Monday, March 12, 2007
Our worms arrived!
The first 2# of red worms arrived Wednesday. Cindy has prepared a home in the basement for them. Later we'll move the adults to the big outdoor bin and keep the basement as a nursery.
This plastic bin is plenty large enough for about 5# total.
The worms will help us use up food waste, paper waste, horse and sheep manure, and spoiled bedding. In turn, they'll produce nice black casting, which contain a ton of nutrients for our garden.
They've settled in very nicely... working away on food waste and paper waste. Since they're not happy when you shine light on them, I didn't want to peel back much of their bedding. If you look closely above the pear core, there are a few little wigglers who didn't dive fast enough to avoid the picture.
The plan is to actually create windrows and generate enough castings in a couple years to sell to folks in Enterprise, Cedar City, and St George.
That will become our major cash crop, with market lambs as an additional income generator. The horses are for hobby, and the chickens will provide meat and eggs, as well as add their droppings to the composting operation.
With only an acre-foot of water, it's important for us to find ways to conserve (be good stewards) while also creating a way to show that we use the water we are allowed. If you fail to use your share, you can have it taken away... and it's very expensive to get it back.
Labels: Worm Farm
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Dusty's new "workout" area... the round pen
Here's a long look at Dusty's new round pen. When the weather abates, we'll set to work getting him trained. So far, he's had his halter on a few times, and has let us place a blanket on his back.
He responds favorably to a "carrot stick", but has such a high "play drive" that it's a challenge to keep his attention.
This is the area where the two-gate system works. We open the gate to the round pen and then open the gate to the corral. That lets Dusty go from place to place. This space also gives us direct (as in truck) access to the manure pile and we can back a trailer in when he has to go to the vet.
Here's the "escape route"... the man-door. 
If you scroll back a few posts, you'll see the "debris pile". The man-door is just about in the same place.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Is it spring yet? My worm project has my attention...
Being a newcomer to this area, I've got a sneaking suspicion this really good weather I'm seeing right now is gonna turn on me in a few weeks. For the last week, we've been thawing and going through the "muddies".
Fortunately, the soil is so sandy that even if you track it in the house, it quickly dries and sweeps up very nicely.
When the dogs come in, there are many sets of muddy prints all across the carpet, into the kitchen, up on the couch and beds. I've got sand in my bed just from them coming in to greet me in the mornings.
I drew up the rough sketches for the first worm boxes. If all goes well, we should have enough castings to radically improve our own soil later this year. From everything I've read, success is a matter or trial and error.
I really believe that our biggest challenges here will be the temperature extremes. It's been very cold (at least 10 days below zero) at night. We'll have to plan for some kind of insulation from the cold for the worms.
In the summer, it's typically 85 to 95 but rarely over 100. By placing the beds against the north side concrete block wall, that should provide some shade, as well as some insulation.
We'll insulate the box with foam around the perimeter and on the lid. Since the worms will go pretty dormant in the winter, I think covering them with old hay and a tarp should provide decent protection.
We have several railroad ties and a bunch of lumber and some plywood on hand. Not sure how much is truly usable.
As for worms, Dusty has created a decent pile of manure and if we can't find enough worms there... the dairy down the road has acres of manure piles. Bet we'll find plenty there.
What are we gonna feed them?
They love raw veggie and fruit scraps. They'll also devour shredded paper, news paper and cardboard. Once we exhaust our own waste supply, I plan to contact the medical clinic for shredded paper, and the local grocery store for other scraps. Oh, they also like horse manure and we'll have plenty of that.
Labels: Worm Farm
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Oh boy... we're laying plans for the year
Bev got her "city job" so that will help support Cindy's and my farm/computer projects. We don't expect much out of "Mom (Cindy's mom) as she's recovering from serious surgery. That's kind of a bummer, too as she's the "chief cook".
With Bev starting work on Monday, I'll be providing what little additional brawn I can to the projects. Either that, or the "heavy lifting" will have to wait for her days off.
This weekend, she's drawing the plans for the barn (to be built early fall), the chicken coop (that goes up within the next 2 months), and the worm beds... first project.
About those worm beds...
That's one of the reasons I joined forces here. We had been discussing projects that could eventually become economically viable that would be very thrifty to start and manage. Verminculture meets those requirements very nicely.
We don't have a lot of water, only one acre foot, so we have to really be careful of how much livestock we get. We'll probably be limited to a couple of horse, less than 6 lambs/sheep, a steer, less than 2 dozen laying hens, and maybe a llama.
Verminculture (raising worms) won't put a strain on the water, will improve our sandy soil, and will give us a use for the manure and other waste. Later, when we have more worm castings than we can use, that can easily be sold to other valley residents.
Labels: Worm Farm