What an exciting day in Wormville!!!

One of the cocoons hatched two baby worms today! I had the cocoons in a clear bag so we could see them when they hatch.
We got an awesome new toy called the EyeClops Bionic Eye! It takes pictures and videos at 100, 200, and 400 times magnification! The video below is of the second baby at 200X magnification!!

Wormcicles

We got all of the food blended up and ready for the worms and Shannon and Shoma shredded the newspaper. Before we could add the new bedding we had to separate the worms from all of their castings so there would be room for the new food and new bedding. With a whole lot of shaking we got the worms out and ready for their new environment. Unfortunately, since the fruit and veggies had been frozen it was too cold to add the worms. But what I didn't realize was that there were still about 20 worms hidden in some castings at the bottom of the bucket when we added the food. During a brave rescue attempt I fished them out from the frozen ground up food. They were a little cold, but with Wes's help, we warmed them up! So the worms had to spend the night last night in a little box while they waited for the bed to warm! This morning they made their way into their new home and quickly worked their way down into the bedding.

New Bedding

When I got to Potentials this morning I saw that a few (10 ish) worms were trying to escape the top bin of the original green worm bin, which again, is not a good sign. I'm not sure if they are the same worms that I just put in there from the "food-only" bin or some other ones. Either way, it looks like the bins have been completely composted now, and the worms are ready for some new bedding and fresh new food. The worms essentially need two things, bedding and food. The bedding can be newspaper, cardboard, or dead leaves, and the best food is fruit and veggie scraps.

I brought in my fruit and veggie scraps from home and we can chop them up today to feed to the worms. I keep the food frozen so that it does not smell while we are preparing it for the worms. This bag has used tea leaves, apple cores and peels, cucumber peels, eggshells and broccoli stalks. The food does not HAVE to be chopped, but it makes it easier for the worms to eat and digest. So this afternoon the kids will use the "Airlink" to turn on the food processor and chop up the frozen fruits and veggies. The Airlink is a piece of assistive technology that gives the children control over turning on electrical appliances. We just plug in the appliance, and set the dials and when the kids push the switch the appliance turns on for a predetermined amount of time. The switch is cordless and sends an infrared signal to the Airlink module. Being cordless allows us to bring the switch to each child with the restriction of a short wire.
The kids will also send some newspaper through the shredder and tear up some corrugated cardboard to make the bedding.

EWWWW!!

I had to free the worms from the "food-only" bin today. They were trying to escape from the nasty, smelly, congealed mess of rotting pumpkin! A bunch of worms had crawled up the sides of the container which is a tell tale sign that something is wrong. So if you voted for food only...sorry, that part of the experiment had to be aborted due to dying worms and mass quantities of maggots gathering!

Harvest Season

If only I had more time in each day...
Today I harvested the worm castings from the bottom bucket which has been working for almost a month. We got a great harvest, but I had wanted to put it in the garden while it is super fresh. I just ran out of time, and had to leave for the long weekend. In harvesting the castings I found something pretty exciting (for those of you who get excited about this kind of stuff)!

Any guesses as to what it might be?
Here's a close up......


It's a cocoon! There are so many of them in the buckets!
We're having babies!!

Actually we already had some! They are easiest to see in the bin with just paper, but unfortunately the picture came out pretty blurry. The baby is just about in the center of the picture. See it? Check back next week and I will try to find a baby and get a better picture.


**To clear up any confusion, I learned that worms DO mate. Any worm can mate with any other worm because in effect they are all males and are all females.**


The worms in the experimental bin have begun to really change too. The Bin with just food is pretty nasty. It is a stinky gelatinous mess where there seem to be more maggots surviving than worms. That bin may be aborted very soon. Thankfully the bins are OUTSIDE.

The bin with a combo of food and paper is doing much better. There is a nice supply of castings building up on the bottom, and the worms are alive and active.

The bin with just paper is pretty neat to. In this bin you can really see the castings because there are no coffee grounds to get confused with castings. The interesting thing about this bin is that many of the castings look just like paper... worm-poop-shaped paper!!
If it wasn't that we are thinking of using this experiment as our science fair project I would immediately abort the all-food bin, and add the paper only worms back to the original bin. I think that the worms need more than just paper to live on, but at the same time, need some 'bedding' to break up the food particles. Anyone else have ideas about this? Just leave your ideas in the comments so others can read.

Garden Progress

The butterflies have begun to find our flowers! Here is one on the lantana plant. Click on the picture, then look carefully to see the proboscis which is like a straw through which the butterfly eats.

The veggies in the garden are doing well. The pole green beans are doing exceptionally well, ,and have begun to sprout from the seeds that Jodi, Ashtyn, and Frankie planted during the garden party on the 14th of November. We expect that these plants will grow very tall, eventually covering the trellis along the sides and even across the top. From what I have read, we should be able to harvest some beans in just a couple of months.

If you look real carefully in between the two flowers is a tiny sprout. This is a baby eggplant sprout. If you click the picture it will enlarge and you may be able to see it better.
We look forward to watching our little sprouts grow.

Experimental Worm Bins

The experimental worm bins are progressing well.
We have been keeping the three bins in the outside storage closet for a few reasons.
1. Protects the worms from temperature swings
2. The worms need darkness, light dries out their skin
3. We did not want to keep the bins inside because the food may attract ants or other pests.

The bin with just moist paper has some castings beginning to accumulate around the sides and on the bottom. The bin with just food had a mold problem over the weekend, but the mold was mostly gone in the morning...I think the worms feasted on it! I have read that mold is just another natural part of the decomposition process. The third bin with a combination of food and paper looks pretty good as well. It is hard to tell if there are castings in the two bins with food in them because there are coffee grounds, and it is hard to tell the castings from the coffee until we harvest the castings.

Can you find the worms in each of the pictures??

If you click on the pictures you will see a larger picture!

The main bin is doing really well! The worms have been feasting on the pumpkin and coffee grounds. They are very active, especially overnight when it is very dark in the building. In the morning when I lift the black plastic to check on them, they all begin to dive into the darkness.

Here they are in action (just push play!)

Just stop by and ask, and I would be happy to introduce you to the newest members of our Potentials family :)