A fridge full of worms

Our beautiful old 50s fridge finally gave up the ghost after decades of service (I calculate we are the third owners). We couldn't bear to part with it so thought we'd give it a go as a worm farm!

Well, gotta say the worms love it! Although a relatively milder summer so far this season, the temperature inside stays fairly constant - so much so that we weren't worried heading off for a couple of weeks over the Christmas period.

Only thing is it's a bit tricky to catch the worm juice... a flat container seems to work OK. Best of all I think is being able to grab some of the castings and add to the garden every so often.

Fridge full of worms

 In addition, we also have the standard worm farm (right of picture - prefer the cricular set up to the box style) and we are currently worm sitting for the Pre-primary class (as we'd set up a farm for them last year). Both produce really well and we get a lot of juice from them, so overall the worm farming is going great guns.

If you're on the hunt for worms and are in the Perth area we have plenty to share!

Happy gardening!

Construction, production with chooks and compost

A constructive day in the garden today. . .

Simon built a compost heap using reclaimed pallets. Good timing too as the mulberry tree is now dropping its copious amount of leaves for autumn. So we now have our chooks, worms and compost going well. A side note, my Mum is providing us with a top-up of worms, as hers are going great guns and need dividing. Good for us, as our worms took a hit over the summer months.

Simon's compost bin from reclaimed pallets.

In terms of compost production, I'm hoping we can bulk up a bit more by getting leftovers from the nearby markets. This can also help to feed the chooks, as our kitchen scraps are pretty meagre really.

I also put together a lightweight chook tractor. I used polypipe and the pipe fittings to make up the frame, plus some some bird netting from our grapevine, as there's plenty to spare. It's a bit on the flexible side (and we did have an escapee for a short while), but at least we can move it about easily and wedge it into some of the confined spaces in our backyard as needed. The girls didn't know what was going on at first, but then they didn't seem to mind as they got stuck into the long grass! They are so cute. :o)

Chook tractor made with polypipe and bird netting.

We are hoping the chook tractor idea can help us to keep the grass down a bit (it's patchy at best and we don't have enough to warrant a lawnmower), plus keep the pest population down a bit. Our seeds were systematically chomped by slugs and snails as they pushed through the soil! Come on girls, get eating! Hoping they'll keep the slaters down too, plus leave their valuable manure around.

Happy gardening!