After 5 years of being a stay-at-home mom, I found the wonder of mothering slowly starting to get crowded out by the mundane feeling. I realized our world seems to surround people with the negative, and complaining about blessings seems totally acceptable. So I decided to fight against that "normalcy" and focus only on the positive. I look back to my first year as a mom when everything was new and keeping house was fun and I aim to have that attitude again. This blog is my outlet to showcase the daily miracles that surround me in my blessed life as a stay-at-home mom so that I will never forget the wonder of it all.



Saturday, April 2, 2011

My New Worm Box

Zac surprised me one day recently with this new GORGEOUS worm box!
I'ts made of redwood.

The top has a screen lid for easy access and ventilation.

It is actually a double decker worm box.  He modeled it after a friend's worm box.  Here you can see the upper story slides up so that the two sections can separate.  His friend has a screen between these two sections.  In the lower box, he does vermicomposting and in the upper box he does just straight compost.  After much discussion, I think we will use it as a double decker vermicomposting box.  We are thinking that once the bottom box is nice and full, we can slide a screen insert between the two layers and then start adding kitchen waste to the upper layer.  Once the worms are done eating away at everything in the bottom box, they will naturally move upwards towards the kitchen waste in the upper box.  And once they are all out of the bottom box, we can easily harvest their compost gold.  But, we shall see how it all plays out.  Right now, they're happy in the lower level and after some trouble shooting, we have decided that we definitely need more worms for the amount of kitchen waste our family creates.


This is the genius part of the box, and my favorite part!  Under the box hang two disposable turkey roasting pans.  Zac installed them with those pieces of wood you see there that are notched out.  I have no idea what those are called and Zac is snoring next to me at this moment so I can't ask for clarification, but I think you get it.  Those notched out pieces of wood let the roasting pans slide in and out so that we can......


....EASILY HARVEST WORM TEA!
I'm very excited about this, if you can't tell.  Our old system did not let us harvest the tea.  I'm excited to give our seedlings a nice drink of worm tea tomorrow.
Do you vermicompost?

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3 comments:

  1. Bending BirchesApril 2, 2011 at 5:47 AM

    what a great idea-- we tried vermicomposting last spring, and our box leaked and made a huge mess. my husband was freaked out, so we stopped. i am going to show him your story!!!!
    xxoxoox

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  2. AnonymousApril 2, 2011 at 9:23 AM

    hey, another product for the family to sell in the coming years!
    we used to keep worms in napa.
    we had one of those round, black plastic stacked contraptions.
    hoping to get a new contraption going here, too, one of these days.

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  3. Mama Ash GroveApril 3, 2011 at 3:46 PM

    Jenny this is awesome!!! We don't vermicompost, but I would love to give this a try! Thanks for sharing. :)

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