simply choose to wait for the proper season for Aparagus to be available fresh to enjoy it's flavor. Since drying herbs and using them in recipes is still necessary, I dry some, and have some longer in fresh form. And winter squash will keep in a cellar, as will some varieties of apples, spuds, onions, etc. So planting the varieties you know will store well in this way is one way of preserving the harvest into the winter. But if that is not how you want to do it, you still have plenty of options.

Emily's Garden Hydroponic System

Hydroponics is a complete growing system, usually done inside a greenhouse, but I have seen it in basements with grow lights as well. I think it is limited in a basement and looks like it might be more labor with keeping track of the light ranges. Hydroponics inside a greenhouse that can be heated is going to give a person more options and ability to grow anything year round. Once you have a system set up and know the routine, it is actually less labor intensive than an outdoor garden. You can mix your methods, devoting half of your greenhouse to hydroponics to get your feet wet (so to speak), and still use tradtional greenhouse growing methods. It will allow you to compare the advantages of both. You may want to continue using both methods forever, nothing wrong with that.

4 seasongreenhouse.com offers books on the subjects of Greenhouse Gardening and Hydroponics. A good basic primer is going to be very helpful. You won't be able to remember it all or need to utilize it all at once, so having a reference is just logical.

There are excellent reference books on any method you wish to use. The older methods will be available in most public libraries.

Looking forward to a brighter future for all of us on Mother Earth!

How To Garden in Raised Beds

The Versailles Raised Bed Kit

One tried-and-true gardening method is planting in raised beds. The first raised beds were what we now refer to as "mounded beds", made by piling the dirt in one row onto the adjacent row. You plant in the high row and walk and irrigate in the low row. This method prevents you from compressing the soil around your plants and damaging roots.

The mounding method has evolved into raised beds made of hard surface walls shaped like a box and filled with the soil and plants. Raised beds prevent the soil from migrating away from the roots from erosion by winds, pets, water, and tools. They help keep the soil's nutrients where they will be most available for the plants. Raised beds also make it easier to water, weed, and harvest your vegetables.

The soil in your raised beds can be augmented each year to eventually become a rich-in-compost bed that will grow anything you put into it. One proviso here is: Carrot beds should not be overly fertile, as it causes them to produce too many root hairs all along the carrot. The best medium for growing carrots is a sandy soil with a top dressing of compost. They are easier to pull out of the ground without all those roots grabbing on for dear life as you pull.

Gardening in raised beds has many advantages:

• Confining the watering and nutrients to where it is needed.
• Keeping the soil from compaction and maintain good tilth.
• Ability to build up and amend the soil for specific plantings.
• A neat and orderly garden, that grows simply by putting together a new bed.
• Planting, harvesting and weeding are easier since you don't have to bend down.
• Easy to divide up gardening activities by bed. (Weed one bed each weekend).
• Visually attractive, especially from a distance.
• Easy access for birds and butterflies.
• The Frame It All kits offer lights for the beds.
• Improved drainage.
• Helps keep pets out of your beds.
• Lots of size and pattern choices to choose from.

Another advantage you get when gardening in raised beds is the ability to put them in any area with a zero clearance around it. On a farm or in a large flat land garden, you will notice bare earth around the perimeter that is kept plowed or tilled to prevent weeds from traveling into the growing area. With a solid wall raised bed, no buffer zone is needed. Many raised beds are set within a lawn area to take advantage of the clear sun and make an interesting focal point for the eyes. It is very helpful to scrape off the surface and start the walls below ground level to prevent root migration into the beds.

Frame It All 8'x8'x12' Raised Bed Garden

Raised bed kits by Frame It All are the easiest and smartest way to get a raised bed that is not only attractive, it's also easier to handle than any of the other materials listed. They are made of a composite wood grain material that looks like wood, but you will never have to worry about getting splinters from them, it won't chip, split or rot, but it will weather naturally over time like wood does. They are manufactured from 60% recycled post-consumer plastic and 40% wood pulp. The joint stakes are also eco-friendly, being manufactoured from recycled ABS plastic.

Kits are eco-friendly in another way, there are no left-over pieces and parts to dispose of. You can get a complete, finished project without fussing over having enough screws, nails, or tools, have no leftover pieces to throw away, and make less noise doing it. That leaves you with more time to concentrate on the fun stuff, like what to plant in it. Conformation of your bed is the first thing to decide on, but that can be fun, too. The things you will need to complete your Frame It All kit is a phillips screwdriver, a hammer or rubber mallet and weed cloth to put under the frame to prevent weeds. You don't even have to scrape the ground first. That's what I call easy!

Raised beds can also be home-made of any durable material that is not toxic to the plants. I do not recommend railroad ties because they are chemically treated, as are some landsaping timbers. It's a shame because they do make a handsome bed, but we have plenty of other choices in materials.

Raised beds inside a portable greenhouse.

Some common materials used in the construcion of homemade raised beds:

• Cement blocks
• Boards
• Stone
• Oak barrels
• Landscape timbers
• Raised bed kits by Frame It All

Once your raised beds are in place you will anxious to fill them with dirt. Before you start shoveling a bunch of soil into them, think about what material should make up your growing medium. If you shovel up a bunch of dirt from around the bed, you may be getting some weed seeds with it.

If you plan far enough in advance, you can prepare the soil by solarizing it to destroy weed seeds. Solarizing is done by covering the dirt with a heavy duty clear plastic, weighing it down along the sides so it won't blow away, and let it set for at least 2 weeks. The increase in heat when the sun hits it will cook the seeds or weeds under it.

While you are waiting for the solarization process, you can decide where to put your beds and gather other growing medium materials you want to add. Some of this will depend of what type of soil you have to put into it. If you have a clay-like soil, you will want to amend it to lighten it up with things like gypsum, sand, vermiculite, coir, peat, or compost. If you have a sandy soil, you will want to amend it with things like coir and peat (to help hold moisture), compost & vermicompost (which are the best soil conditioners available as they add the nutrients your plants will need).

If you are using your beds for flowers, you will get the best show of bloom using compost and vermicompost in the roots zones. The deeper your beds are, the more soil you will need, so using regular top soil amended with these other items will make it stretch to fill your beds. You may be surprized at how much soil they will hold. This is good as it will allow for more root growth room and will contain that much more nutrients in it. The roots will find it if it is there.

Frame It All 24" Raised Garden Bed

After you have the soil mixture installed in the bed, make sure it is moist throughout it's depth before you plant. Moisture has a wicking action, so it will travel to the dry areas if there are any. You want your seeds and young seedlings to stay moist to get a good head start putting down roots.

Remember to make any bed you are going to use for growing carrots deep and sandy, with only a top dressing of compost for the seedlings to start in to avoid hairy carrots.

Also, guard against cats from using your fresh made beds for litter boxes. You can lay chicken wire or any wire over the top after seeding. Put a stone on the corners so it will stay in place. Cats are curious, and will jump up to see what it's all about.

Now you can see your garden grow from a distance more easily, and harvest from the beds while preparing dinner without getting dirty. Raised beds can be used inside of greenhouses for year round gardening. You can lay out a set of raised beds so that they can be covered with a portable greenhouse, like the Weatherguard once the frosts threaten to extend your harvest. If you keep up with your succession planting, you will harvest right through to spring and have a perpetual garden. You can lift off the portable greenhouse during the hot months. Be sure to augment your raised beds with some good compost and vermicompost at least twice a year if growing year round, as the plants will deplete the nutrients eventually.

Use a Worm Factory

Table of Contents

What is a Worm Factory anyway?

Why do I want to make Vermicompost?

What is the difference between compost from a composter and vermicompost?

Why compost with worms?

What kind of worms are used in worm composters?

Step by step worm bedding.

Getting Started

 

What is a Worm Factory anyway? It sounds like a place to make worms out of parts.

The Worm Factory is a composter that is designed to meet the needs of worms to enable them to convert waste material into worm castings in a way that is simple and easy to harvest the worm castings. The Worm Factory is made up of recycled plastic trays that are interchangable. The moving around of the trays greatly speeds up the process of being able to harvest the worm castings and enable the worms to move on to another tray to begin to convert the fresh contents in it into more castings. The castings are called worm castings, or vermicompost. The process of keeping a worm factory working and making worm castings is called vermiculture.

Terracota Three Tray Worm Composter

There are different ways to keep worms, but after experiencing most of them, I find The Worm Factory, pictured here and sold at 4seasongreenhouse.com is, by far, the easiest (translate that 'smartest') way to harvest vermicompost. It is ten times more efficient and easier to get castings from that do not have a bunch of worms in it. You don't want to 'harvest' worms with the castings because you want them to stay behind and keep on working for you, making more castings.

Removing worms from the castings in other types of worm beds is very time consuming. In The Worm Factory, the worms automatically move from one tray to another as soon as they finish eating everything, leaving behind a tray of worm castings. You then simply remove that tray and empty the contents into a container, refill it with fresh worm bedding and place it on top of the other working trays.

If you see a few worms left in the bottom tray, all you have to do is place it on the upper tray, leave the lid off and stir it a few times a day. The worms will migrate downward into the tray below, as they do not appreciate light and move away from it. When you stir it and see no more worms, it's ready to be removed from the tray and used.

 

Why do I want to make vermicompost?

Because vermicompost is what will save the earth from the damage mankind has done to it. This may sound like an overly broad-sweeping statement, but if you examine the subject thoroughly, you will see why. The soil in which we grow our food and other plants affects the quality of those plants. The micro-organisms (all those tiny creatures you cannot see without a microscope) and larger living creatures that reside in the soil all impact their environment. They feed on each other as well as other things present in the soil and leave behind castings that are chemically broken down.

The roots of growing plants search for and suck up these chemical compounds with the aid of water present. The water is like the straw humans use to get food inside. The chemicals are the vitamins inside the liquid. Both moisture and the chemicals need to be present to enable the plant to survive. The type of compounds your plant is able to suck up and feed on is determined by what is present in the soil. If we want healthy and vigorous plants we must feed them the best food. And that is vermicompost.

 

What is the difference between vermicompost and compost from a composter?

Composters convert leaves, grass, kitchen waste and other organic natural materials into a nutrient-rich, loamy soil amendment that will feed your plants and change the texture of the soil so it will hold enough water and allow excess water to perculate out. The nutrients that are in compost may or may not be immediately available to the plant roots. It takes further breaking down of the material to make them available.

That is where the micro-organisms and worms come into the picture. They eat the compost and convert it to vermicompost, which is then available for the plant roots to use. Vermicompost is the final phase of the composting process. When we make vermicompost, we are creating a product that is going to feed the plants instantly; boosting their growing ability, health and production quicker. Plants respond quickly to the availablity of nutrients on the chemical compound level and it shows up in their growth and color.

 

Why Compost with Worms?

A composting worm bin system is an incredibly efficient and effective way to quickly convert your kitchen waste, cardboard, newspaper, junk mail, dried leaves and most other organic materials into the most nutrient rich compost for your plants, planters, flower beds and garden.

In nature, once-living material is slowly broken down into the nutrients that plants use. It is an ongoing process in nature's food chain. You will see it happening if you leave the grass clippings on your lawn; they dry up and then sink down between the blades of the uncut grass. This is now called thatch. If you leave the thatch alone, the layer that is on the bottom, touching the soil will begin to compost, the micro-organisms in the soil will begin to work on it, eating it and converting it.

Those micro-organisms and larger creatures like worms, will only be able to work on the portion of thatch they can reach, which is why the bottom layer is what is composted first. As that layer is slowly process, the upper layers sink lower into contact with the soil and provide food for those micro-organisms, worms, etc. This entire process can take up to two years to complete. If you continue to cut the lawn and leave more clippings on it, the process will never be entirely finished, as it has new fresh material to work on.

We greatly speed up this natural process when we use a worm compost bin system to recycle the natural materials. We gather the material up, and place it where the worms can get to it much quicker and with many worms present, they go to work on it and quickly convert it in as little as one month, as compared to 2 years or more.

In full operation, a worm composter, which is called a vermicomposter, can house 10,000 to 12,000 worms. That is a lot of eating power. They can process up to 5 pounds of material every week. That would probably be all the junk mail and kitchen waste a household creates each week.

If every household in America maintained a vermicomposter just for junk mail, newspapers and kitchen waste, the impact on our waste disposal systems (dumps) would be phenomenal in scope. For decades, the way mankind exists on earth (on average), has moved so far away from allowing nature to take it's natural course of recycling and replenishing the soil, we now have to make an effort to assist Mother Nature to bring back the balance needed to sustain her and us.

We also desire to live in areas that in the natural state do not provide for good gardening, like the desert states. Since people like to eat and garden, no matter where they live, we help nature along by providing the best materials needed to make it happen. Composting with worms is the most effective way to do that.

What kind of worms are used in worm composters?

Different worm species have different behavioral patterns. There are worms that live six feet underground, and worms that live in the ocean. The best worm to use in a worm composter is the red wriggler, or Eisenia fetida. Using worms that are going to be happy where you want to put them just makes good sense. The behavior of red wrigglers is perfect for the job we want them to do. They are very ferocious feeders, they reproduce quickly, and they move readily between the upper and lower layers, staying mostly at a certain level below the surface. Most of us have turned over a log or board and found worms on the surface. Once we move the board, the worms go underground because they do not like light. We are utilizing the natural behavior patterns of the red wriggler to our advantage in the worm factory bins. This is less stressful on the worms and makes it super easy to harvest the finished vermicompost.

The Red Wriggler

Red wriggler worms are not best suited for in-ground gardens because they are very aggressive and may attack and consume regular earth worms and night crawlers

. Keep them separated. If you are getting an overabundance of red wrigglers in your worm factory, move some of them into another worm factory, give some away to new owners of worm factories, sell them to fishermen as bait.

Where do I get red wrigglers (Eisenia fetida)?

When you purchase your worms, make sure you are getting the right kind of red worm, as the different species are difficult to tell apart. They are sometimes available at bait shops, or you can find them on the web. Try to buy them locally, as they won't be as stressed by a long shipping trip. You can start with just 1/2 pound of worms, about 500, as they will multiply. You can go to FindWorms.com on the web to find the closest dealers. You may want to look around to compare prices, shipping fees and guarantees.

 

Step by Step Worm Bedding

Your Worm Factory arrives with a brick of coir and bag of shredded paper to make the worm bedding with. Once that is put into the worm factory, you should begin to think about gathering the materials needed for future bedding, which will come in as little as one month, depending on how many worms are in your factory. Paper is easy to come by. Any paper you use should be shredded first. Substitutes can be made for the paper and coir, but the end results will look different and not be as easy to harvest. Therefore, I recommend you shred scrap paper without the plastic windows in envelopes, but glue is fine, and that you purchase a case of coir to mix with the paper to get the right texture and ventilation the worms like.

I mixed my first batch in the dining room, but it is a little messy and works better as an outdoor activity. You will need a bucket of water to soak the coir. It really soaks it up, so put a lot of water in a bucket and let the coir soak it up, it may take up to 30 minutes.	Recycled paper

 

 

If you check the brick after 10-20 minutes, and it has absorbed all or most of the water, add some more to the bucket. Any excess water will be absorbed by the paper when you add it.	This is what the damp coir and paper look like mixed together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any clumps of coir that are present should be broken apart so none of it stays dry and it makes a nice 'fluffy' bedding. Now you are ready to add the shredded paper that has been accumulating all over the house. You will have to put your hands or a stick into the bucket to really mix it up well. The paper has a tendency to stick together, so mixing with the hands makes it easier to seperate clumps of paper and get a feel for how wet everything it. You can let it soak for a while and in the meantime, you can empty any finished trays the worms have completely processed. Start with the bottom tray. If worms are still present, place it on the top, leave the lid off and stir it with a stick gently and let it set for a while (about 30 minutes). This will give the worms time to move away from the light and into the lower bin. It won't hurt the new bedding to soak for awhile, so let the worms take their time to do what they do naturally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We're sorry, In 4. above it mentions page 11, that information is provided here:

Why do you want to feed worms if they eat their bedding?

If your vermicomposter is the only composter you have, you can use it to recycle your kitchen waste and feed the worms at the same time. If you have other composters, your kitchen waste can be recycled in them. You may find that feeding your vermicompost worms food scraps to be an interesting experience. You can learn a lot about vermiculture when you add blended food scraps to the trays.

The first thing to do is seperate out the things worms will not eat. It's pretty much the same as for other composters, worms are vegetarians so you don't want to feed them cheese, meat, dairy, or fats of any kind. You can give those treats to the dogs, cats, chickens or pigs at your place. If you have scraps from preparing salad or vegetables from dinner, put them into a blender with enough water to get it moving, and blend til smooth and add about 1/4 cup of it to one of the trays, under the newspaper covering.

Some of the things that are excellent for worm food: Tea leaves and thier bags, coffee grounds, lettuces, all veggies, they'll eat any kind if it's ground up finely. The secret to feeding worms is to make the particles small enough that they can get it into their very tiny mouths. You can even grind up egg shells for them, just make sure they are very fine.

You can put coffee grounds directly into the feeder trays along with the filters. It will take them longer to eat the filter, but they will.

TIP: If you place about 1/4 cup of blended veggies in one corner of a tray under the paper, you can go back in a day or two and check to see if the worms are eating it. If they are ignoring it, they probably have plenty of other things to keep them busy eating. If they are diving over each other to get to it, they are probably on the verge of starving to death. If you see this behavior, you need to redo all the trays with fresh bedding for them to eat. If you have fresh bedding in the trays and still see this behavior, it may indicate the need to thin your worm colony, reducing the amount of worms in your vermicomposter. This is a nice problem to have. You can purchase another vermicomposter and have twice as much vermicompost to use, you can sell some of the worms to fishermen, or give them to someone who is just starting a worm factory.

TIP: If you live in the colder zones, putting your worms in the ground outdoors will kill them. Red wrigglers remain in the upper layers of the earth where frost can reach them. Also, they are not compatible with regular earthworms. They are more aggressive eaters and may attack other species. If you have a heated greenhouse, you can put them in there. In fact, a heated greenhouse is the perfect place for your vermicomposter during the cold months. It will be too hot for the worms in the summer, though.