Post Ike

It's hard to believe October is mostly gone and and it's been a month since I returned home after staying gone for 2 weeks after Ike knocked out our power and electricity. I took my Mom and my dog and hightailed it for my brother's home in central Texas where it was high and dry and NO WIND. There were other issues there with their plumbing and central air, but at least they had water and A/C most of the time.

Ike definitely gave us some rain - I could've filled up a couple DOZEN rain barrels if I'd'a had 'em. My two are full again now, and my plants still don't need watering due to the cooler temperatures, they are not evaporating so fast. I had planned to water everything with some worm tea for fertilizer, then it rained a few days ago and I am still waiting for them plants to NEED watering before I douse them with the worm tea at the same time.

Maybe this would be a good time to talk about my worm farm.

Those first thousand worms I got about 3 months ago mus be up to 2,000 by now! They eat most of my kitchen vegetable scraps that would otherwise be flushed through the garbage disposal or tossed in the trash since I have no room for a real compost pile outside. They have made gallons and gallons of "Worm Tea" for me to fertilize my plants with regularly. My plants sure love the extra nutrients, that's for sure. I put my used coffee grounds, tea bags, left-over coffee, tips off the carrots & celery, potato skins, whatever isn't meat, dairy, or greasy, whether it is raw or cooked - the worms like the vegetable matter. I have started putting it through the blender before dumping it in the worm habitat and the little wigglers love it. They process the bits faster, too. I will dump the sludge in there and go back a little while later and there will be hundreds of worms all wiggling and writhing and rolling around in it. I usually put the food on one side of the habitat, and leave the other side fro them migrate to after stuffing themselves. There they can sleep & digest their food to their little hearts desire. Since they should be kept moist so they can breathe, putting the food through the blender with some liquid ensures there is always a source of moisture to percolate through the bedding, taking the castings and secretions with it to be dispensed as "Tea".

I wanted to do something because we go through a lot of veggies and it bothered me to see so much go down the drain and take all the wasted water with it. I had a rabbit many years ago and she always got my scraps, but I don't want another rabbit, and the worms seem like a good alternative. My husband thinks I'm nuts.

My friends who are into planting and using organic fertilizers are cheering me on beause I give them worm tea, too...that stuff costs abut $8 a gallon if you go buy it or the tea bags to make it.