July 2022
Bottomless Microgreens Garden (with Worms)?
In my “Vermi-Terrarium Wrap-Up” post I mentioned being excited about my plans for the next “hybrid system” experiment – some form of “bottomless” microgreens garden, using the same fridge drawer the last system was in.
Well, I’m happy to report that the ball is officially rolling with the new project, after getting things set up yesterday.
As regular readers may recall, this time I wanted to put more emphasis on the plant growing section of the system – so as to actually get some decent food value from it. I’m a huge fan of sunflower greens – and was reminded of just how easy they are to grow in the last system – so this felt like a “no-brainer” choice, at least initially.
Thinking about the new system a little while ago, I knew I wanted some sort of (more…)
**Want Even More Fun With Worms? Sign Up for the RWC E-mail List Today!**Vermi-Terrarium – Wrap-Up
Today I decided to wrap things up with the system I’ve referred to as my “vermi-terrarium”. It never did really become a terrarium (really only kept the name for consistency), but in some ways it actually turned into something much more interesting!
As I shared in my last update, I ended up with some big Russian kale plants. These are easily the biggest “food” plants I’ve managed to grow indoors using only artificial lighting, and I’ve actually harvested a lot of the leaves for consumption.
In my last post I also mentioned dumping in handfuls of sunflower seeds to see what would happen (yep, that’s how I roll). If you are on the RWC e-mail list you will likely know by now that things got pretty “interesting” on that front. The back section of the system ended up so overrum with (more…)
Red Worms + Isopods for Turbo Carbon-Processing?
At various points over the years I’ve become interested in the “composting” potential of other worm bin organisms, namely springtails, isopods and millipedes. I’ve always viewed them as important worm allies, and naturally wondered what they might be capable of on their own.
What’s funny is that literally none of my experimental systems in the past have actually worked out for me! It has really only been various “accidental” – more natural – systems where things have started to come together.
My “Uber-Natural” system gave me the first glimpse of what isopods (and to a lesser extent, millipedes) were capable of in terms of processing resistant, carbon-rich materials. More recently, I’ve been utterly blown away by the (more…)