"martin" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 18:58:19 +0100, "Ophelia"
wrote:


"bnd777" wrote in message
...

"Ophelia" wrote in message
...

"martin" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 09:21:38 +0100, "Ophelia"
wrote:


"martin" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 20:19:26 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:

You really must be lazy if the maintenance of a worm bin is
too
much
for
you ........cant imagine why you even have a garden at all

Yes I am indeed lazy. My laziness is caused by the general
decrepitude
associated with having lived for as near as dammit eighty
years.
You are singularly lacking in imagination.

He also has a crap memory, perhaps he is prematurely old too?
:-)
It's can't be more than a couple of days at the most since you
mentioned that you had been gardening for 70 years.

martin shame on you.


Mea culpa! I am not so young myself, but did remember being
impressed
by Franz's age.

As am I)

My 87 yr old Mother still does a large garden and she refuses to
accept
she is old !!!!!!!!!!!

Good for her))) I am still 25 in my head)

I am still a teenager in my head. :-)

yer a wee whipersnapper )

In article , Franz Heymann notfranz.
writes
Thanks for an interesting note. But my whole point is to try and find a way
of circumventing the maintaining and harvesting of a wormery by just letting
the worms do their job in the exact spot where I ultimately want the compost
to be.

About 6inches of compost seems to be a reasonable amount to add. 6
inches of mature compost equates to more like 2ft of kitchen scraps etc.
So what about building 2ft high mini compost heaps across where you want
the compost to be?

The best compost I ever made was when I lived in a cottage with only an
outdoor toilet. I dug a 2ft x 2ft x 1ft deep hole outside the back door,
and used to add to this daily potato peelings and other veg scraps,
about 3 pots worth of lapsang suchong tea leaves, and about half a
bucket of urine. It turned into dark sweet smelling friable compost
which a year later was full of beautiful clean little new potatoes.

I was told that the brandlings sold by fishing tackle skops would be just
what I need. Is that correct?

Yes, but there's enough in the soil, and they breed fast enough, for
merely adding compost ingredients to very soon get you an adequate
population. No need to spend money! (see url below).

I wonder if what you could do would be simply to layer the compost
ingredients thickly as a mulch? It wouldn't compost as quickly as in a
heap, and you wouldn't be generating the heat, but you would build up a
population of brandlings. You'd have to make sure that you didn't
include any roots or seeds, because they'd just take off and grow, but
if it was green stuff, grass cuttings, veg peelings, it should work,
though not be particularly attractive to look at. After all, it's the
same process that happens naturally under thick vegetation or in woods.

--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm

In article , Franz Heymann
writes
Thanks for the information, Jim. If I knew where to get the earthworms, I
will order some. Or maybe there are enough in my garden for starting things
up. I will do a bit of investigating.

There are almost certainly enough, both of brandlings and of the normal
Lumbricus earthworm. They breed quite fast, so it's a matter of getting
the conditions right - the brandlings like a higher humus content.

If you are not getting enough worms by natural methods, its likely the
conditions aren't right, so buying some and adding isn't going to help a
lot.


(Obviously, in a closed system like a wormery, you need to innoculate
with worms, which is why people tend to buy them)
--
Kay Easton

Edward's earthworm page:
http://www.scarboro.demon.co.uk/edward/index.htm

On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 22:03:38 +0100, "Ophelia"
wrote:


"martin" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 10:53:04 +0100, "Ophelia"
wrote:

Mea culpa! I am not so young myself, but did remember being
impressed
by Franz's age.

Then be impressed some more. Today is my birthday, so today I am one
year
more older than you than I was yesterday. {:-))

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR FRANZ))

with a hug and a kiss on your nose)

Yes of course

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR FRANZ! :-)

ooooerrrrrrrrrrr are you giving him a kiss on the nose too))))))))))))))

O )

not after I found it was covered in lipstick :-)

--
Martin

"martin" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 22:03:38 +0100, "Ophelia"
wrote:


"martin" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 10:53:04 +0100, "Ophelia"
wrote:

Mea culpa! I am not so young myself, but did remember being
impressed
by Franz's age.

Then be impressed some more. Today is my birthday, so today I am
one
year
more older than you than I was yesterday. {:-))

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR FRANZ))

with a hug and a kiss on your nose)

Yes of course

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR FRANZ! :-)

ooooerrrrrrrrrrr are you giving him a kiss on the nose
too))))))))))))))

O )

not after I found it was covered in lipstick :-)

LOL

Jim W wrote:


Thanks for the information, Jim. If I knew where to get the earthworms, I
will order some. Or maybe there are enough in my garden for starting things
up. I will do a bit of investigating.

I will take a look around and see if I have that supplier that sells the
'earthworm' top ups.. But as you say, you should have worms in the soil
already.. Feed the soil with plenty of organic matter and don;t use
chems on it and you will be feeding the worms and creating a aparadise
for them and they will 'multiply and be fruitful' as it were!-)

Found it..

www.organiccatalogue.com code WOLT about 100 for 16 quid HDRA members
get 10% off.

But see also http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/exper1/exper1.htm

It may be easier/cheaper to breed your own?
//
Jim

On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 17:47:30 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:


"Stephen Howard" wrote in message

I suspect the soil in the garden contains a small number of Brandling
worms per square foot - and is relative to the amount of fresh
compostable material available.
So in theory your scheme could work, but it would mean having to
maintain the level of fresh organic matter - which would perhaps
render the soil unsuitable for general cropping.

Surely not, if I move my worm hostel by a foot or so each day, like my
friend used to do with his guineapig lawn maintenance system.

All that would achieve is leaving behind a trail of soil packed full
od raw vegetable matter - it takes months for the worms to break the
stuff down.

Surely it would be far less hassle to maintain one bin as a nursery
for your worms - all you'd need to do inoculate another bin would be
to grab a handful of gloop from the nursery bin and chuck it in.

Being a lazy sort of bloke, it is all that bin maintenance and harvesting
which I am trying to avoid.

Strikes me that knocking up a number of 'darkrooms', roughing up the
soil beneath them, packing them with vegetable waste.. and then
perhaps moving them on a daily basis adds up to a hell of a lot more
work than tossing a load of kitchen scraps into a bin with a few
handfuls of soil and leaving it to its own devices.

Why not just trench compost?
I do this through the winter months ( though there's no reason why you
can't do it throughout the year ) ...all the kitchen scraps go into a
trench of about a spit and half's depth and are covered with soil as I
go. Come spring these trenches are ideal for sowing peas on, and later
in the season the beans and courgettes take over.
By the next year the raw matter will have been well and truly
incorporated and the same area can be used for standard crops ( spuds
etc. ).


Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk

"Kay Easton" wrote in message
...
In article , Franz Heymann
writes
Thanks for the information, Jim. If I knew where to get the earthworms,
I
will order some. Or maybe there are enough in my garden for starting
things
up. I will do a bit of investigating.

There are almost certainly enough, both of brandlings and of the normal
Lumbricus earthworm. They breed quite fast, so it's a matter of getting
the conditions right - the brandlings like a higher humus content.

If you are not getting enough worms by natural methods, its likely the
conditions aren't right, so buying some and adding isn't going to help a
lot.

My soil is on average ever so slightly on the acid side. ( I would call it
"just about right"). Most of what I try to grow does reasonably well, except
if I try something not quite hardy for our part of the world. I do have a
worm population, but it is not as dense as it should be. I suspect that I
have too many blackbirds and thrushes. One other problem might be that the
topsoil consists of a layer of only about 4" overlying the bedrock. The
only reasons why it is not waterlogged are that it is on a slope, and the
rock is badly shattered.

As soon as we get a bit of rain, I will put some kitchen scraps out and
cover it with a piece of weighted down black polythene, just to see what I
can attract by way of worms.

(Obviously, in a closed system like a wormery, you need to innoculate
with worms, which is why people tend to buy them)

Franz Heymann

"Ophelia" wrote in message
...

"martin" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 10:53:04 +0100, "Ophelia"
wrote:

Mea culpa! I am not so young myself, but did remember being
impressed
by Franz's age.

Then be impressed some more. Today is my birthday, so today I am one
year
more older than you than I was yesterday. {:-))

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR FRANZ))

with a hug and a kiss on your nose)

Yes of course

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR FRANZ! :-)

ooooerrrrrrrrrrr are you giving him a kiss on the nose too))))))))))))))

O )

Ugh {:-((

Franz

"Kay Easton" wrote in message
...
In article , Franz Heymann notfranz.
writes
Thanks for an interesting note. But my whole point is to try and find a
way
of circumventing the maintaining and harvesting of a wormery by just
letting
the worms do their job in the exact spot where I ultimately want the
compost
to be.

About 6inches of compost seems to be a reasonable amount to add. 6
inches of mature compost equates to more like 2ft of kitchen scraps etc.
So what about building 2ft high mini compost heaps across where you want
the compost to be?

The best compost I ever made was when I lived in a cottage with only an
outdoor toilet. I dug a 2ft x 2ft x 1ft deep hole outside the back door,
and used to add to this daily potato peelings and other veg scraps,
about 3 pots worth of lapsang suchong tea leaves, and about half a
bucket of urine. It turned into dark sweet smelling friable compost
which a year later was full of beautiful clean little new potatoes.

I was told that the brandlings sold by fishing tackle skops would be just
what I need. Is that correct?

Yes, but there's enough in the soil, and they breed fast enough, for
merely adding compost ingredients to very soon get you an adequate
population. No need to spend money! (see url below).

I wonder if what you could do would be simply to layer the compost
ingredients thickly as a mulch? It wouldn't compost as quickly as in a
heap, and you wouldn't be generating the heat, but you would build up a
population of brandlings.

I think that you might build up a hefty population of flies if you leave it
uncovered, and it would be rather unsightly.

You'd have to make sure that you didn't
include any roots or seeds, because they'd just take off and grow, but
if it was green stuff, grass cuttings, veg peelings, it should work,
though not be particularly attractive to look at. After all, it's the
same process that happens naturally under thick vegetation or in woods.

That's true. All I would aim to do is to concentrate a little more material
per square foot per week than you would find on a woodland floor.

Franz

"Stephen Howard" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 17:47:30 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:


"Stephen Howard" wrote in message

I suspect the soil in the garden contains a small number of Brandling
worms per square foot - and is relative to the amount of fresh
compostable material available.
So in theory your scheme could work, but it would mean having to
maintain the level of fresh organic matter - which would perhaps
render the soil unsuitable for general cropping.

Surely not, if I move my worm hostel by a foot or so each day, like my
friend used to do with his guineapig lawn maintenance system.

All that would achieve is leaving behind a trail of soil packed full
od raw vegetable matter - it takes months for the worms to break the
stuff down.

Then my understanding of worm composting is cockeyed. I thought that well
trained worms disposed of vegetable matter in a trice. Or so the worm
composters have led me to believe.


Surely it would be far less hassle to maintain one bin as a nursery
for your worms - all you'd need to do inoculate another bin would be
to grab a handful of gloop from the nursery bin and chuck it in.

Being a lazy sort of bloke, it is all that bin maintenance and harvesting
which I am trying to avoid.

Strikes me that knocking up a number of 'darkrooms', roughing up the
soil beneath them, packing them with vegetable waste.. and then
perhaps moving them on a daily basis adds up to a hell of a lot more
work than tossing a load of kitchen scraps into a bin with a few
handfuls of soil and leaving it to its own devices.

I suppose you are right.

Why not just trench compost?
I do this through the winter months ( though there's no reason why you
can't do it throughout the year ) ...all the kitchen scraps go into a
trench of about a spit and half's depth and are covered with soil as I
go. Come spring these trenches are ideal for sowing peas on, and later
in the season the beans and courgettes take over.
By the next year the raw matter will have been well and truly
incorporated and the same area can be used for standard crops ( spuds
etc. ).

That sounds more or less like what I am talking about, if you replace the
polythene cover by a soil cover.

Franz

"Franz Heymann" wrote:

I thought that well
trained worms disposed of vegetable matter in a trice.

Well, they do. Unfortunately, much of nature runs at a slower pace than we
type "A" humans, and therefore use a longer trice than the
platinum-irridium alloy one in Paris.

In retirement, I've had to adapt to a different trice myself, since I have
less spare time than I used to. Unfortunately, my weeds run on a greatly
accelerated trice...


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at www.albany.net/~gwoods
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1200' elevation. NY WO G

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 14:11:44 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:

"Stephen Howard" wrote in message


All that would achieve is leaving behind a trail of soil packed full
od raw vegetable matter - it takes months for the worms to break the
stuff down.

Then my understanding of worm composting is cockeyed. I thought that well
trained worms disposed of vegetable matter in a trice. Or so the worm
composters have led me to believe.

No, as far as I've seen it's a slower process than the good old hot
compost heap. The advantage of worm composting is that it doesn't need
to generate the heat, and you don't need the same volume of organic
matter.
The downside is the time it takes - but the results are pretty good,
so much so that it almost seems a crime to use the compost for general
purposes. A side product is a pretty powerful liquid manure that you
can drain off from the bottom of the bin.

Why not just trench compost?
I do this through the winter months ( though there's no reason why you
can't do it throughout the year ) ...all the kitchen scraps go into a
trench of about a spit and half's depth and are covered with soil as I
go. Come spring these trenches are ideal for sowing peas on, and later
in the season the beans and courgettes take over.
By the next year the raw matter will have been well and truly
incorporated and the same area can be used for standard crops ( spuds
etc. ).

That sounds more or less like what I am talking about, if you replace the
polythene cover by a soil cover.

Not quite - you can compost on the surface ( sheet composting ),
though on the whole this is done with animal manures... bits of
broccoli stalks and old carrots seem to hang around for ages unless
buried, and it seems to encourage rodents. Not only that, but you have
to wait some time before you can plant through the mulch.

By covering the raw stuff with a good 9-12 inches of soil it gives new
plants something to get their teeth into - and by the time their roots
hit the layer of raw matter it will be well into the rotting down
process.

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk

"Franz Heymann" wrote:

I thought that well
trained worms disposed of vegetable matter in a trice.

Well, they do. Unfortunately, much of nature runs at a slower pace than we
type "A" humans, and therefore use a longer trice than the
platinum-irridium alloy one in Paris.

In retirement, I've had to adapt to a different trice myself, since I have
less spare time than I used to. Unfortunately, my weeds run on a greatly
accelerated trice...


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at www.albany.net/~gwoods
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1200' elevation. NY WO G

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 14:11:44 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:

"Stephen Howard" wrote in message


All that would achieve is leaving behind a trail of soil packed full
od raw vegetable matter - it takes months for the worms to break the
stuff down.

Then my understanding of worm composting is cockeyed. I thought that well
trained worms disposed of vegetable matter in a trice. Or so the worm
composters have led me to believe.

No, as far as I've seen it's a slower process than the good old hot
compost heap. The advantage of worm composting is that it doesn't need
to generate the heat, and you don't need the same volume of organic
matter.
The downside is the time it takes - but the results are pretty good,
so much so that it almost seems a crime to use the compost for general
purposes. A side product is a pretty powerful liquid manure that you
can drain off from the bottom of the bin.

Why not just trench compost?
I do this through the winter months ( though there's no reason why you
can't do it throughout the year ) ...all the kitchen scraps go into a
trench of about a spit and half's depth and are covered with soil as I
go. Come spring these trenches are ideal for sowing peas on, and later
in the season the beans and courgettes take over.
By the next year the raw matter will have been well and truly
incorporated and the same area can be used for standard crops ( spuds
etc. ).

That sounds more or less like what I am talking about, if you replace the
polythene cover by a soil cover.

Not quite - you can compost on the surface ( sheet composting ),
though on the whole this is done with animal manures... bits of
broccoli stalks and old carrots seem to hang around for ages unless
buried, and it seems to encourage rodents. Not only that, but you have
to wait some time before you can plant through the mulch.

By covering the raw stuff with a good 9-12 inches of soil it gives new
plants something to get their teeth into - and by the time their roots
hit the layer of raw matter it will be well into the rotting down
process.

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{whoisat}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk