Adventures in Composting

I've noticed a few of you like my garden. I'm lucky to have good soil and a little know how to condition poor soil. Some say it's a green thumb but I think it's just trial and error and a lot of reading.

Part of my garden is compost. As you know this is a new project for me. I blundered big time with my first go at it almost killing my family with the smell of Karma, as Joey so perfectly named it. Well I didn't give up. The second go I shredded paper before adding my kitchen scraps to my little kitchen composter. Thing have been going well. Until a few days ago when I notice these tiny little flies buzzing around my container. That's a no- no for me no matter how much I love the urban farm movement and greener living. Bugs in the house equals dirt to me. I put the little composter outside. Thankful it has not been disturbed by the local band of raccoons yet.

Today I'm taking my adventure to the next step. The Worm Cafe. About a month back on a field trip with Marysa I was talking to one of the rangers about composting. Telling him about my composting brown thumb. He mentioned when he was in the peace corps it was easy to teach people how to compost with worms and I might try that. There is no turning or aerating, no smell and the worms do all the work. We just feed the worms.

Here are some pictures of day one. Hopefully this is as easy as the ranger told me. I suppose we will find out soon enough and I'll let you know either way if it's a success and I'm feeding my beloved veggie garden with it or if I will be a Miracle grow urban farmer giving up my dreams of composting.

If you look hard you will see the red wrigglers in their first meal of coconut hull peat moss brick. They get this the first few days to get use to their new environment.

The worms live in tray 1. The cardboard packaging is under the coconut hull to prevent the worms from dropping down into the drainage tray underneath the cafe.

This is Ozzy checking out what I'm doing.

The Cafe not fully assembled.

Here it is set up in the shade away from the afternoon sun so our little worm friends don't dry out.

Wish me luck!