Monday 14 January 2013

We're going on a worm hunt....

Cheers to a fresh new year! I am super excited to shake off 2012, and keen to start a brand spanking new year, hopefully full of - fun, lOve, health, good times and creativity!

The Beatnik fam's first project this year in our quest for a more Eco existence, was cranking up the worm farms we have had sitting in our backyard untouched for goodness knows how long! The stunning summer weather has encouraged us to get out into the garden a bit more and give it some much needed attention. Whilst doing that I found a nice little stash of worms in a pot plant. That find prompted me to start up the worm farming process that I had been putting off for far to long.

After briefly familiarising myself with the instructions I learnt that you need about one thousand worms to begin the farming process. Wow - that's a lotta worms! So the pot plant collection along with a poke around our compost bin didn't quite make the worm quota. With that it was off in search of worms we went!

Turns out you can buy the little squirmers from 'Bunnings' and similar outlets. Totally off the shelf, in a box and all! This information was super weird news to me, and as well as that I also discovered during my worm shopping experience they were a tad on the expensive side.
Surely there must be some super cool Eco dude farming them in his backyard I thought. After a little online research - I did discover a super cool Eco dude farming them in his backyard - win!

His name is 'Leon' from 'Browns Compost Worms', and he is a very passionate and informative worm farmer! Leon's super healthy worms are fresh as Daisies and nearly half the price of the boxed version from 'Bunnings' etc! I was much more comfortable supporting this 'super cool Eco dude' rather than buying them off the shelf.

Leon gave us a tour around his huge veggie patch, as well as the 'Crib Point Primary School's' Eco garden that his property backs onto and he has voluntarily assisted with. Leon happily donated some of his worms to the school which they are farming inside an old bathtub. He proudly told us that the 'Crib Point P.S' have received a sustainability award for their amazing Eco garden. The Beatnik clan spent about an hour with him talking about gardening, growing veggies, sustainability and of course worm farming.

Then it was off with the worms we went, not just the worms though...also a bag of complimentary fresh tomatoes from the garden. What a sweet man!

One of Leon's (aka super cool Eco dude farming worms in his backyard) tricks for healthy worms, is to add a little horse manure with their food scraps. Conveniently on our little road trip to his house we spotted some for sale roadside. So it was eyes peeled for that horse poop on the way home.

Funny thing is, we were in my tiny car so those two giant bags of horse poop we bought at a dollar each did not go down to well with the 'Baby Beatniks' on the drive home! Being a hot day it was not ideal to be carting horse poop around in a hatchback with two kids who were clearly unimpressed with our purchase, hehe! So it was all windows down and lots of complaints flowing! Next poop pick up it's BYO nose pegs, haha!

So the worm hunt was a success and now it's the actual farming I am yet to master. The 'Worm Tea' they produce is meant to be gold for the garden and the way Leon's garden is thriving I can't wait to get a load of that gear!