Vermicomosting and Garden Planning

Yesterday I had the composting class in my community garden. As I already know the basics of composting, I was mostly attending the class to try to schmooze with the garden director and try to get my name further up the list. That didn't work. However, there was one portion of the class that I wasn't familiar with - Vermicomposting. There were two special guests from a company called Worm Fancy. They are semi-local business women that are spreading the word about reducing our compostable food waste through vermicomposting (worm composting). It was very interesting and seemed easy to implement. Unfortunately I do not have the space to do this in my studio but I may set up a bin out at my garden location.


If you have a few feet to spare, I would really recommend trying this type of composting. There is little work involved and you will not only be producing compost but you will also have new worms and worm casting and the leache (worm juices) which are all wonderful for your garden. Plus you'll be helping the environment by reducing your waste! The best worms for this project are Red Worms (Eisenia fetida). Apparently the worms you find in your soil aren't happy being confined to a box. For more information about this process, check out Worm Fancy's comprehensive website. You can purchase worms and worm bins on their site.

On a separate topic, I headed out to the garden after the class to check on the soil and bees. It was awfully cold so I couldn't open the hive. It must be at least 65 degrees in order to open the hive and not make life difficult for the bees. These hard working creatures have to keep their hive maintained at 93 degrees at all times so I really didn't want to kill eggs with the cold or make them work overtime trying to heat the hive back up.

The soil is drying out nicely under the plastic. If it doesn't rain this weekend then we should be able to till. I'm looking forward to doing that and lining out the beds within the 24' x 45' garden. I set up a garden plan and placement of the vegetables.

Tip to work on for the week! Sacramento Area Community Garden Coalition provided an All Season Planting Guide. I'll share the current planting recommendations. Sacramento and Yolo Gardeners you should be planting these things now (I'm not going to plant anything in the garden until May but I either have plants already growing or I'm starting seeds indoors):

Tomatoes (plants)
Beets (seeds)
Carrots (seeds)
Peppers (plants)
Eggplants (plants)
Corn (seeds) - I'll just sow these outside when I plant
Snap Beans (seeds)
Lima Beans (seeds)
Zucchini (seeds)
Cucumber (seeds)
Cantaloupe (seeds)
Watermelon (seeds)


If you would like a quick glossary on composting terminology, I found one at: OrganicGardening.com.

Daphne