Worm Bin Diary

Yesterday I decided we need a worm bin. Having done some research on the differences between compost piles, worm bins and worm tubes, I'd narrowed my first food scrap receptacle to be a worm bin, either built from reclaimed wood (such as pallets, or planks), or a layered bin used from reclaimed buckets with holes in the bottom. I opted for the layered bins, as it just seemed easier. Reclaimed buckets are easy enough to find. I suggest your local freecycle community or your local nursery. These buckets will already have holes in them. No need to buy something when there is yet another fabu use for the 5 gallon nursery bucket.


This morning I mentioned my idea to our landlord and he gave me about 8 buckets, all saved in the gardening shed from previous plant homes and all of various sizes. There was a larger set of 4 seemingly random buckets and a few uniformly-sized buckets.


I am using the larger buckets, since I already have a lot of food scraps accumulated and saved from the compost pile for my new worm bin. I wonder if their unevenness will cause a problem down the road...? Out came the bowls of food scraps and into the 4 tiered bucket tower.


The way that the layer bin works is that the newest food scraps go in the top layer, and in our case, the first layer. Red worms are dumped in, and they go to town. Eat eat eat! As they eat the rotting food, they poop. The poop, or worm castings, is a luscious black dirt that your plants will love! As these guys are doing their thing, they will always go UP for more food, and it is our job to feed them with delicious plant kitchen scraps (they LOVE fruits and veg, breads, grains, cereal, coffee grounds and filter, tea bags, egg shells, and brown matter, such as cardboard, paper and dried leaves. They HATE meat, dairy, oils and fats, and feces) On to the next bucket, where more food scraps are added. The worms will crawl up through the holes in the bottom of the bucket and start eating the newer food, as they've turned the previous bucket into castings. And again, and again, until you have a 4 bucket rotation. Ideally, the entire process will be timed as such that when the top bucket is full and ready to cycle through, the bottom bucket will be all full of amazing castings. Additionally, if all goes according to plan (fingers crossed) the bottom bucket will also be vacated of all of its biological organisms, which are munching on the food above. Take the your bottom bucket full of worm castings and sprinkle it on some very lucky plants, or grow your saved seeds in it. Now place the newly emptied bucket on top and start filling with food scraps. And thus goes the worm bin cycle!

As previously stated, I chose the 4 larger buckets of varying size. My thought is that MAYBE I'll be able to dump them if necessary as I go. The smaller buckets just look so...small. We'll see!


After I got my bins and dumped in my food scraps, I left for Sustainable Fairfax. They have a very healthy worm bin and I wanted some of their worms, as they very generously offer them. I brought a hummus container from my recycling and started my journey.


When I got to Sustainable Fairfax I took my bracelets and rings off and dove into the earthy wooden chest in their backyard. Opening the box was exciting. Inside was a city, with everyone hard at work. On the top were soft roly polies, some the biggest I've ever seen, crawling on the cardboard egg crates and paper, tea bags and carrots, biodegradable bags and worm castings. Most of it was soil. Digging past the top layer and the roly polies are small banana slugs. Banana slugs? Who knew! Below the slugs were the red worms, quickly descending away from my grasp. They could sense my hesitation. It gave them a head start in our game of hide and go seek. Castings and as many little worms as I could wrangle went into my little plastic tub.


When I got home, I inspected my bounty and was very surprised to see how many colorless white baby worms were tangled in with my larger worms. And 2 medium sized roly polies, plus one itty-bitty baby roly poly were all visible also. The castings and critters got dumped into the bottom (currently only) bin so they could do their thing, eating my food scraps and pooping amazing soil as we speak. More food scraps, and soon more rotating tiers. News to follow!


Great links from "Edible Marin and Wine" and WSU on composting and worm bins!

http://www.ediblecommunities.com/marinandwinecountry/summer-2011/composting-101.htm
http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/Redwormsedit.htm
http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/easywormbin.htm
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Own-Worm-Compost-System

Making Stock

The pot smells woody, earthy, fresh and alive. Vibrant red beet stalks with leaves of green and yellow, veined and speckled red. Tops, bottoms, outsides, and innards of vegetable misfits and castaways come together to make tonight's stock.

The frozen bag smells like beets, an amazing smell. In my freezer lives a gallon ziplock freezer bag, for the purpose of collecting veg scraps. Today it is brimming with chard stalks, beet greens, garlic and onion papers, beautiful stems of blue/green dino kale, pepper tops, innards, and seeds, onion ends, mint stems, and carrot corners. A delicious medley of vegetable goodness, frozen at the peek of their freshness. And tonight I'm topping off the pot with the contents of the bones bag from the freezer: a carcass of a whole Terra Firma chicken that Eric BBQ'd to beer can chicken perfection, and a few pork chop bones from the week before. Waste not, want not.

The contents of the stuffed veg bag and the bones bag joined the fresh veg clippings from dinner in our largest stock pot, and was topped of with water and sprinkled with (not enough) salt and pepper. I can't wait to see how this turns out! Since opening the bones bag, I've been mondo hungry. The smell of those BBQ'd chicken bones (even frozen) are mouth watering. That chicken, was quite honestly, the best chicken I've ever eaten. Seriously. Mmm...the house is gonna smell good tonight!

Before putting the top on the stock pot and letting the veg scraps, unwanted bones, water, and salt and pepper do their do, I took one final look at it. It was a cacophony of colors. Red beet stalks and pink water. The beets have an amazing ability to color everything around them. Green pepper tops from the pardons and the green-yellow-orange pepper tops of the bells. The aforementioned green and yellow beet leaves speckled and veined with red deliciousness. White and purple garlic papers. The chicken and pork bones, intertwined in a black and brown and white and pink and red tangle of perfectly prepared and picked apart meals of last that have no part gone to waste. And finally, dotting the party like confetti, the white and brown pepper seeds.

I love making stock. I freeze it in 2 and 3 cup portions as well as in ice cube trays. This allows for easy use of this liquid gold. The reasons to make your own stock are varied. I use it for nearly everything. Every time I make rice or quinoa or beans, I use stock in lieu of water. An amazingly delish boon. I have to get creative with the uses for it, so nothing goes to waste. Sometimes I make soup with it and freeze nothing!

The way I collect all the castaway goodies is typically in two 1-gal ziploc freezer bags. In one bag I keep organic veggie scraps, and in another I keep the cooked bones from the local, pastured meat we get. I make sure not to cross contaminate them, and I reuse the bags over and over and over and over and over again. The bags have a home in my freezer and I never cook without pulling my veg bag out. Once a bag is full, I dump it into an empty stock pot, cover with water, and salt and pepper to taste, and let simmer until the house smells amazing. I don't cook with a timer. In fact, there's no clock in our kitchen. I cook by smell. When it smells ready, it is.

Now comes the fun part. In my sink, I place my next largest pot with a sturdy strainer/colander and slowly pour the veggie and (or not) bones broth mixture, and separate out just the broth. If I'm making veggie stock, I dump all the leftover veg in the compost pile. Our compost doesn't get hot enough for the bones, although many do.

Next I freeze it in small, easy, serving sizes. Now any time a recipe calls for, or will benefit from, stock I have have a plethora of a homemade, more flavorful, FREE, waste cutting way to deliver.

Enjoy! Please experiment and see what works best for you. I hope you get as much pleasure making, using, and eating your homemade stock as I do.

Tips for making stock:

Good things to throw in stock: Peels of onion, garlic, pepper, celery, chard, collards, kale, root veggies tops and peels.

Don't use: Potatoes, fruit, lettuce.

Can use bones and veg or just veg. The more you add, the more flavors will meld together for a symphony of deliciousness. If your stock isn't flavorful enough for you, then boil it down to condense the flavor.