1,000 worms on their way....

The thing about gardening being my main pastime.... is that it really allows you to retire sooner than those who have expensive pastimes...  AT least that is how I think about it
If golfing were my main pastime, NO way could I retire now, because life would be more expensive. Gardening is a pastime that is cheap to do, lowers the cost of your groceries, and... who knows... if you sell something at the market... BONUS 

Very wise, GWN. During our main earning years, most of us are slaves to our mortgages, but even when they're paid off, it's easy to take up hobbies and lifestyles that keep our nose to the grindstone. Being able to enjoy yourself without spending a lot of money doing it is a great quality and frame of mind to develop.

Being able to enjoy yourself without spending a lot of money

The key to success in life. 

GWN wrote:

Being able to enjoy yourself without spending a lot of money

The key to success in life. 

It's the only way to enjoy yourself when you are not too rich. I get a great kick out of doing "Frugal" well. e.g. 6 jars of organic sauekraut for a total cost of about three dollars.
The organic Bubblee in our local Mother Nature's Pantry is $8 + per jar.

Gardening and cooking are both very much like that. Cooking reasonably well is a way to elevate one of the most enjoyable parts of anyone's lifestyle -- eating well -- far above one's pay grade. One of the most attractive things to me about gardening is how seamlessly it works with cooking well to do the same thing. I can't afford to shop at pricey organic food stores, but I can afford to grow organic tomatoes and other vegetables and herbs, pick them at the peak of their flavor and texture, and cook them at the peak of their freshness. Cooking and gardening are force multipliers, so to speak, when it comes to how well you can live on what money you have.

But even if I had a high-paying job could charge enough money for my time that doing my own cooking and/or gardening didn't make much economic sense, I'd still do them anyway, because I enjoy doing them and like the idea of knowing exactly what it is I'm eating and how it got to my table.

Agree with everthing you said, Marc. We can live rich without spending much,
and we know what is in our food.  I find that I really enjoy preparing my food nowadays, especially when I grow the stuff mysefl.  I waste not a scrap.

Ditto. Those are satisfying feelings. But even the scraps are good, because I compost them! Or stick a few in a hole out behind the house I've dug to feed the worms.

LLM. I expect you know of Redworm Composting's little competition of "Two Worms".
It consists of a small container housing two worms that have not reached maturity.  The idea is to see how many worms one has at the end of certain time stages.

It could take months or up to a year.  I have  set up my container with two tiny worms, they should grow to maturity and then start producing. I have measured the bedding, the food, the water and the temperature.  Now it is a question waiting to see how they do. Taking note of food added and any other interesting thing we can think of.

Bentley will get this mass of information from us all, and then, I hope, come to some interesting conclusions.

I use metric measurements, simply because I can measure so much easier with them and I do have a tiny weigh-scale that measures in grams. In Canada we are a little more used to using metric, although I still think in imperial. I have no idea how tall I am in metric, not how heavy. Still think in pounds and ounces etc.

Yes I do know about it, think I'm listed as the 6th or 7th reply to Bentley's post.  
I'll probably treat these 6 worms with more diligence than the other 9 or 10 thousand. Yup-nothing like a little friendly scrutiny to encourage more attention to the little guys! 

Today was such a fun experience.  We have a new neighbor that's also a heavy duty gardener so we've bonded over rabbit and cow poo    He came over today to see what was up in my garden and mention he needed to buy some worms.  Well... not happening when I have plenty to share!

I dug out about 2 lbs. of worms from my worm tubes and out in my main garden where I had released a bunch of worms into a cold composting pile.  What a joy it was to gift as many worms as I initially bought and my garden won't even miss them!

Oh and in exchange I'm getting buckets of fresh chicken poo and rabbit poo!!!!

Wonderful, audrey.jeanne.  So nice sometimes not to put a monetary value on everything and I bet you will have a friend for life.

Audrey, That is such a neat story! worms for pooh

sanderson wrote:Audrey,  That is such a neat story!  worms for pooh

+1
I wasn't aware so many people knew about bentley, Kelejan and LLM. I'm not doing the test, but will follow the journey and gather the info, gleaning what I can. It's amazing what he doing out of Canada-a cold climate compared to Texas. the temp ae similar today.
it's cold at 30 degrees here in Denton, Tx. 27 degrees with snow in Castlegar, British Columbia

Hass
When I started this thread three years ago I was looking for more information and came across Bentley's site.  I've looked at other sites mostly with disappointment.  I use his site redwormcomposting.com, almost exclusively for help and inspiration.  Outside of  scientific studies, I don't think anyone out there has been as active and produced the constant volume of helpful material for online use during the past years.   Even Clive Edwards right here at Ohio State University, whose work is so often quoted, he keeps a very low public profile. That's putting it mildly. Rhonda Sherman is visible, out of North Carolina University.  One year I'd love to attend one of those annual conferences she has down there.

LLM. I haven't got the worm thing down yet. I had to stop the inbed SFG experiment because my hands were into too many things, garden wise and life. This spring I will restart the experiment . But I still haven't found an external way for harvesting them that is pleasing and easy.I looked at Bently's flow thru. it not cheap to built, but still has it challenges with harvesting.  I'm exploring one site that might achieve what I looking for that fits my personality. will post later. I'm glad he comfortable with keeping theses experiment going. He's an university research center with common people helping.
Boy, am I lazy. But you have to know your personality when you do something. I've learned a lot from bentley and have joined the WFA but haven't done anything else. I know the addition of the casting is a plus besides having worms. I have plenty of worms now, I guess from the experiment, because they are all over the beds. they'er probably feeding off the coconut coir, because I haven't did anything else besides azomite, biochar and added grass and later the mulched chips on top.

NICE, Audrey Jeanne!  What a great treat for both of you!

AtlantaMarie wrote:NICE, Audrey Jeanne!  What a great treat for both of you!

+1

Has55
It sounds like you have plenty of worm action in your beds.  Being so far up north I prefer to keep my red worm herd in the basement and transfer castings into the beds as I need them.

Are earthworms in the yard the same as composting worms?  I wanted to put a worm tube in my new SFG, but am not sure which type of worm to use.

I do have very few worms in the yard that has the SFG.  I see evidence of them periodically, but very few.  Do I use one of them (if I can find them) or should I buy composting worms from the garden shop? Or?

NanSFG
Earthworms are not the same as composting worms. Personally I wouldn't buy worms for the garden.  Your natives are already there. Hopefully you have far more than you think.   I got all the natives I wanted from a shoebox with holes in the sides. Put wet vegetable food scraps and oatmeal in it.  Put the box in a shallow hole and put a rock on top to discourage wild critters.  In a couple days I had a load of worms in there and moved those worms into the tubes with more  moistened decaying scraps. This resulted in plenty of worms in the boxes, and remember those will lay cocoons and give you more worms too and Free worm castings!  In winter the natives will burrow deeply to survive.

Yes, you can buy composting worms.  Those are surface dwelling worms and won't burrow deep like the natives in winter.  Typically freezing temps will kill adult composting worms.  Yet I've heard examples where conditions are right and they survived anyway. My guess is the survivors are mostly young ones that hatched from cocoons.  From what I've learned at redwormcomposting.com and my own experience with indoor worm bins, the youngsters are far more tolerant of adverse conditions than the adults. The only time I've purchased composting worms is for my indoor bins,
I have 10.
Since you're in Hawaii you won't deal much with frigid weather but thought you'd like the background info on cold temps anyway   Worms rock btw, Best wishes!

I've found some cocoons in my Miracle Gro and can't seem to get them to hatch.  What I've done so far is put them in a container with wet newsprint shredded with coffee grounds.  I put them under a cabinet and check on them every few days.  Is it because they were in bagged soil that they're not hatching?  Any other ideas?

Hatching of cocoons can take couple of weeks to a couple of months is what I seem to recall.  It's based on the conditions and the breed of worm. I would say you can't go wrong keeping them warm anyway and hope for the best.  Assuming of course what you collected are cocoons...right?  And not moisture beads or fertilizer, etc.   I know it sounds silly but I learned to identify cocoons just a couple of years ago.

I think so.  I looked online to see what they looked like.  And I made the mistake of squishing some.  But I guess it's possible they aren't cocoons.  I was mostly worried because they hadn't hatched in the pots to begin with.  But I guess I'll give it some more time.
Thank you.

Your welcome. That's great you are familiar with the way cocoons look.
Keep it moist and lets hope you're pleasantly surprised in a couple weeks or less.

If you are interested, go over to redwormcomposting.com   On the main page scroll down and see  tiny tub challenge  or something similar, very interesting.   It's about hatching worms out and counting how many new ones arrive over a period of time.

That's cool.  That's actually the site where I got the idea of moistening some newspaper and putting coffee grounds in there.  I read the apple core idea, but I don't have an apple core  , but drink coffee every day.