Archive for the ‘How to's’ Category
Sunday, May 9th, 2010
We enjoyed Mother’s Day one day early because I had to be out of town on May 9th. I woke up to find two cute, excited girls, a wonderful breakfast and presents. My favorite present was a T-shirt that they drew on for the occasion. Each girl drew on one side and put on things that were special to them. In the evening, we went to a Mother, Daughter dance and I wore that shirt. I received a lot of compliments about it.
After breakfast, we went outside and did one of my favorite things…..worked in the garden. We normally start our garden earlier, but we were a little behind this year. In the past, I used to rototill the garden, but I feel that this is not good for the soil. What I do now is I dig out a trench where I want to plant. I then put in compost from our Dual Drum compost tumbler or from our homemade compost bin. This not only provides nutrients for the roots but needed 
air too because the soil is not compacted. We then put some of the soil that we dug out on top of the compost and plant our seeds or plants. Everything in our garden is from seed except for the tomato plants.
The girls helped me with all of this. They love to put seeds in the ground and watch them grow. We all enjoy eating the vegetables that come out of our garden. I had a wonderful day with my girls. What did you do for Mother’s Day?
Tags: black gold, compost, compost tumbler, composting, dual drum tumbler, Green Business, organic garden, tomatoes
Posted in Educational Events, Green Business, Hot composting, How to's, Kids Corner, Organic Gardening | No Comments »
Friday, February 19th, 2010
We’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?
The 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.
As 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!
Tags: European nightcrawler, red wigglers, Red worms, The Worm Inn, vermicompost, Vermicomposting, vermiculture, worm castings, worms
Posted in How to's, Worm Happenings | No Comments »
Saturday, January 16th, 2010
If you still have your Christmas tree, are you wondering what to do with it? Recycle it!
Every year we buy a live Christmas tree to put into our house. We all love to decorate and look at it. It also smells so nice. But what do you do with it when the holidays are over?
Unfortunately, many people put their used trees in the trash or burn them. This just adds to the stuff piling up at our landfills or adds to the air pollution. Many communities now offer tree recycling and provide drop off locations. They take these trees, grind them up and then compost them. Perfect! Also, the Boy Scouts of America offer to pick up trees right at your curb in many communities. All they ask for is a small donation. Most of these options are now not available due to the time of year, but there is always next year.
So, if you still have your tree, what do you do? Compost it. We cut up our tree and put it into either our homemade compost bin or our dual drum compost tumbler. The branches take a little while to break down, but they eventually do. It will all one day turn into nutrient-rich compost that you can put back into the earth.
Tags: compost, compost tumbler, composting, dual drum tumbler, Green Business, organic garden, Recycling
Posted in Green Business, Hot composting, How to's, Organic Gardening | No Comments »
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
Several months ago, we decided to put three different species of red worms together in our Gusanito worm farm bin and in a recycled plastic tote just to see what would happen. Would the worms get along? Would one species overtake the other? Would one group force another to move out and find a new home?
NO! None of that happened. The worms got along beautifully together and continue to do so. They are happily making castings and cocoons. The worms that we put in there are the red wigglers (Eisenia fetida or foetida), the European Nightcrawlers (Eisenia hortensis) and the African Nightcrawlers (Eudrilus eugeniae). The red worms in the photo from top to bottom are the African, European and Red Wiggler.
We also did this experiment for two other reasons:
1.) Because we wanted to see if the larger Euros or Africans would be able to migrate through the holes in the trays. I am happy to report that they had no problem at all. We have found all three red worm species traversing the trays.
2.) The plastic tote is the one that Dave takes to his demonstrations at schools and garden clubs. We wanted to show the kids and adults the different types of composting worms available.
Tags: African nightcrawler, European nightcrawler, Gusanito worm bin, red wigglers, Red worms, vermicompost, Vermicomposting, vermiculture, worm castings, worms
Posted in Experiments, How to's, Worm Happenings | 2 Comments »
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
We answer all sorts of vermiculture questions from our customers and I participate on vermi forums to try to help solve problems. Lately, there have been a lot of questions regarding how to get rid of fungus gnats.
Fungus gnats like to live and breed in moist environments. The big key is to maintain your bin so that you are not setting up a hospitable environment for them. Basically, you want to suppress or cut them off from the area that they like. How do you do this?
A few years ago, we had a problem with fungus gnats in our house plants. I covered the top of the dirt with sand. The sand still allowed for water to go through and some air, but the gnats couldn’t. This solved our problem. While this worked for our house plants, I don’t recommend this for your worm bin. There is an easier way to deal with this situation.
Our bins are open at the top. We cover them with burlap and an inch layer of dry shredded newspaper. Instead of burlap, you could use an old cotton t-shirt. This makes it very difficult for the fungus gnats to get to the moist castings and bedding. We also believe that the fungus gnats will “set up house” in moist cardboard. Leaving this on top of the bedding or exposed provides an ideal environment for the gnats.
Here is a comment from Erick, a fellow vermicomposter after he followed our advice:
“As it turns out it was an excellent tip. Just the t-shirt has stopped the current population from expanding and the few stragglers should be gone soon. Awesome results and in so very few days. Thanks again! Ha ha, having a swarm fly out of the bin made it pretty hard to promote the cause to people that have shown some cautious interest, but this definitely helped.”
Tags: European nightcrawler, Gusanito worm bin, Organic Pest Control, red wigglers, Red worms, vermicompost, Vermicomposting, vermiculture, worm castings, worms
Posted in How to's, Nature, Organic Pest Control | 2 Comments »
Saturday, October 31st, 2009
Periodically the Monster Worms family goes on a much needed vacation. I bet you are wondering what we do with our red composting worms while we are gone. Do we have a neighbor kid or novice come over and take care of them? NO! We prefer to let our worms go on their own vacation.
I think that our red wigglers, European nightcrawlers and African nightcrawlers like it while we are gone. They don’t get jostled around, picked at or harvested……they don’t like it when they have to leave and go someplace else.
So…..what do we do? Well, it is very simple. All we do is make sure that their bedding is moist before we leave and we feed them. We put in a little extra food too, but not too much. If they run out of food before we get back, they can eat their bedding. They can eat their castings too. They won’t starve. Every time that we have done this, the red worms have been just fine. I don’t think that they even knew we left. Has anyone out there left their worms alone for an extended period? We would be interested to hear about it.
Tags: African nightcrawler, European nightcrawler, red wigglers, Red worms, worms
Posted in How to's, Worm Happenings | 5 Comments »
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
I thoroughly believe that the sole purpose for ants on this earth is to torment me. This year they have done just that……since April. I think that we live on a huge ant hill. Perhaps that is why our city changed its name from Rivertown to Antioch years ago….because of all the ants. It’s not just us either….all of our neighbors and friends have problems with these six legged creatures.
Many years ago, I did a bad thing……I hired a pest control company at the urging of a friend of mine to help control the ants. It did help a lot, but I also noticed that we didn’t have any other bugs around either. No longer did I see praying mantises, lady bugs and butterflies. The birds left too. There was nothing for them to eat. It was very sad. I decided to engage in the ant battle without the aid of toxic chemicals once again. About six months after the pest control company stopped spraying their nasty chemicals, I started to see the good and bad bugs and the birds come back again. I guess that I’d rather battle the ants naturally than have all of those chemicals on my yard and in my body.
We recently purchased diatomaceous earth (DE). This consists of fossilized remains of diatoms, a type of hard-shelled algae. Apparently, when ants or other bugs cross over this stuff, it cuts up their bodies and they eventually die. We also use ant baits to help control the ant population. If anyone has a good idea other than building a moat around the house, I’m all ears!! I’ll post an update on how the DE works.
Photographer Steve Jurvetson. www.everystockphoto.com
Tags: Ants, Organic Pest Control
Posted in How to's, Nature, Organic Pest Control | 8 Comments »
Monday, October 12th, 2009
Periodically we remove the castings from our worm bins. Our worm bins are black plastic cement mixing tubs and they measure 2’ x 3’ x 9”. We typically feed the worms once a week and only at one end of the tub. This forces the worms to move from one side to the other. When most of the worms are at one end, we remove the castings from the opposite end and put them on a table under a light. We then form a cone out of these castings. The worms will try to stay out of the light and will travel downward away from the light. After about 15 minutes, we remove a few inches of the castings from the top of the cone. We then reshape the castings to form a cone again and repeat the process until we are left with mostly worms. We then return these worms back to their bin where we have added new bedding material.
This process can be used for the Gusanito worm farm bin or any of the tray systems. In this case, what you would do when you are ready to harvest the castings from the bottom tray is to stop feeding in that tray and only put food in the trays above it. Wait about a week or so to allow most of the worms to travel upward. Then remove this tray and dump the contents on a table and follow the instructions from the paragraph that I wrote above.
Once the castings are harvested, we normally keep them in an extra bin and sift through them to look for cocoons and worms. Our girls enjoy doing this! These are removed and placed back in their original bin or tray. You can also bury a piece of watermelon or other worm food at one end to draw any stray worms.
Tags: fertilizer, worm castings
Posted in How to's, Worm Happenings | 2 Comments »
Monday, October 5th, 2009
A few weeks ago I decided to harvest some of our “black gold” from our homemade compost bin. This bin is made out of wire fencing material and two pieces of 2 x 4. For instructions on how to make it go to: How to Make a Compost Bin.
I have this sitting in our garden area and I just move the bin to a spot right next to where it was. That way I don’t have far to go to put back in the unfinished compost. Once I have relocated the bin, I start to restock it with materials that I want to turn into compost. These materials consist of brown leaves and dead plants, yard trimmings and spent garden crops and soil from the garden.
The first thing that I do is remove the layer of uncomposted material from the top of the old pile and put it in the empty bin. Then I start layering my brown and green materials. I put in a few inches of each and top it off with a few shovelfuls of dirt. Then I add enough water so that it is damp even at the bottom of the pile. I continue this layering until I reach the top of the bin or I run out of materials to put in.
With this type of compost bin, there will always be a 3-4 inch layer of “wall” and “ceiling” that will remain uncomposted. Just remove this layer from the old pile and put it into the new bin. Underneath this layer is where all of the beautiful, nutrient rich compost will be. You’ll be amazed…..what was once leaves and old flowers is now black compost! You can apply this to your garden, plants, or lawn. Free organic fertilizer!
Tags: compost, composting, fertilizer, organic garden
Posted in Hot composting, How to's, Organic Gardening | 2 Comments »
Saturday, August 29th, 2009
At the Monster Worms household, we try to do everything as naturally and as environmentally friendly as possible. This includes cleaning. Toxic cleaners, harsh chemicals and medications get flushed down household drains every day. We all have to be more aware of what we are doing.
I can’t imagine that breathing these chemicals while we are cleaning with them is very good for us either. We have removed all of these chemicals from our household and we now only use natural cleaners. Not only are these cleaners better for us and the environment, but they are cheaper too!
The main thing that we clean with are essential oils. The two that we use the most are Lavender oil and Tea Tree oil. These oils have natural antibacterial properties. Put 8-10 drops of oil in a 1 quart spray bottle filled with water and use it to wipe down kitchen counters and cabinets. 
Be careful that your counters don’t get a build up of the oil from the spray. A few times a week I will have to use regular soap and water to remove the build up. If you have natural stone counters or floors, check to see if any of the ingredients are harmful to the stones or finishes.
Below are natural cleaner recipes that we have collected from friends. Feel free to try them yourself and pass them along to friends. Also, I will be posting these recipes and more soon on our website under “Natural Cleaners.” If you would like to add a recipe yourself, either post a comment below or email me at info@MonsterWorms.com. I would love to hear from you!
Floor Cleaner
1 gal. of Warm Water
1 tbsp. Oxygenated Bleach
Mix in a large bucket.
Clean floor as usual.
Window Cleaner
1/2 cup Water
1/2 cup White Vinegar
Mix in a spray bottle.
Spray and wipe dry with clean cloth or newspaper.
Mildew Remover
1 cup Water
1 tsp. Tea Tree Oil
Spray onto mildewed area, wipe with clean cloth.
If “bad” let sit for 2-3 minutes then wipe clean.
Stainless Steel Cleaner
1/2 Lemon
Cotton Balls
Squeeze lemon onto surface, wipe with cotton.
Copper Cleaner
Lemon
Table Salt
Cut Lemon in half.
Sprinkle lemon with salt.
Rub copper with lemon to remove tarnish.
Rinse with warm water and dry.
Toilet Cleaner
2 tbsp. Baking Soda
2 tbsp. White Vinegar
2 cups Water
2 tsp. Tea Tree Oil
(Can be used without the Tea Tree oil)
Put into spray bottle and shake.
After applying leave it on for 10 minutes.
Scrub with brush.
Wipe clean.
Tags: Green Business, Natural Cleaners, Organic
Posted in Green Business, How to's, Natural Cleaners | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
At the end of May, I dumped both sides of our Dual Drum compost tumbler. Normally I dump one side at a time, but we’ve been sooooo busy that both sides were nearly finished and needed to be restarted. Once most of materials are composted, it won’t heat up anymore and it takes a lot longer for the new 
materials to decompose. When it reaches this point, I dump it and start all over again.
We use this nutrient rich, “black gold” compost as fertilizer for our garden and lawn. The other day, we felt that our lawn needed a little “umph” so we decided to top 
dress it with the compost. Prior to having children, I would sift this compost until I had nice, fine “dirt”. I don’t have time for that anymore, besides… it was backbreaking. Now we take this compost and dump it directly onto the lawn or garden.
After we dump it, we spread it out with a rake and pick out any of the larger pieces that still need to be composted. These uncomposted pieces are put back into either our homemade bin or our dual drum compost tumbler
We continue to rake this compost until it works its way down to the soil surface. We like to leave about 1/4” of this compost on the surface of the soil. It helps to cut down on weeds, it helps to retain moisture, and it slowly feeds the lawn…..naturally! We prefer to fertilize and garden organically. There is not a better fertilizer to use than
compost from a hot compost system or vermicompost.
Tags: black gold, compost, compost tumbler, dual drum tumbler, fertilizer
Posted in Hot composting, How to's | 2 Comments »
