Before and after shots of the worm bin. One image was used in my last post and was in regard to the newspaper bedding being added to absorb some of the moisture in the worm bin. I fed them once in between these two pictures, but the food was mostly lettuce and spinach, and both are popular with the worms. As you can see in the picture taken in late February, most of the food from the last to feedings has broken down. Shortly after taking the picture, I added more food. I wasn't able to get a picture of the worms in the last post, but managed to get one on the wall of the container this time. You can see the castings on and around the worm. That's the stuff that gets used as fertilizer.

A quick worm bin update. The worms did well in their move across town last September. They live on a shelf down in the basement now, and their storage bin blends in with the rest of the bins down there. In the eight months I've had them they've completely consumed their original newspaper bedding, as well as the scraps I've been feeding them, and have produced about two inches(measuring from the bottom of the bin) of compost. I fed them yesterday and decided to take few pictures.
In the picture above you can see that I've just added some scraps of food on the left. The food in this case is green onion stalks, potato peelings, carrot peelings, and a few apple cores. I freeze all the food (using leftover plastic containers from restaurants) while I build up a large enough quantity(and while they consume their previous meal). Once I'm ready to feed them, I microwave the food to thaw it out, as well as cook it. I think this combination of freezing and heating makes the scraps break down in the bin faster, and also kills off any undesirable hitchhikers like fly eggs, or other bugs. I only want worms in my bin. On the right side of the picture above, you can see what's left of the newspaper bedding I added a couple months ago.
This time around, I decided that things are getting a little too moist in the bin. The worms like and need moisture, but they don't seem to like too much of it either. When it gets too damp in the bin, they all crawl up the on the inside wall of the container. To help absorb some of this excess moisture, I've added some new bedding. Usually I would dampen it, but this time I'm going to let the bin do that for me. I'll check on it again in a few days to see how it's doing. Notice that there are no worms visible in the pictures. They're light sensitive, and they don't like it. Usually when I lift the lid off the container, they burrow down into the castings or hide in the bedding. By the time I got the lights set up for the picture, they were all out of sight.

A Tale Of Two Seed Farmers: Organic Vs. Engineered
by Dan Charles, NPR News

TEDxNextGenerationAsheville
Birke Baehr - "What's Wrong With Our Food System"

An update on the Sunchips bag I buried in my tomato container last May. . .Not much happened. It was supposed to be a "compostable" bag. I didn't exactly compost it, but I figured burying it in dirt would result in something. Nope. Aside from some of the color being faded, there was no change.

The end of the patio garden