Compost Screen...
Made an alteration to the compost screen by installing a larger gauge (right) mesh as the smaller gauge (left) was clogging up far to much which made the process rather long... I screened 3 of the drums yesterday & the end product still comes out fairly fine with no large "clumps"... This makes it great for breaking up the soil structure in the beds... I also think that it will make great bedding for the worm farms...
I am going to screen the next batch of manure before I add it to the barrel to see if I can get a more consistent "cooking" of the blend... Being horse manure Im not to worried about burning the plants more so trying to cook any worm drench out that the horses may have been medicated with that can kill our little fellas... It is also a good time to add the Blood n Bone & cracker dust to help feed the bacteria that aid in the process...
Worm Farm...
The old farm has had a composted horse manure blend in it for a month now & was harvested today... We got at lest double the amount of worms back out of there compared to what was added as well as many, MANY more eggs than we could of anticipated... It took about a month for them to "work through" the compost so was most impressed with that...
We came across something we have never seen before so made a clip (sorry guys) as well...
A batch of compost blend that I screened yesterday was added to the farm & the ½ barrel we found a while back... A makeshift cover has gone on the ½ barrel for now but that should be remedied during the week... I think we will be putting all the composted horse manure through the worm farms from now on & the big blue barrel can be the food scraps...
Have a great one all...
: )»
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I am going to screen the next batch of manure before I add it to the barrel to see if I can get a more consistent "cooking" of the blend... Being horse manure Im not to worried about burning the plants more so trying to cook any worm drench out that the horses may have been medicated with that can kill our little fellas... It is also a good time to add the Blood n Bone & cracker dust to help feed the bacteria that aid in the process...
Worm Farm...
We came across something we have never seen before so made a clip (sorry guys) as well...
A batch of compost blend that I screened yesterday was added to the farm & the ½ barrel we found a while back... A makeshift cover has gone on the ½ barrel for now but that should be remedied during the week... I think we will be putting all the composted horse manure through the worm farms from now on & the big blue barrel can be the food scraps...
Have a great one all...
: )»
On the 9th of December they were fed a processed mixture of Pineapple skin, ½ a Pumpkin that went manky in storage, Sweet Potato & other assorted kitchen scraps... The total weight was 2.3kg or 2300grams.. It took less than 5 days for the majority of the food to be consumed with only the larger "chunks" left...
The reservoir was also drained & we got 1.5l of the darkest, "sweet" smelling worm juice/wee we have ever got... The farm on a whole has been relatively offensive odour, bug & ant free which is a great to see/smell...
The Worms are in their new home...Had to remove a wardrobe to make some room first... It was dismantled & the backing ply was nailed to the batons behind the farm to make a sun block with the rest being saved to be used as shelving... The wire frame at the base of the farm was covered with some weed mat fabric..
The castings harvester was a bit of a let down... The castings were still too damp & just formed balls... We ended up going back to the proven method of just fishing them out with our hands...
Got some good shots of the White Cabbage Butterfly eggs yesterday...
The Shallots & spring Onions are being attacked by these little fellas on the Left... 7 were pulled from a square foot of onions... The little bugs on the Right are having a field day on the eggplants, pumpkins & a few other plants... 
Planted out the Red Strawberry & the pot of others we saved from Bed #1 a few months back... They are situated at the end of Bed #4 under the slightly over pruned Lemon tree... The Lemon tree is packed with fruit which is great, & has more flowers appearing on it all the time... There is also a feral Tomato growing through it which is doing quite nicely...
Some of the Rainbow Silverbeet has produced a rather stunning Flower spike... Hopefully we will get heaps of seed as we are looking at planting out the back of the Chook pen with Silverbeet for the Ladys... The Galangal is rather surprising... It has a very delicate sent that is very nice...
Weekly Harvest...