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Archive for February, 2010

The Mason Bee….The Perfect Pollinator

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Have you noticed that in the Spring and Summer there are not very many honey bees  around? Have you had trouble in the past getting your fruits and vegetables to set because of lack of pollination?

Then you need to get a Mason Bee box! Why? Well…..to attract the excellent pollinating Mason Bees!
beebox
Mason Bees pollinate our spring fruit trees, flowers and vegetables. They are named from their habit of making compartments of mud in their nests, which are made in hollow reeds or holes in wood made by wood boring insects or woodpeckers. If they can’t find these types of holes in which to build their nests, they will go elsewhere. That is why providing a bee box with ready made nesting holes for them is such a great idea!

Mason bees are very effective spring pollinators. Two or three females can pollinate the equivalent of a mature apple tree in one season! They fly in cool or rainy weather and can supplement or replace honey bees as commercial pollinators in some situations.

Unlike honey bees, they are solitary and produce neither honey nor beeswax. Since they have no honey to defend, they will only sting if squeezed or stepped on. They make excellent garden “pets” since they both pollinate the plants and are safe for children and pets.

What could be more perfect for your garden? The Mason Bee is an excellent pollinator and doesn’t sting unless it gets squished. I think that I would fight back then too!

Gusanito Worm Farm Bins are Tough!

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Black5TrayToday while doing some Spring cleaning in the garage, I knocked off our Gusanito Worm Farm Bin from its shelf. This shelf is over four feet high! Actually four feet, five inches. As I walked around the other side (I won’t tell you what words were coming out of my mouth), I expected to see a mess of broken plastic, red worms and castings all over the place. To my surprise, what I saw instead was our five tray Gusanito standing upright! The only thing askew was the roof. It was lying on the floor.

tuffgusThis Gusanito dove head first into some boxes, did a loop, a full twist and landed on its feet three feet to the right.  I think that it deserves a gold medal. Amazing…..the only damage that I could see was a slight turned up corner on the front left “foot” and the side next to the foot had a very slight bow to it. It is barely noticeable. I checked on the red worms. They acted as if nothing had even happened……maybe it was all just a daydream……..

The Worm Inn — An Innovative, Easy, Fun Way to Vermicompost!

Friday, February 19th, 2010

worminngrnWe’ve added a new, fun product to our website that I’m sure you will agree is the easy way to compost with red worms (vermicomposting). It’s called The Worm Inn and it is really simple to use. What’s easy about it is that once you have it set up, all you have to do is add to the top and the castings come out the bottom. What could be easier than that?

Brown 2The Worm Inn utilizes the “continuous flow” method of vermicomposting. What this means is that the worms constantly work upward as food is added all the while leaving behind their castings. These castings will settle toward the bottom of the breathable bag.

To get it all set up, all you have to do is this:

  • Place bedding material in the bottom to absorb moisture
  • Then a layer of food scraps
  • Put in the rest of the food scraps
  • Add a thick layer of more bedding
  • Finally, spray down the whole system with water because the contents need to remain moist

Only add about 2-3 lbs. of food per week. The worms will eat their bedding material too. Be sure to cover any new food you add with existing or new bedding material. This will help to prevent attracting fruit flies.

jse_WI1As the system settles, the worms move upward, digesting the microbial waste of the food This results in the castings, a nutrient rich fertilizer. These castings are left below as the worms constantly move upward toward more food.

After several weeks, the castings are ready to be used and are collected from the bottom of the bag. To open the bottom of the bag, loosen the toggles. Make sure that you have placed a container below to catch the castings. Tighten the toggles when no more castings come out or when you start to see bedding material.

This “continuous flow” of regularly adding food scraps and bedding, and then harvesting the castings from the bottom makes indoor composting practical and fun for anyone.

You should try it…I think you’ll really like it!

Red Worms in the White House?

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

I recently read an article about First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign which was designed to help parents deal with and eliminate childhood obesity. In this article she talked about the organic garden she set up on the White House lawn and how important fresh fruits and vegetables are in our diets.

Back in August, actually on President Obama’s birthday, I happened to be in Washington, DC and I had the opportunity to visit the White House. (I didn’t get past the black wrought iron fence though. :) )  I walked all the way around the grounds and I got a glimpse of this organic garden.
WHgarden
All of this got me to thinkin’ though, do they do any composting? If the garden is organic, what do they use for fertilizer? And what about all of their food scraps? Do you think that they throw them out?

I have a couple of great ideas for them…..they could buy a bunch of our Dual Drum or Original Compost tumblers and compost all of the garden waste, shrub prunings, grass clippings and fallen leaves. Then inside they could put a whole row of our Gusanito worm farm bins next to the bowling alley. All of their food scraps could be put in them for the red worms to eat.
White-houseMW
If they did this, they would have all the organic compost and worms castings that they would need for their garden. They would also be diverting a bunch of “garbage” from going into a landfill.

So what do you think First Lady Obama? Red worms in the White House?

Running “A-Fowl” in Brentwood, CA update

Friday, February 12th, 2010

It looks like Kimberly Kennedy’s feathered friends, Henny and Penny, lost their bid to remain in Brentwood. Last Tuesday the city council members voted to kick them out of the city unless they find a home on a lot of at least 20,000 square feet.
ecct0127chickens
Where will they go? Will they cluck for anyone else besides Kimberly? Will they end up on someone’s table for dinner? Oh my….. Poor chickens.

Maybe we should bring over a few of our red worms for a special treat for them. That should cheer them up.

Photo credit:  Sherry LaVars/BayAreaNewsGroup

Cleantech Industrial War…….is the US losing?

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

The United States, once a leader in global technology, is slowly losing ground to other countries. A letter recently was sent to U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu by Silicon Valley executives, including former Intel CEO Andy Grove, to “sound the alarm bell to make America aware of how rapidly other nations, particularly China, are moving on clean energy.” The letter further states, “Unless we move quickly and commit substantial resources on a sustained basis, we risk becoming an energy also-ran, and risk developing a new dependency.”

In the 1980‘s, the governments of Denmark, Germany and Spain started policies and incentives to jump-start cleantech enterprises. John Denniston, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers said, “China is doing it. Europe is doing it. If we don’t take the lead, instead of importing oil, we will be importing advanced technologies.”  Here is one more scary quote “ Unless there’s a dramatic shift in national policy in the United States, the road to success in cleantech most likely goes through Beijing,” said Matthew Lewis, spokesman for the San Francisco office Climate Works Foundation.
solarpanel
To read more about this, click here to see the article in the Mercury News.

It sounds like the U.S. needs to get in gear and stop exporting our technology overseas.   Cleantech businesses right here need to be supported by our government.

Why am I writing about this? To make you more aware of what is going on and to say that I feel that we can all do something to help. Two years ago we had solar panels installed on our roof to supplement our electrical needs. This year we only paid $58 for one years worth of electricity! We definitely reduced our carbon footprint. NextEnergy in Concord, Ca did the installation and we highly recommend them. By the way…..if you use us as a referral, we get a $250 gift card!

Here at Monster Worms, we recycle and compost everything that we can and therefore only a small amount goes into our garbage can. Almost all of our light bulbs are CFLs, extra  insulation is in our attic, we have dual pane windows and our cleaning is done with natural cleaners. If we each do a little to conserve, use clean energy, recycle, etc., our world will be a cleaner, greener place. What do you do to help? Would you like to share?

Photo credit:  LiPo Ching, Mercury News (BayAreaNewsGroup)