Applestar's 2016 Garden

[applestar]

Not much going on out there, but it's definitely warming up and the "Deep Freeze" is over -- not expecting temperatures below 20s from here on out.

Here is one of my garlic beds where the Sentinel -- pruned and tied into columns/cordons -- Cherry tomatoes were planted last year. It seemed like garlic would be safe here even though this is one of the only few beds that are not protected with rabbit fence (one dashed off when I approached another unprotected bed so they are already out and about, and HUNGRY)

Back: Tzan Turban, Middle: Russian Giant Marble Purple Stripe, Front: Georgian Crystal Porcelain.

[applestar]

I got some broccoli starts and germinated/sprouted peas planted

I dug up these strawberry plants last fall to overwinter in the garage V8 Nursery, thinking they are White Soul Alpine strawberries I had grown from seeds last spring, then planted out, but they are growing HUGE and SENDING OUT RUNNERS, which probably means they aren't and I accidentally dug up one of the other varieties.

...and yes those are some onion bottoms I snuggled in there a while back.

We've had a couple of frosty mornings in the front yard, but I hung the basket on a hook outside a SE facing window that is normally reserved for hummingbird feeder and viewing, so it will probably be protected from the extremes.

...and the Shiitake logs I inoculated last spring are really responding to the rainy weather we're experiencing



Subject: Mushroom Gardening?

[ButterflyLady29]

Looks good. I've never had rabbits sample the garlic greens, not even when they devoured a blueberry bush right next to the garlic.
Did you use a plastic liner inside that coir fiber pot?

[applestar]

My garden is waking up. I have some small pots of things on the patio that were not adequately marked. These were blank pots in the winter and I vaguely remembered they were to be saved and not cleaned out, but I couldn't remember what I'd planted in them. Even after they started growing, I had no clue... Then I looked at my big Echinacea and remembered These must be the ones I started from seeds last spring

I planted some of the broccoli and peas.
The peach tree is starting to bloom -- so of course there is a forecast for 27°F which could mean as low as 24°F in my garden. I hope the blossoms won't be blasted.

I also started a fresh tray and set up the vermicomposter. It's in a protected SW facing corner of house and garage outside. I'm not sure if I should cover it for tomorrow night....

[applestar]

This year's "Sunflower House" (SFH) and "Sunflower House Extension" (SFHX) beds

the compost bin used to be in the middle of this bed

I planted all of the remaining pre-sprouted peas in the SFH today.

Subject: 2016 -- starting seeds and cuttings for the new season

Here's an example of how the peas pre-sprouted in the clear egg cartons turned out. I planted all of the rest today since for the last three or four days, they were needing twice daily care to make sure they didn't get dried out in the sun or drowned when it rained. I'll post elsewhere with more details about how I'm planting them this year.

I'm using a single mounded row for each variety, except for the three 5 ft and taller varieties which were planted under the CRW panel trellis. I also sowed carrot seeds among the peas, and rutabaga seeds along the back. My plan is to plant pre-sprouted corn in the trenches later so they can be "Hilled".

I ended up with one left over mounded row, so I planted it with cabbage or cauliflower (Not labeled, don't remember ) seedlings.


The SFHX is the other garlic bed. Where I planted tiny bulbs which didn't make it through the winter, I planted the WallaWalla onion and Shallot seedlings I started in January, and I had some onion set-sized harvest last year that sprouted, so I planted those along the far right.

Plants slipped from the container and ready to separate.

[applestar]

Swale/paths are working as expected after an overnight deluge:

You can see the silty water resulting from the rain stirring up all that clay subsoil I scraped down to and forked/fractured.

[applestar]

I'm hurting today! -- Moved and re-piled the winter compost pile. Old location was next to the blueberry bed, new location is next to the columnar apple tree where a new bed is being planned. Filled an end-over-end tumbler bin with half to mostly finished ingredients from the pile, which nearly filled it, then added about 6 inches of dry leaves to counter the sopping wet condition of the ingredients. -- hoping the drying tendency of the tumbler plus the elevated, non-ground contact position of the tumbler (no heat loss to the cold wet ground) would be beneficial.

I put the tumbler in the gap between the apple tree drpline and the VG garden so any leachate will help to add fertility in the area. When finished the compost will be immediately available for using in the garden beds.

I put the second tumbler on the other side of the house in a new raised bed I'm setting up. I'll start filling this one with new ingredients -- mostly weeds and debris from this part of the garden, which will allow the existing compost pile for this area to be finished without any more fresh ingredients being added.

[applestar]

This year's outer Apple Guild garlic bed:

image.jpeg (47.13 KiB) Viewed 4186 times

RIght: Tzan Turban, Middle: Russian Giant Marble Purple Stripe, Left: Georgian Crystal Porcelain.

[imafan26]

I love that you plan your garden out every year. Mine is look in the refrigerator; spend an hour going through the seeds. Sort out what is in season and sort that into what is possible to plant now. Then I go out with the seeds to find that I don't have enough space for all of them so, I have to re select. Once the nursery bench is full, and the plants are grown then there is more germinated than I expected or none at all. I have so much space to put this in. Now, I have to find homes for the rest.

What is the actual size of your garden? I have seen the view from the window but I have no idea of the scale of things.

[j3707]

Nice to see your progress applestar... I like the mini hill/swale paths.

[applestar]

Got some radishes and lettuces and purple Vienna kohlrabi sown in the new raised bed on VGD side. Scraped and dug up the path on VGC side and filled it with all the weeds cleared from the beds. Some of the pure blue clay subsoil went into the raised bed mix in walnut sized lumps.

Topped up the knee high VGA raised bed. I previously planted the section under the window with Solstice broccoli. Sowed some Iceberg A lettuce seeds along one side. Thinking of putting hoops over this bed and covering with floating cover to moderate the temperature and protect the broccoli from cabbage whites (I saw my first one of the season yesterday ) this bed will be solid 4 ft x 4 ft of corn later.

I'm trying a mixture of potting mix, coir, PBRH (parboiled rice hulls) and sand-sized DE to cover the radish and lettuce seedbed.

I'm thinking I will sow/plant non-eating ornamental and beneficials attracting flowers in the high raised beds this year. Maybe some extra trailing type nasturtiums, too. I scattered some old marigold seeds, but I may end up adding some more soil mix

Some of the Limba broccoli and Early Burpeana peas transplanted in a mounded bed surrounding the rain garden mini rice paddy.

Organic short grain sweet brown rice from H-mart is starting to germinate

[applestar]

In addition to writing in my garden journal, I'm going to try making these picture collages of the main tasks I've done each day. It's getting so busy, and I'm maniacally gardening -- I went outside four times today -- first three times, coming in exhausted and saying THAT'S IT FOR TODAY. Fourth time, I had to talk myself down -- "Look away... Nothing to see... Nothing to do... Go inside... Have something to eat....."

But the unplanned extra tasks I'm getting done (Which I guess is a good thing) means I'm having trouble keeping track and remembering what I did. Hence the collage to remind me so I can write everything down later.

1. Fertilized blueberries and started to add wood shaving mulch
2. Fertilized Apple Guild garlic bed and sweet cherry espaliers against the fence
3. Fertilized overwintered baby carrots
4. Fertilized Peas
5. Weeded, fertilized, distributed central finished/vermicompost, forked, and prepped SF&H for planting potatoes in E and W beds and Greens in the S bed
6. Weeded. fertilized, distributed central finished/vermicompost, forked, and prepped AC bed for planting potatoes. Fertilized strawberries in each cinder block hole.
7. Weeded espalier row and trench composted and papered/cardboarded the swale to widen the espalier fruit tree bed. (Not pictured but filled the compost tumbler in the new raised bed along the same fence with unfinished compost from the SFH bin)


....don't worry I won't post and bore you all with this kind of thing every single day. I just thought I would illustrate with today's doings.

[applestar]

Started out this morning reaching for this pile of used Spoonzips, thinking I would clean up. When I picked up a couple to see how bad they look, I discovered a seedling growing in the middle of the pile. It turned out to be Fred's Tie-Dye which had some germination issues, so I was pretty stoked.

Also started the rice so I will have seedlings to transplant by last frost, and got the nasturtium and gobo seeds pre-soaking.

Now, we've talked about how you should really get certified seed potatoes to plant rather than using the grocery store potatoes.... So, I don't recommend doing what I'm doing, but when *someone* has shoved a bag of potatoes to the back of the pantry until THIS is going on by the time I discover them, what is a gardener to do? The extra long ones are actually tiniest tubers from last year's harvest that I meant to save more carefully for this year's seed.

I did also buy a few seed potatoes -- I couldn't resist the old stand-by Yukon Gold and this Purple Majesty.

I decided to try giving them a bit of protection -- as usual, I'm trying out four different methods

[applestar]

Three lavender seedlings from last year have managed to survive the winter in the Kitchen Garden outside. I'm trying to ground-layer that extra long stem.

The lumpy, crumbly texture and black color of the surface soil are due to night crawler and earthworm casting mounds.

4th seedling was so tiny and shallow-rooted that I wasn't confident, and I overwintered it in the garage V8 Nursery. But it's been outside on the patio table since last month.


Sowed a bunch of flower seeds today:

Sowed these in the VGD PSHRB

Zinnia, Candy Cane saved
Cleome, Violet Queen
Cleome, Rose Queen
Cleome, Cherry Queen
Dianthus, Victoriana; Dianthus, Lemon Fizz; Sage, Lady in Red?
Nasturtium, Fordhook mix

[j3707]

I like your spoon plant labels!

[applestar]

Best part is they are "free" -- well, sorta... They just grab a handful and puts them in the bag when DH buys ice cream at the ice cream shop. When he gets home, he puts the ice cream in the freezer and hands the bag of spoons to me

I'm starting to fill in the VG Garden map

[j3707]

Edited....I often keep the plasticware I use when I buy lunches, this would be a great way to use them. What program do you use to build your garden map? I have considered doing something similar...but not sure I want to buy a garden-specific program.

Btw, I have an Enterprise apple next to my Williams Pride...Looks like I will get my first crop from it this year.

[applestar]

I'm using Apple's iOS version of Number's on an iPad.

Here's a blurb I wrote about it before --

Subject: Best comprehensive app or website for edible gardening?

I do a lot of my planning using iPad Numbers. I seem to be opening that app a lot right now. It has some unique capabilities that is great for sketching and planning the garden beds. It's spreadsheet functions are great for calculating and tracking date field data like days to germination and harvesting.

But I have ended up creating three different projects customized to different requirements, and Numbers can't reference each other's cells or tables or sheets (I don't know if that's different on the desktop version). I'd like to be able to make changes/corrections in one and have the others reflect that.

It has some other limitations: I need It to be able to manage series of nested sort parameters. For tracking some complex information, I need a relational database that can handle the 3-D and maybe even 4-D correlations and be able to handle multiple associated images both local and weblinks -- that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I'm playing with a home inventory app right now to see if I can modify the parameters. I also need a drawing app that can handle more elaborate drawings than just fixed geometric shapes, handle layers and group objects.

I can post examples screen shots if you would like to see.

They've since made some improvements including better sorting capabilities and ability to group objects. I really like being able to place different tables/spreadsheets as objects. It also lets me import photos and crop and size them so I can keep progress snapshots of the beds and seedlings.

You must be excited about the apples bearing fruits. My Enterprise is just starting to develop flower buds and a few are starting to show color.

[applestar]

Here's an experiment. Someone here mentioned that you can plant potato eyes/skin cut out during meal prep and grow potatoes, so I decided to try by cutting a generous chunk around the eyes, deep enough not to cut up potential growing buds, and planted them in this ice cream tub along with onion bottoms during the winter. I kept the tub in the garage "Siberia" which has a shoplight that is kept on 24/7, partly for warmth, and is located in the uninsulated portion of the garage near the far car door and can get down to mid-20's. Then I put the tub outside since the weather had warmed up enough for the onions --forgetting completely about the potato eyes/skin. So I wasn't really expecting much, but to my surprise, I found all these growing a few days ago... Maybe last week.... I remember now, the potato eyes had sprouted outside and were growing quite a bit when we had a severe freeze warning and luckily spotted the sprouted potatoes and brought them back inside

I decided to plant them today. So I gently shook off the soilmix and took some pictures. As you can see, the potato eyes had grown some respectable-looking looking plants and impressive root system. I buried them in a trench with the top-most leaves barely showing and covered with some leaves, the put that clear lid over the center to keep them warm and hopefully protect from frost.

[applestar]

Can you believe my mom was going to throw this plastic cylinder away? It used to be part of a bird feeder but it got knocked down and broke.


...I'm hoping that by giving it some protection and warmth, this later planted broccoli seedling will catch up to two others that I planted out earlier.

[Mr green]

Those kind of things are perfect for that. Specially in UK i have seen is very common with glass domes they put on early sows of lettuce and kale plants mostly. Those usually requires that you remove them when it heats up during daytime. This one while being open on the top if is not scorching hot can likely stay on during the whole day.

Reusing beats recycling! And its funny i was second hand shopping the other day and i found some similar objects that i thought could be used for this, but they were a bit to pricey for me. So maybe next time, its getting to late to have good advantage of them.

[applestar]

Saturday's doings --

- Planted the biggest hearty onion plants. Made bunches of the skinniest and skinny and just stuck them in the soil at the near end of the row. It's been a week since a I received them and the roots were starting to dry, so hopefully this will be better than keeping them in a box in the house.
- I'm setting up the picnic table for hardening off seedlings. It was further to the right where it was in full sun from noon on after the sun cleared the trees to the east, but I realized if I put it on these emts, conduit "rails", I can easily slide it back and forth. I pruned off most of the lowest dead branches from the mulberry tree overhead, but I need to get at a few more that are higher up before I would feel safe putting my precious babies on the table. Once that's done, the mulberry branches create nice dappled sun/shade that will increase in coverage as they leaf out to match the stronger sunlight
- Planted more Limba broccoli seedlings in VGC -- these were getting stressed in a shallow container, so they may bolt early
- Purple Passion Asparagus are starting to show up ::)


- Spiral Garden is still very soggy and wet, but I used the spading fork to fracture and lift to aerate the soil from both sides of the spiral row. I filled the deeper hole in the center of the spiral where the big banana trees came out last fall with dead and punky/rotting wood sorted out from the woodpile. It will become another "sorta hugelkultur" and if the banana has survived in the garage, I'm planting it on top of the mound.
- The earliest varieties of blueberries are starting to bloom


- Radishes have started to sprout in VGD bed

- I've been diligently watering a swath along the edge of this bed so the Iceberg A lettuce seeds will sprout, but now that they've started, it looks like I completely forgot that I sowed another row....

[applestar]

$3 worth of Douglas fir shavings on the ground and still in the bag



I'm not papering the beds themselves because I sowed some seeds and lettuce and carrots are coming up, but it looks like we're not getting any rain until next weekend, so I want to conserve the moisture that is currently in the ground.  There's a large clump of blood-veined sorrel and some volunteer red Russian kale, garlic chives and Egyptian walking onions, Tansy, wild and seascape strawberries, stinging nettle patch overgrown with grass....

--- I can't believe I forgot to take better pictures but the Arkansas Black apple tree espalier is starting to bloom and the blossoms are starting to fade on the Seckel and Magness pear espaliers . Also forgot to take pictures of the paw paw trees on the other side of the fence in the front yard. They lost at least three blossoms due to the freeze, but at least three more are starting to open... Kind of a bummer since I was hoping they would start fruiting this year.


I did take pictures of these

[applestar]

The grass is starting to grow in tufts. There is a particular kind -- maybe rye that are already starting to to send up flower stalks. So I used my hand sickle to gather some, as well as comb out thatch from another species that tends to mat heavily.


-- This is a cut open garbage bag. I always wear my yellow Kevlar glove after I had nearly lost a finger tip to carelessness.

The amount was enough to heavily mulch the unplanted VGC side of the new raised bed and most of the mini-swale where I had scraped and double dug the clay subsoil, then buried some sticks and piled up some rooted weeds, etc.


VGC and VGD on the left, VGA and VGB on the right. I need to top up the unplanted VGB PSHRB, so I have been tossing in some of the grass that come up with entire muddy sod attached. Sod pile makes a lovely compost/topsoil, especially when giant earthworms come tangled in the roots.

I also planted Asian green's in VGA and covered with insect barrier tented over CPVC tubing arches.


...I got carried away overlaying the photos in the VG Garden map...

[applestar]

I'm trying to grow garbanzo beans / chickpeas, which are neither bean or pea. Last time I tried, I sowed way too small number of seeds -- I didn't realize they only grew two to a pod. Then had trouble later on in the year near harvesting time, and someone told me they need to be kept very dry near harvest.

So this time -- yesterday -- I sowed them on the dry side of the Spiral Garden raised rows which are upslope of the water-holding swale-path spiral. The germination issues last time may also have been due to soaking the beans too long prior to sowing, then watering too heavily, so I'm going to try to hold off watering them -- there should be sufficient moisture in the ground (I thoroughly stepped on them per jal_ut's seed sowing methods, though it feels weird to do this after all the fluffing I did earlier -- but I KNOW he's right about the seed/soil contact and also wicking up moisture from deeper in the soil). It's supposed to rain on Friday.



-- I sowed some more peas on the down slope side Spiral Garden rows, though it might be a little late -- Green Arrow and Garden Sweet. I'm going to plant remaining brassica seedlings (broccoli,cabbage,kale) among the strawberries which seem to be trying to take over the inner spiral, which will allow me to set up hoops/netting over them both to hopefully foil the cabbage whites as well as the birds from going after the berries. I just need to get some Tomato tone and straw mulch for the strawberries today. The Spiral Garden is my largest single bed, and I'm feeling it today after all the weeding and prepping.

[applestar]

SF&H

4/19 Soaked Fordhook vining nasturtium, rest of Pinetree 2015 Green Arrow peas, and Burpee Super Snappy peas all morning, then sowed them direct in the far SF&H bed after DLiming. Also sowed German Chamomile, dill, and cilantro.

Planted some more onions along the path in SF&H

Intending to plant extra early, cool tolerant short determinate tomatoes in the 7 spots -- one inside each cage and 7th in the middle: current candidates are --
Tomato, 42 Days
Tomato, Cream Sausage
Tomato, DL/67/249
Tomato, Dwarf Arctic Rose x Utyonok F2
Tomato, Dwarf Pink Passion
Tomato, Dwarf Sweet Scarlet {Elbe x Golden Dwarf Champion}
Tomato, Early Annie
Tomato, M.ZM.F2.4B {MagliaRosa x ZlutaKytice+Matt'sWild} F2 #4B
Tomato, MR.SFM.F2.1F {MagliaRosa x StumpHBR+FFSlv+Manö} F2 #1F
Tomato, Russian Cherry
Tomato, Sirja's Love
Tomato, W.Flv.F3 {Whippersnapper x FFSlv} F3 WWL

---

Got most of the greens planted among the strawberries in the Inner Spiral (should be mostly Seascape). 1 scoop Citrus-tone, 1 scoop Bio-tone, and 4 scoops Garden-tone evenly scattered over the strawberries. Positioned mid PVC and ETM hoops in the back and low wire hoops in the front, Then planted what I think are Lacinato kale and possibly cauliflower in the back and Cabbage and maybe Tatsoi in the front. Interspersed with red orach and red chard.

The Spiral Garden is starting to take shape.

---

Apple and Pears espaliers




Trifoliate orange 'Flying Dragon' seedling in a container sharing space with a huckleberry... Seedlings grown from a giant Asian pear from the Korean grocery

[pepperhead212]

It amazed me that most of those Indian legumes only produced 2-3 beans/ pod, yet have some of the best pounds/acre yields. Still, not going to be spending that much time removing beans from pods, when I can buy them so cheap!

[applestar]

Haha. A lot of stuff are more trouble to process than they are worth. I still like to see if I can grow them.

[applestar]

View of the Spiral Garden from upstairs window. I admit I ended up watering -- just a bit. I HAD BEEN using a watering can to just sprinkle a little, but they changed the forecasted rain to Friday night, and I didn't want the pre-soaked seeds to dry out completely when the sun was so hot. I let the soaker hoses seep out along the center of the raised spiral, but not enough to run into the swale/path because I have to get the sod and weeds to dry out.

Looking at it, I'm dying to mulch -- I need to get straw for the raised mound spiral bed, but the bag of wood shavings are beckoning right there to cover the weeds on the path/swale -- but I decided to wait until it rains and soaks the ground.

I tested the soaker hoses for the Spiral Garden and the SFH separately and filled the swale/trenches between the raised pea rows -- found a leak in the espalier row.

The peas were slow to come up even though they had been pre-germinated and in some cases sprouted -- I guess the ground was still cold -- that I was afraid something had gone wrong, but they are now almost all up -- I GENERALLY don't get this kind of solid rows of peas when I don't pre-germinate/sprout. Elephant garlic are doing really well, too.

[Mr green]

The elephant garlic is really doing well! I grew them the first year on the land im on right now and they didnt do as well as the garlic did, maybe to heavy clay soil for them.

[applestar]

LEFT - Apple Guild garlic bed Update
Right: Tzan Turban, Middle: Russian Giant Marble Purple Stripe, Left: Georgian Crystal Porcelain.



CENTER - WHAT I thought was Falstaff purple Brussels Sprouts turned out to be something else. I think it might be Purple Peacock Sprouting Broccoli or maybe one of the ornamental kales I grew last year. Anyway, I harvested the flower stalk that started to open and ate it with my breakfast. Now I wonder which one the smaller plant is....

RIGHT - Overwintered Red Russian Kale is starting to bloom also.

[Lindsaylew82]

Look at the color on that Broccoli!!!!

[applestar]

I KNOW! I have to remember to save seeds.


Today's tiny harvest --

Ostrich Fern spring shoots

Radish thinnings at seedleaf stage, a thinned baby carrot, red Russian kale, (believed to be)Purple Peacock Sprouting Broccoli first shoot, violet flowers.

[applestar]

First course of strings for the peas




Today's harvest -- gave all of these to my mom, along with some Asian green seedlings.

[Mr green]

Lovely, cant wait until i may start harvesting. I should get better at growing more stuff indoors.

[applestar]

- More fiddle heads -- there's usually only a week or so of harvesting window since you only want tightly curled ones.
- Purple Passion asparagus is starting
- Chervil is actually starting to think about bolting (already) -- I love nibbling on the licorice-y sprigs
- some of the Solstice broccoli I planted earliest went through roller-coaster weather and maybe that's why they are making these tiny heads. I'll just keep picking them when ready to eat -- side shoots are forming already. Either that or these are actually de Cicco?
- more RR Kale and radish thinnings

[applestar]

- View of the pond -- lots to do yet, but if by definition pond = hole in the ground that holds water and has little fish swimming around, it's a pond I found a couple of plants to use along the edge including Cardinal flower and (I think) Iris versicolor seedlings that DID sprout in a sandwich bag in the garage after doing nothing all winter

- Kitchen Garden -- I drew a blank, literally, this winter while trying to pre-plan what to plant this season. It doesn't work really well as the initial concept of one or two of everything that is available for taking a few steps out of the kitchen door -- it's too small and a tad shady. There are some perennials taking over including Southernwood that grows really well here, Greek oregano that would take over if I didn't rip them out by the roots every so often.... I have three kinds of raspberries that I was holding here to give away but now they have rooted through the bottom of the pots into the ground. I want to dig them up and plant them in a new raspberry area I'm considering. I might use this bed as nursery bed to start and grow new plants to size. The lavender plants I started from seeds last year overwintered and are growing well at 2 o'clock section.

This season, I think I'll trial some Winter Indoor tomato candidates here -- ones that might grow well in 2 gallon containers that are extra early determinates and larger fruited exceptional dwarf indeterminates.

- SF&H (Sunflower &c. House) -- potatoes are starting to sprout, some of the overwintered onions and leek are trying to bolt, catnip is taking off in the far end, and radicchio are coming alive again though it got too cold for them to grow heads this winter.
-

[applestar]

This MONSTER thing crawled out of a hole when I was thinning some lettuce in the new VGD pallet sided raised bed (two other worms came scrambling out of holes as well, including one that I would have called a BIG worm had I not seen this one )

After EVERYBODY got a chance to see it, and it had its photo session, I put it back in the raised bed (although DH asked if he could take it fishing tomorrow... ) so it could work on the newly blended subsoil clay lumps and trench compost at the bottom of the bed.

At first, it tried to crawl off along the surface of the soil, so I picked it up and stuck it's head right next to a fracture in the soil I had made while thinning the lettuce, and it headed down right away. I watched over it until it squirmed its way completely under ground because I was afraid it would be spotted by the robins.


C=2Ï€r so 1/2 of that, assuming diameter of 8" for the container' s bottom is approx. 12.5 inches... 10.9 if you assume 7.5" diameter.

[DR1VEN]

LOL...Wow...monster is right. I got nothing even close to that here. Even in my compost pile I've never seen bigger than about 3-4"...Great pic.

[applestar]

...seeing that night crawler inspired me to take care of a small tub of vermicompost worms I kept in the garage in a small tub this winter. Despite inadequate conditions and neglect, they seem to have flourished. But in the last couple of days, they've been trying to move out of the tub, congregating on the underside of the loose plastic lid.

I suspected that the bottom of the tub was getting compacted and too wet, and I had to do something before they decided to embark on a mass exodus, so I harvested the finished castings and added fresh bedding.



I saw a whole bunch of baby worms as well as egg sacs like this. I was able to harvest 1/2 the tub worth of castings. The rest was too wet and every clump I broke open contained writhing mass of worms of every size, so I put them back along one side of the tub and filled the other half with new bedding. Then gave them some fine grass clippings and a spooned out 1/2 shell of avocado and pit. I might cook some squash tomorrow and give them the scraps as a special treat.