Worms Worms Worms

Belgian Nightcrawlers

2011-08-19T20:18:00.000-07:00

We have had our Belgian's on sale for awhile and we've run out of worms to sell. We've got to keep the rest of what we have to replenish our stock over the winter. We have plenty of Red Wigglers though.

Chickens and Green Beans

2011-08-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

I can't get my green beans to grow :( My chickens keep getting in the garden boxes and they like the green bean leaves. Oh well, tomatoes, lettuce, radishes, carrots and onions are doing well.

Grasshoppers are crazy horrible this year, although the chickens do love them! It's so funny to watch the girls (that's what we call our flock of 7 hens) chase the grasshoppers. There is one chicken that gets upset when another hen gets a grasshopper, she tries to take it away.

We are getting eggs almost every day from at least three of them. They lay little ones and big ones. The big ones have all been doubled yolked so far. I'm sure it will all even out eventually. It's pretty funny looking in the egg cartons.

What a busy month!

2011-07-30T16:31:00.000-07:00

I can't believe July is one day away from being over. It flew by. Chuck's been up to the Pioneer Park Farmer's Market every Saturday and has had a great summer so far. We have also changed the look and feel of our website Check it out! I have blogging capabilities from the new website, I'm debating whether to switch over. I might post in both places, just haven't decided yet.

Yesterday Chuck had to opportunity to be on the local Noon news. He did great and as soon as I can get the video online I will post it.

Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Wow, our little garden

2011-07-02T08:29:00.000-07:00

is doing so good. Just about everything we've planted is coming up. In our first box, we planted green beans, lettuce, carrots. They have all surfaced. In our second box (planted 4 days later) we have lettuce and radishes showing. We have a couple of tomatoes starting on those plants as well. Yes, we have casting on everything . . .what else would we use?

We have lettuce

2011-06-27T21:21:00.000-07:00

We finally got our little garden planted. 1/2 last Thursday and the other 1/2 this morning. As I was watering what was planted last week, I found lettuce poking through the soil. I was soooo excited. The package said 7-10 days but it poked up on 4.

The Farmer's Market Has Begun

2011-06-15T17:46:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday was the opening day of the Salt Lake City Farmer's Market at historic Pioneer Park. Chuck and Makiya has a great time meeting up with our customers and providing them with worm castings and worm tea. We had a large number of orders for Red Wigglers as well. If you are wanting worms, feel free to give us a call (435)558-0826 by Wednesday proceeding the market you would like to pick the worms up at. We don't bring worms to the market unless they have specifically been ordered. This will help keep our worms healthy and happy.

For our customer's convenience, new this year at the market, we now take credit/debit cards right there at the market.

We are also in the process of updating our website to accept credit/debit cards without having to go through paypal. There will be a neat little shopping cart that we hope you fill up with our wonderful products. In the meantime, paypal is still available and we can also take your credit/debit card information over the phone. We accept Visa, Mastercard and Discover.

Happy gardening!

Getting Ready

2011-05-28T16:21:00.000-07:00

Well, it is time to start getting ready for the Salt Lake Pioneer Park Farmer's Market that starts in a few weeks. Harvesting and everything that goes along with that is going to fill the next two weeks at our place.

It's time for the Natural Resource Festival

2011-05-04T14:46:00.000-07:00

Hey, if you live in the area, it's time for the annual Natural Resource Festival at the SVC. Chuck will have a booth there and I'm sure there will be alot of other fun things for the kids to see. The Richfield Spring Home and Garden Show is this weekend as well. There's always fun at these two events at the Sevier Valley Center Friday and Saturday this week. No entrance fees.

So now what?

2011-04-24T19:25:00.000-07:00

Wondering what to do with all those egg shells from the yummy colored eggs? Throw them in your food processor and grind them up, then put them on your worm beds. Worms will love you!

Got Garden?

2011-04-21T14:52:00.001-07:00

The answer here is no.

I did go to a fun little gardening class on Wednesday night. There were some really fun ideas that I want to try. One of them was growing potatoes in a 5 gallon bucket (or even a garbage can). You plant your potato(s) in the bottom. When the plant(s) has grown about 8-10 inches you bury 1/2 of the plant with dirt. You keep doing this until you reach the top of the can. At the end of the season you dump the can/bucket upside down and it is full of potatoes.

The second idea was a sala bucket garden. This once again is done in a 5 gallon bucket. Drill drain holes in the bottom as well as a larger hole to put your tomato plant through. You will want to put some of the meshy screen you buy to keep out weeds in the bottom of the bucket to keep dirt from coming out when you water. Plant your tomato plant and then have someone hold the bucket while you dump in your dirt and then plant your peppers, cilantro, jalapenos etc out of the top of the bucket. Don't forget to top dress everything with worm castings! Then you hang it outside and you have what you need to make fresh salsa in a few months. The lady teaching this also mentioned a spaghetti sauce bucket using all the plants for the herbs you would put in your bottled spaghetti sauce.

The ladies also talked about the hanging tomato plant containers you can buy at stores and everyone said "do not use these." They aren't large enough for a good root system for your tomatoes. They all suggested 5 gallon buckets for the hanging tomatoes.

Still no garden

2011-04-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

It is already April 11th and we haven't been able to even start gardening yet. I managed to get weeds racked up to burn and the next day when we were going to burn it was way to windy. By that evening my piles of weeds were lining the fences and it has rained/snowed every day since.

The sun is shining today, but everything is still wet from the snow we got yesterday. Hopefully by Thursday (when I will actually have time again) it will be dry enough to get the weeds raked and burned.

We got baby chicks last month. They are getting so big. Can't wait for fresh eggs later this summer.

Chuck is getting anxious for things to dry out so he can get harvesting all the castings that have been accumulating over this long winter. We need things to dry out! The local news is telling us that Utah is in for some pretty bad flooding this year. I remember the flooding of 1983 when one of the main streets in Salt Lake City was turned into a river to divert all the flood waters.

Belgium Nightcrawlers on Sale!

2011-03-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

We have reduced the price on our Belgium Nightcrawlers. They normally sell for $36.00 per pound, we are selling them for the same price as our Red Wigglers . .$28.00 per pound. Give us a call 435-558-0826 or visit our website to order.

Lamb or Lion

2011-03-04T12:05:00.000-08:00

March 1st was beautiful, 50 degree weather. Today, snow again. Oh the joys of spring in Utah. We decided to build boxes for our garden this year. Can't wait for things to dry out enough to put Chuck to work doing that.

Our Belgium Nightcrawlers are on sale. Call for prices.

Gardening

2011-02-18T12:04:00.000-08:00

We are going to expand our gardening this year and would love your tips. We've always done the till up the ground and plant in rows, but we are thinking about box type gardening. What tips and tricks do you have for us? Have you done both? Which do you prefer? Why? How do you keep the dog and cat out of your garden?

Nice to have a couple of days of sunshine!

2011-02-12T18:32:00.001-08:00

The snow is melting and the mud is increasing. Worms are warming up and so are we. It was nice to go out today without heavy coats.

So much for spring

2011-02-03T06:38:00.000-08:00

Wow, talk about crazy weather. We had to deal with frozen pipes yesterday, I'm so glad we didn't have to deal with them on top of a blizzard like so much of the country. Stay warm and dream about a great garden this summer.

So Nice to see the sun!

2011-01-25T06:50:00.001-08:00

We've had some sunshine the past couple of days and it's actually starting to be light when I take our 5 year old out to the bus stop. This morning we passed right by ours and kept walking to the next one. I finished the trip around the block. It was nice to not trip on anything because I could see haha.

Aww, I couldn't wait!

2011-01-18T19:36:00.000-08:00

I have a couple of fun things we are trying this year.

First: We are having a little fun on our Facebook page. Every time we add 100 new members, we will hold a drawing (which will include ALL members). The winner each time will have their choice of a quart of Worm Castings or a pint of Worm Tea. Click HERE to join. If you have never used castings or tea on your gardens/plants, this would be a great chance to get started with this fantastic organic soil amendment.

Second: We have had several people call asking about worms for Science Fair Projects. We would love for those of you buying worms for these projects to send us a description of the project, the results and a few pictures. We will post them here and on our website: rottenapplewormfarm.com

Trying a weekly blog post

2011-01-16T08:39:00.000-08:00

Even though it's freezing cold in central Utah. Our worms are snuggled warm in their beds, doing what worms do best, eating and well . . . um, creating castings. Starting February 1st we will start taking pre-orders for Spring. Visit our website: www.rottenapplewormfarm.com for more information on contacting us for your pre-order.

Coming out of hibernation

2011-01-07T08:17:00.000-08:00

I can't decide if I'm ready to thaw out yet, or keep hibernating. I am getting so anxious for spring to arrive. This year we have set aside some money to do a new and improved garden. I'm going for a box garden and turning my back yard into a huge garden this year. With ever increasing grocery prices, we've decided that we've got the best products for a garden, it's time to expand and grow a lot of our own food to can and put aside for next winter.

We've sold a lot of worms this winter, I hope our customers have great castings for their gardens. come spring Remember though, if you don't want to raise worms on your own, we sell our castings and tea. Check out our website at www.rottenapplewormfarm.com Email us at rottenapplewormfarm@yahoo.com if you would like to be added to our mailing list and you can also find a link on our website for our Facebook page.

Update

2010-08-26T18:01:00.001-07:00

We are still at the Pioneer Park Farmer's Market on Saturdays (downtown SLC). Even though your gardens are coming to an end for this year, castings are a great way to prepare trees and shrubs for a long cold winter. Don't forget to replenish your castings around the base of trees, shrubs, flowers to give them an extra boost for winter. Great for house plants too! This is the last week to enter our free drawing for August.

Makiya singing @ county fair

2010-08-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

Makiya sang at the county fair yesterday (she's our almost 15 yo)
The wind was real bad, but you can hear her pretty good.

Farmer's Market

2010-08-06T19:38:00.000-07:00

Chuck will be at the Pioneer Park Farmer's market each Saturday during the month of August. Don't forget to entry our drawing for worm castings or tea. Mention this post and receive $2 off a 5 quart container of castings or $1 off a gallon of tea. Recycle your 5 gallon containers by bringing them back so we can use them again and receive $5 off a new 5 gallon container of castings.

Link to our website

2010-06-21T13:27:00.001-07:00

You can temporarily access our website here We are working on getting the regular link working. Our host company is slow to respond! Sorry for any inconvenience.

Our Website is temporarily down

2010-06-19T18:38:00.001-07:00

Our website is down for a little while. Sorry about that.

Chuck had a great day at the Farmer's Market.

Farmer's Market

2010-06-09T14:33:00.001-07:00

Just a reminder that the Pioneer Park Farmer's Market starts Saturday morning. Chuck will be there with lots of castings and tea.

On Facebook

2010-05-28T08:39:00.000-07:00

Find us on Facebook.

Worm Product Delivery

2010-05-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

Chuck will be in Salt Lake City on Friday, May 28th, delivering worm products. Call by Wednesday if you want a Friday delivery . .. save shipping costs!

435-558-0826 or 435-558-0825

Anyone Getting Your Garden Planted Yet?

2010-05-18T19:56:00.000-07:00

We've had so much rain here in central Utah compared to the last few years that it seems everyone is behind in planting. What about you? Do you have your garden planted? Have you used worm castings? Do you have pictures of last year's garden that you used worm castings on? If you do, feel free to email them to me at ms4kidz@yahoo.com and I'll load them up here. Make sure you include your first name and city/state.

I've Done it!

2010-05-03T18:59:00.000-07:00

I got the new website loaded. Man, the publisher I used was a pain in the neck. I used them for the last one too and that was great, but this time around they had changed it and it wasn't so great. But, it's loaded and you can check it out now.

Successful Festival

2010-04-29T13:09:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. We had a very succesful booth at this years annual Natural Resource Festival in Richfield, Utah. We let the kids plant seeds in little containers that had worm castings in them. They

L-O-V-E-D it! I've got pictures on my phone. I'll have to get them onto my computer so I can post them here.

We have restocked Olson's Nursery in Lehi, Utah, as well as, Larsen's Ace Hardware in Richfield, Utah. We're also all registered for this years Pioneer Park Farmer's Market in Salt Lake City.

We have been experiencing really nice weather lately here in central Utah, but guess what!!! Two inches of snow fell over night. Okay, so it's pretty much gone now, but it was not a pretty sight this morning. It has continued to snow on and off all day, and is expected for a few more days. Poor Chuck had to go out and turn the heat back on in the sheds.

Speaking of Chuck, he's getting geared up for harvesting next week. I'll have to get some pictures of him out slaving over the worms/castings.

We look to be able to stay the entire market this year, we had to stop early because we sold out of product so quickly. We doubled our size this past year and shouldn't have that problem this year . . well, actually, it would be nice to sell out again. . .that would mean people LOVE worm castings and can't get enough of our great organic product.

I've been working on updating our website. We've been told it wasn't easy to navigate. Hopefully by the end of next week you can find it easier to get around on.

Well, that's all the news here at our place. Hope everything is going good for our readers!

So Sorry!

2010-03-31T21:34:00.001-07:00

Wow, I didn't know I hadn't posted since December. How crazy is that! We've been so busy, I guess that is one reason.

In order to get ready for the upcoming season, we were able to double our size. We are just finishing up filling the new beds, but in 3 months those will have their first harvest.

We harvested in January and have another harvest anticipated for the end of April. Our new harvester was soooo nice. Motorized and everything. Chuck got through all the castings in 3 days rather than 3 weeks.

We have added a Facebook group if you want to join it!

Product will soon be hitting the shelves in a few stores and the Pioneer Park Farmer's market starts the middle of June.

It's working now!

2009-12-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

We got the heater fixed. Actually the heater wasn't broken, Chuck accidently reversed the wires when he hooked up the new thermostat. That was a relief.

Oh My!

2009-12-11T11:28:00.000-08:00

I totally jinxed us! The day after my last post, our heater quit working. Chuck and I spent 1 1/2 hours in 5 degree weather moving our worms from the worm shed to our heated garage. We didn't lose the worms thank goodness! The heater is now fixed, but we really, really don't want to haul all the worms back until it warms up just a bit hehe.

December - Merry Christmas!

2009-12-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

Hey all. We are getting ready for our winter harvest here in the next week or so. . .most likely the week of Christmas, since the kids will be home to help out. And let me tell you, they are so excited NOT hehe.

It is freezing here, but our worms are nice and toasty warm out in their heated shed! We've gotten about 6 inches of snow the past 2 days and now that the storm has blown over and it's a clear night, it's only about 5 degrees outside tonight (it's 9:26 pm).

Chuck spent last Thursday at the middle school teaching the 6th graders all about worms. He had 5 classes he taught. The last class has our 6th grader in it. At the end of the class the teacher was asking what everyone learned. She got to our daughter and the reply was "nothing." That got a good laugh out of the class. Later that day our daughter was at 4-H and was selected to speak at the fair next August about vermicomposting. She was pretty excited she was picked to speak.

Well, don't forget, it doesn't have to be summer to order product from us. We've been shipping things out all fall, and actually just sent castings out in the mail today for a customer.

Thanks for reading.

The Last Day

2009-08-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

Today is Chuck's last day at the SLC Pioneer Park Farmer's Market. Thank you to all those who have met him there and purchased our castings/tea/worms. We sure appreciate your business. We will have more product about the middle of October and we plan on expanding through the winter so we don't experience this problem next year. We can't believe how fast we sold out this year and how popular our castings/tea are becoming. Hang in there and we will have lots of product this spring.

Hey All . . .

2009-07-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I haven't posted in awhile. Things are still going strong at the Salt Lake City Farmer's Market at Pioneer Park. If you haven't been and you live in the area, it's definately worth the visit. Don't forget to stop by our booth and let us know you read our blog.

Thanks to the commentor

2009-06-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

of my last post, here is Olson's website.

The farmer's market went pretty good last week. We are hoping for better weather this weekend for all your shoppers.

It's just about here . . .

2009-06-09T17:34:00.000-07:00

Saturday is the opening day of the farmer's market Chuck goes to all summer long. It is at Pioneer Park in Salt Lake City. It's huge and lots of people are there selling and buying. Hope to see you there!

It's Official

2009-05-08T12:57:00.000-07:00

We have dropped the rates on our 5 quart and 5 gallon containers of Worm Castings. Our 5 quart bucket is now $15 instead of $20 and our 5 gallon bucket is $35 instead of $45. So, what are you waiting for? Chuck will be delivering in the Salt Lake City area in 2 weeks. Order now and save shipping costs.

Two New Stores

2009-05-06T17:09:00.000-07:00

We now have two new stores carrying our Worm Castings. The first one is Olson's Nursery in Lehi, Utah (they don't have a website sorry) and Cactus & Tropicals in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Busy Weekend With no End in Sight!

2009-05-04T21:31:00.000-07:00

We've got about 500 lbs of castings to deliver on Wednesday. One customer wants 300 lbs and we have two stores in SLC that are wanting to put our Worm Castings on their shelves. Chuck's worked long and hard to convince them to try it, but it took a few people actually going into the store looking for our Worm Castings to convince the store owners to carry our product.

Chuck and Makiya along with a boy from here in town have been busy screening castings. We are in the process of getting a new harvester, so they've had to screen everything by hand 2x's. It's been quite a project with me having to bake castings all day yesterday and today and I still have about 50 lbs to bake tomorrow. We bake them for about 15 minutes to kill any worms or other little creepy crawly things so people don't open their containers and find bugs crawling around. They won't hurt your plants, but people usually get a little nervous finding bugs in their castings.

Well it's getting late and our little guy is finally tired (he took a long nap today), so it's finally time for bed! Yeah!

Shhhh it's a secret for now

2009-05-01T19:43:00.000-07:00

but we have decided to lower the prices of our Worm Castings this summer . . .well, starting soon. We now produce enough that cost wise we can afford to sell them cheaper . .which will help our customers grow fantastic gardens this summer at an even more affordable price. Watch for the "real" announcement soon.

Natural Resource Festival

2009-04-28T05:42:00.000-07:00

The Natural Resource Festival this year was a success. Lots of people came through and learned a lot about Vermicomposting. This first picture is of Chuck and our booth.
Here's the view along one of the walls across the arena from us. The last two years the event has been held at the Sevier Valley Center on the mezanine. On the floor is a Home and Garden show going on at the same time. There is also an art show going on at the same time. It's nice that they've moved it all into one building.

Our kids had a blast too. We hung out there Thursday after school and then again on Saturday. The pictures are all from Saturday.

This contraption spins around, sideways, upside down etc. Shayla was pretty freaked out and lasted all of about 2 minutes. None of my other kids would even attempt it.

This next picture is courtesy of Capitol Reef National Park's booth.

The Hoogle Zoo booth this year had a King Snake and this Tortoise. Joshua absolutely loved hanging out with the Tortoise. At one point he and Shayla went out and picked danilions to feed it. He loved them.

Chuck is always looking for funny hats. He bought this one from Oriental Trading. It's a hamburger! Cool huh.

This was a fun booth. The fire is fake, but looked so real.

There was a petting zoo this year (if you can call two llamas, a pony a few goats and a couple of rabbits a pettying zoo). In this picture you can see one of the baby goats along with a full grown rabbit. That baby goats was the size of the rabbit. The babies were so dang cute! The mom and dad goats were only about 18-20 inches tall! I want one.

Here are a couple of the baby goats.

Here is Joshua petting the shetland pony. He had a lot of fun at the petting zoo.

Here is the last picture of the festival. At the end someone at another booth was taking the number off the wall and stuck it on Joshua. Then a whole bunch of other people started doing the same thing. He looked so funny walking around with all the numbers on him.

Well, that was the festival for 2009. It had a great turn out and we had a wonderful time.

Recycle Utah

2009-04-12T20:01:00.001-07:00

Chuck will be doing a seminar at Recycle Utah in Park City on Tuesday evening 6:00 pm. Email us if you are interested in attending : rottenapplewormfarm@yahoo.com

New Look

2009-03-19T10:48:00.001-07:00

Hey readers . . . I've changed the look of our official website. Check it out at www.rottenapplewormfarm.com

We've changed the look of our business cards, brochures and labels and thought it would be nice to update our website to the same color scheme.

So Sorry . . .

2009-02-24T21:29:00.000-08:00

Wow, I just realized it's been 2 weeks since I last blogged here. We've started getting a few seminar/classes on our schedule for spring! The first one will be at Recycle Utah in Park City the 2nd week of April (they don't have the date set yet) and the second one is the Natural Resource Fair here in Richfield. This is attened by a LOT of students, but it is also opened to the general public. That will be held April 23-25 at the Sevier Valley Center (I think, that is where it was last year). This is always a lot of fun and has a lot of information about all sorts of topics. My girls love going to it each year.

Chuck is also planning on being at the Salt Lake City Farmer's Market each Saturday this summer.

We have still been busy with this last harvest. We just about have everything done for the ton of castings being sent to Idaho in March, and now we are busy getting worm beds fed, and filled, so that in May we can harvest again so there is product for the Market this summer. We've already had a lot of people calling to make sure we'll be there! It's alot of fun watching this little business grow as more and more people learn what a wonderful product worm castings are.

Sorry, no pictures this time.

Career Day at the Middle School

2009-02-06T05:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Chuck spent a couple of hours at the middle school talking about our worm farm. Here's a video and photo.

Wednesday, January 28

2009-01-28T10:32:00.001-08:00

Chuck hasn't done anything with the worm farm the last 2 days. He also tunes pianos and he's had to put that hat on yesterday and today. He'll be back at it tomorrow.

Sunday, January 25

2009-01-25T07:10:00.000-08:00

Wow, finally a day off. Yesterday I was gone most of the day and Chuck had Makiya out helping him. They were able to get all the left over bedding from the harvest back into the beds into the new shed, they also cut pvc pipe in half and attached it to the wood stands to make gutters for the worm tea that runs out the bottom of the beds after we water. The tea is collected into buckets and then when those are full we dump them into big garbage cans to store the tea. When it's time for the farmer's market we bottle the tea and sell it. It's a great source of nutrients, as well as, a great pesticide.

Athough it rained pretty hard yesterday, it didn't seem as muddy out there as it did the day before. That was nice, because when our dirt (which is really red clay) gets wet you sink up to your ankles!

We got a call yesterday from one of our regular customers. He's ready for his annual 200 lbs. He raises organic tomatoes and uses our castings for starting his plants in his green house. The first year he used our castings, his starts were ready for planting way earlier than normal. He was thrilled with our product. Here is an article about his farm. (The link at the bottom to his website doesn't work.)

January 22nd

2009-01-22T10:35:00.000-08:00

Oh no! Chuck was walking out to the worm shed this morning and slipped in our yucky messy mud (it's been raining). He hurt his wrist, but I must say, he's still out working, even though he's hurting pretty bad!

Wednesday, January 21st

2009-01-21T14:49:00.001-08:00

Today Chuck spent a considerable amount of time insulating the new shed. We don't want all the heat escaping out the roof! We are quite excited too, he's finished the first set of screening on the castings. We have a huge order to fill in March and we've been stressed that we wouldn't be able to fill it (1 ton!) and still have castings left over for the Farmer's Market Chuck goes to during the summer. But, he filled the 1 ton bag and we have 1/2 ton left and our new beds have enough worms that we should be able to harvest at least that much again in 3-4 months.

Tuesday, January 20

2009-01-20T11:14:00.000-08:00

Chuck delivered an aquarium full of worm bedding and worms to Shayla's class at school today. The teacher will be using it in their science class. We've provided worms for several school classes the past couple of years. The kids bring in left over lunch stuff to feed them, and they take turn watering them etc. The kids always love caring for the worm bed, and it teaches them how composting with worms really works.

Monday, January 19th

2009-01-19T12:52:00.000-08:00

I've got a few pictures and a video for you today. This fall Chuck has worked hard on building our first new worm shed. He's got it built, but as you can see we still need to get it sided. At least it's able to hold our worms now.

This is a row of beds in our new shed. We got these new beds set up a couple of weeks ago, but until Saturday there was no heat in the new shed. Now there is heat, the beds are thawed and we will be adding worms to each of these beds tonight.

On Saturday, Chuck started harvesting the beds we have in the garage. This picture is of our worm casting harvester. Chuck shovels in everything that was in a worm bed. Then it get spun and the castings fall through to the ground, newspaper, and worms and rocks, etc, fall to the end, where one of the kids push everything off into containers at the end. We will then sort through that stuff my hand getting the worms out and they will go back in fresh bedding towards the end of the week (we hope).

Here's a little video of Chuck and Makiya havesting.

In the Past

2009-01-18T09:21:00.001-08:00

Like I said, we've been farming for 4 years now. We've learned alot and changed alot of things over the years. Here are some pictures from April, 2007. I will be out this week taking current ones, but it will give you an idea of what goes into producing the worm castings.

This first pictures is my husband, Chuck and our youngest daughter, Shayla, mixing the worm bedding. They had to mix the shredded newspaper, grass clippings and, manure with water before adding it to the worm bed.

We transformed our 2 car garage into a worm shed. We set up these beds for our worms and the garage is heated in the winter and air conditioned in the summer. Worms bred best at about 60-75 degrees. The bedding that Chuck and Shayla are mixing in the above picture is put into these beds and then worms are added. In 3-5 months the worms have changed the paper to poop. Each container will have about 80 lbs of castings in it at the end of the 3-5 months.

This is our son Joshua. He was 2 1/2 in this picture and he was finally not afraid to touch the worms.

This next picture is of worm capsules (eggs). This is really up close. Most capsules are the size of a nerd candy (have you seen those?) Each capsule will have between 2-20 baby worms hatch. They take 2-3 weeks to hatch. The green capsules are new, and the redish ones are getting ready to hatch.

This picture is of two worms mating. They have both sets of sex organ, so they will both lay a fertilized egg capsule.

Starting in 2007 we particpate in the annual Natural Resource Fair put on in the area. We meet with 100's of students as well as adults each year and show them how to use worms for composting. Yes, the girls say, ewww gross and the boys want to dig in and find the worms we bring.

Welcome!

2009-01-18T08:15:00.000-08:00

I've been blogging for a long time, but that has mostly been scrapbooking and family stuff. I've decided, since it interests so many people, to set up a new blog about our family worm farm.

We live in central Utah and we have been raising Red Wiggler worms for 4 years now. This is a fantastic form of organic composting and recycling.

Worm castings (which is worm poop), is nature's fertilizer. As you follow the blog you'll be able to learn how we turn newspaper, horse manure and grass clippings into a very rich compost that can used on house plants, vegetable gardens, flower gardens, lawns, shrubs and trees. It is pretty amazing stuff!

Also, never hesitate to ask questions in the comment section.

Once again, welcome to my new blog.