Fly Paper

Sorry, couldn't resist the joke: Repulsive's on ScienceDaily.com Or his kind, anyway. Industrial-scale black soldier fly larvae processing: 20 million steroid-abusing maggots in their articulated armor chomping their way through a literal ton of organics every day.

Repulsive to the nth power. Still, nice to see someone trialing alternatives to burying organics in concrete-lined pits!

Introducing Nigel

The vermi-family has grown: I have African Nightcrawlers now. Actually, have had for a couple of months, though not many to speak of at first...so I didn't. But now Nigel's a definite presence.

The image above, from localharvest.org, is nothing at all like the material I started from. Local bokashi-and-beyond purveyor Microbial Earth offers an "African Nightcrawlers & humified compost mix"--according to the label, approximately 200 to 300 cocoons packaged with coir and compost for direct-to-garden application.

My vermigardening's mostly containerized, so I potted some herbs with a little of this mix added in, and set up a planter tower after my usual practice but without any actual worms, just the cocoon-and-compost stuff.

Well, in the interest of accuracy I should mention the two or three thread-thin hatchlings I found in the bag. But no breeding populations, you understand.

So at first, I assumed the worms I saw in the new tower were volunteers from the established colonies. But African Night Crawlers (ANC) are larger than the others. Much larger. When, on lifting the tops off two worm-homes, I saw worms in one that were twice as large as those in the other, I knew Nigel had established.

Still not quite as impressive a tangle as that image, but he's expanding quickly enough that I'm planning to divide him this weekend--probably a little soon for that, but he's just so big. It looks like he's cramped for space.

Haven't yet found any in the olla pots, so he may be brighter than Verne (EF). Or maybe it's the size thing again, or age; it tends to be larger, presumably older, iterations of Verne who move comparative mountains to get into the damp, cool clay containers between waterings.

So far, no vermi-battles have been observed. Verne mostly stays in his containers; Cousin Clem (Indian Blue) wanders a bit, but Repulsive (BSFL) has claimed all the good spots, so he retreats to the undersides of saucers. George the earthworm (no idea, possibly more than one species), sniffs around wherever any excess bokashi juice or Repulsive effluent has been diluted and applied, and sometimes finds his way into a recently wetted planter to become the worm equivalent of the crotchety old man in the corner house. "Hey, kids! Stay out of my burrows!" Or so I assume from the occasional vertical airspace in some of the less-tended and more populated units.

Nigel has yet to make his way out into the larger world. Which, you understand, is just fine with me! Worms that large disturb me a bit; I'll be just as happy never to encounter one without advance warning.

Though he's certainly welcome in the garden.

How many buckets would that fill?

From the text on the poster--details and a gallery can be found at GrowNYC--I'm assuming that little if any of this collected material is composted; clean dry and paired suggests reuse, not reclamation. And that's great! But what about filthy, torn, disreputable shreds of former garments?

Let them eat cake couture.

Verne et cie happily munched their way through the post-season potato bags, not quite waiting until the season was over before starting; Repulsive's nearly through the denim I decided was too worn to save for next year's insulation, and it's only been a couple of months; there are still bits of terrycloth in the slow-compost after nearly a year, but only bits, sufficient to add a bit of structure but nothing more. And the fabric bokashi bag (filled with matured ferment and buried at planting time) was only root-tangled threads when I repotted that particular item.

It's hardly news that natural fabrics are compostable in a home setting; the trouble is that so few of us think to do it! So, I'm trying. Dishtowels and cleaning cloths, old clothing and shopping bags, bits of fabric too small to make decent patches...into the mix they shall go.

Cleaned if needed (though I'm not much for chemicals) and tossed in after fermentation, I think. Unless I'm feeling experimental. 'cause, you know, that happens sometimes.

Been reading about the soil industry lately, picked up a new-to-me-term: low value soil-like materials. Paper waste and sand and things. Bulking and structural items, to me, since for nutrients I have bokashi. Seems strange to think of silk or linen as "low value" in any way, but a stained or torn shirt is trash, so, okay.

If we each saved one shirt from the landfill...that'd be a lot of space we didn't use. But I'm selfish, I want a personal benefit. So: if one shirt could replace one gallon of soil in a planter... Yeah, that'd work for me. Soil's expensive, relatively speaking.

Anyone need help cleaning out their closets? -G-

Got K-Cups?

[sorry for the formatting—I'm having blogger issues again. Image from espressoplanet, no connection though I lost some time browsing their offerings.]

Single-serve = more packaging. I know. And K-cups are ridiculously easy to throw away, all neatly packed even after use, while being nearly impossible to dispose of responsibly.

If only they didn't make such good coffee! -G-

So the workplace now has a Keurig. It also has two Solofill reusable filter-cups, but I'm the only one who'll use those; everyone else uses the packaged cups. Before I started agitating for folks to toss their K's into the compost collector [“my worms are hungry! Please feed them your tea bags, fruit peels, etc.”], I figured I'd better make sure the foil-topped plastic cups with coffee and filter inside were, in fact, bucketable.

Turns out...they're not suitable for a standard bokashi bucket. (As a general note to myself for future experiments: Impermeable additions mess with bucket health. Treat separately if at all.) Nor all that desirable for my bucket-alternatives. Even leaving the chemical concerns out of it, plastic in a slow compost pile is never recommended; it will break down into smaller pieces, but not truly degrade. The worms don't appreciate foil, though it isn't enough to make them flee from an otherwise suitable planter, but it takes a surprisingly long while for any worm to get brave enough to wriggle into a cup, and in the meantime, other critters may decide to colonize. Bad enough having to remove slightly degraded plastic cups from your vermicompost, but a cup full of centipedes? Eek! Repulsive doesn't mind them if the foil's torn a bit, and cohabitation's far less of a concern there, but small cups can hold waer, which could stagnate, and then there's the mucky mostly-intact plastic to fish out of the grubbery. Ick. And Ugh.

If you take the foil off the top, the worms are happier, though the other concerns still apply. Sigh. I scrounged a covered tray that would fit half a dozen or so unlidded used K-cups; spritzed EM/AEM/AIM on the UCG and let it ferment for BSF bait or “breath freshener” or compost boosters—nice fermentation, but in order to use the stuff, you still have to separate the organics from the plastic. Let me just say, it's a pain: the filter's glued into place. I resorted to kitchen shears.

And gave up on trying to salvage the organics from them in any organized sense. Hey, I divert my own UCG, isn't that good enough?

...which argument would sit less uneasily on my tongue if not for the fact that the workplace Keurig is actually my personal property, installed there for office use because I could.

Oops.

Tales from the Bucket: The Stone Soup Bucket

[image from the Florida invasive plants site]

I could work up a serious dislike of chinaberry trees. Actually, it wouldn't take too much work--the fruits are poisonous, the trees sprout like weeds from seed or sucker, and they're nearly as discouraging as walnuts when it comes to plant biodiversity in their immediate vicinity. Granted, their flowers smell nice, but that's not enough to earn their keep.

Before moving to Texas, I had never encountered the term “trash tree.” Until chinaberries and scrub elm, I'd never thought to use it. But chinaberries...well, I suppose they have their place, but there are far too many of them in my limited growing space.

Porch sweepings in this season are mainly those sticky chinaberry fruits with their hard centers, plus a few dried leaves, oak pollen, unripe mulberries, and assorted other detritus. It's not a great mix, and without serious hot-composting or some intervention, the result will have so many chinaberries-in-waiting as to be more trouble than it's worth.

Unless, of course, you're short on composts, funds, and resources altogether. Or are trying to be wholly self-sufficient in anticipation of TEOTWAWKI. Or have hungry grubs to feed...

Repulsive's active laying period has begun, but I don't have all that much to give him just now. He will not eat chinaberry fruits left to decompose where they fall, but put them in a container with a seasoning of bokashi and he'll chow down! And while the fruits are toxic to mammals, they don't seem to bug him one bit. So I swept the porch-fall into a series of flat, stackable containers--shallow dishpans--and added a cup of bokashi'd kitchen waste to each one. Bokashi plus sweepings will self-compost to some degree, though not significantly in this scenario, with so little moisture or pressure. But there is enough moisture for mama layers to consider the mix a decent foodsource, and it turns out the small volume of bokashi I used as a start, plus the occasional addition of a small bit of bokashi juice or anything else in the vinegar range*, is sufficient to keep the grubs happily chomping their way through those fruits and churning the leaves toward their natural end, with the help of EM and other IMOs.

There are already saplings appearing in this mix, so apparently chinaberries don't object to dilute acids and disturbance. But they're easy to uproot now, can be tossed right back in to provide more food for microbes and macros, and if they sprout and die now then the eventual soil amendment will not have tons of saplings. It will have a whole bunch of seeds, but after sprouting they're not nearly so pebble-hard as when they're still encased. Cooked stones are a bit softer, maybe? -G-

Being rather squeamish about Repulsive, I'm still planning on aging the grub mix and/or letting the worms have it, but it looks like it should be usable to a less grub-averse gardener in about two months from sweeping, finished enough to use as container fill for an outside planting without further intervention.

And if you weren't doing retail bokashi, this would still be perfectly feasible; a purely lacto fermentation will attract BSF layers. The current favorite among non-bokashi-ing BSFL “wranglers” seems to be fermented corn. Come to think of it, chinaberries in water might well ferment...

There is one major disadvantage to my stack-of-dishpans set-up--I do not believe Repulsive should be allowed to free-range--but now that I know the chinaberries can be useful, I'll build a case or something. The minor disadvantage, that the relatively open stacks require additional moisture, I consider a trade-off, as the relatively high rate of evaporation means I don't have to drain reservoirs of grub muck. Also, the neighbor's AC unit drips more than sufficient water onto my porch, and unless you're using clay or filters, AC water is not recommended for watering plants, so what else am I going to do with it?

Goes well with the whole something from perceived-nothing idea, too.

Are your grubs awake yet? What are you feeding them?





*vinegar, kombucha, bokashi bran mixed with water, even sauerkraut brine, if it's real kraut.

A Repulsive new blog

Raise Soldier Flies.com

As backyard industries go, this one...seems to be doing pretty well. I admit to a serious case of NIMBY--both for the ick factor and because I know from experience that BSFL will eat my compost-in-progress, and I need my compost--but this is a great new resource for people interested in cultivating waste digesters on a large home-based scale.

(Cracks me up how many of the BSF folks go out and buy cracked corn to "sour" to use as bait for the things. Apparently, that's the standard local technique.)

Warning for the squeamish: photo- and video-heavy blog, necessarily including close-up images of larvae.

From teh Interwebs: A Repulsive Idea

An experiment I wouldn't have done, but a question I get asked fairly frequently--now I can just tell folks to go read about Heather's Repulsive BSF Adventure.

Blecch.

After the bucket: Good bug, bag bug?

Even on Hallowe'en, I'm not inclined to frighten anyone too badly, so no appropriate insect photo today. Besides, I like Dr. Seuss!

This fall season, I’ve been busy with non-gardening things—hence the dearth of posts—but the garden’s been ticking along with minimal care, as it’s designed to do. Bokashi is still the right solution for my situation, in large part because it, too, needs only occasional attention: If you’re not adding new organics, the household bucket can stay closed up and ignored for a couple of weeks (always assuming a deep enough reservoir or sufficient absorbent material). And as an added benefit, forgetting to take out the trash before you leave on a business trip no longer results in a stinky welcome home. -G-



Likewise, my post-bucket techniques are fairly hands-off, except for the small-batch hot compost, and that will simply convert to a slower process if you forget the hands-on part. But this week, I had a ton of garden work to do, to get ready for the advent of relatively cold weather. So I checked on some of my post-bucket setups--



--and wasn’t really surprised, though I was disappointed, to discover that only the one with the critters in it was ready. My tolerance for outdoor macro-digesters just isn’t all that high, though it’s far greater than for the indoor [zero] level. Some things, I cannot abide at all. Others I can reluctantly allow to live so long as they don’t directly bother me. Still others have me crying for the Flit!



Verne the composting worm is always welcome. (Hey, I shelled out good money for him. Several generations ago.) His cousin Clem, better known as the Indian Blue worm, is also welcome whenever he chooses to appear, though if he wanders off again, that’s okay, too; I know he’ll be back when there’s food to tempt him. George the earthworm is ever a surprise, but hardly an unwelcome one; I’ve read that earthworms don’t do well in compost bins, but apparently he’s as illiterate the rest, happily breeding in the mismatched yard waste compost cans and hatching out wherever that compost is applied.



It’s the other detritus-clearers that I have issues with. Sowbugs and so on may eat seeds and sometimes sprouts, so if they’re in the compost, I have to solarize or dry it before use. [This may not be as much of a concern for non-container gardeners, but that does me no good!] BSFL eat large quantities of the organic matter, which results in lesser volumes of finished compost for me to use. And piles of woody matter, even contained piles, attract insects the typical urban dweller really doesn’t want to see:



Cockroaches.

Also ants, mites, springtails, etc. But, really, compared to those skittering things, do the rest seem so bad? Even Repulsive might be less disturbing than roaches…



Nah.



My untowered vermidirt experiment worked just about like I’d expected it to: though I added no worms to my material, worms were present, as were BSFL, sowbugs, woodlice, and geckos with their spots stretched out from weight gain -G-. The very top layer beneath the weight was still visibly uncomposted; beneath that, an upper layer finished enough to use as mulch, and some eggshells and twigs remaining even in the lower, completed layer. Also a couple of snails clinging to the side next to the weight (not a waterproof cover, just something to keep the possums and coons out), two or three earwigs, and as many of those nasty six-legged things it pains me even to think about or type.



Oddly, one of the outdoor roach species doesn’t disturb me at all--I’ve only ever seen it outdoors, it doesn’t look much like the disgusting indoor ones, it’s extremely photophobic, and it’s common where old wood’s undisturbed, so I see it mostly running away from me when I’m cleaning up future garden space. By far the preferred view, but not welcome in a planter! Particularly considering that "away" means either deeper into the material or into another planter nearby (space constraints mean that many of my planters touch).

The other one is worse, so undeniably a cockroach that I’m likely to run screaming, or at least go find something else to do.



But the ten gallon planter with all that disgustingly thriving life held eight gallons of finished compost plus a bit of nutritive mulch, at a time when my plants need compost and mulching. This method can be used in any container and takes advantage of whatever species may be present. All it needs is a layer of soil and a weight on top, a container with solid sides and bottom drainage, and a place to rest out of the way. It can be stacked, but need not be. Placement is equally flexible: sun or shade, on soil or grass or even concrete so long as it’s within a foot or so of life. It’s a slow-compost process with hot-compost speeds, thanks to bokashi. Not as fast as managed hot compost with bokashi, but comparable to the usual figures for hot compost. Less than three months for this split harvest.



Imagine the ad pitch: Any size, any volume, any container, anywhere (outside). Slow-compost ease, hot-compost speed. Sounds great! But the fine print on this one might be too great a barrier for me. Roaches and grubs and earwigs, oh my!?



If it makes the plants happy...maybe. But I think I’m happier with my towers, even if they do take more infrastructure.


DSF

What's worse than vacation pictures?

How about bad compost-ana shots? No, I don't mean failed compost--just bad photos. Since it seems I can't keep even a really good camera alive for more than two years, nor take a single good photo in that time, I went with the cheapest little keyfob camera I could find.

Hey, if I can't see Repulsive through the tiny little coke-glass viewfinder, maybe I won't wince. As much.






This is what my tower-made vermicompost typically looks like. Unfiltered, not wet, solid enough to cake but not heavy. No worms, as they've moved up to the next planter, but though I never see any cocoons, they must be there, since baby worms hatch in the bags if I package this stuff up.





This is vermi-mud. Those folks who water their wormeries are probably familiar with this; in my case, it's the result of heavy fall rains backing up a reservoir and then some. It's been drained and drying for nearly a week now...






This is what the BSFL folks have started to call "grub pudding." I tried to get a picture that shows the little craters and all the tiny grubs still sluggishly moving, but if I didn't succeed, I don't think I'll mourn long. That blur in the lower left corner is a grub squirming toward me! Yecch. (-G-)

Grub pudding may look a lot like soggy vermicompost, but they are not the same.

The pictured pudding is finished--the grubs still present will die if I don't do anything, as there isn't sufficient nourishment remaining for them to mature, and it's too warm and too wet in that container for them to go dormant. The grubs can't process this material any further. But that isn't to say this is a finished compost.

A general-purpose dictionary might; but in a gardener's lexicon, compost is safe to use in nearly all situations and beneficial ditto. Oh, there are exceptions, plants that need to be starved and so on, but say compost to the average gardener and the matching concept is of a homogeneous, stable, variably textured but typically humus-like material rich in plant-accessible nutrients, that can be applied as top- or side-dressing, used as mulch or mixed into the soil, with no safety concerns and few contraindications.

Grub pudding is not stable; adding it to plantings will usually result in nutrient sequestration, seldom (if ever!) a desired outcome. Nor is it likely to improve soil tilth, another of compost's benefits. Grub poo is too fine to hold air, though water it can do. Then there's the nourishment concern; ignoring the sequestration issue, there are some plant-accessible nutrients, but how many and of what sort can be difficult to determine. In large part, it depends on what you fed the grubs; also, on what non-food techniques you employ. And as if that's not discouraging enough, there may be undesirable bacteria in finished grub pudding, also depending on what you fed the grubs, and how large the colony*.






Speaking of feeding. This is worm-food waiting to be fed. UCG from a coffeeshop, dried leaves from a chem-free neighbor, and AIM. Poor photo even in context, I know, but the leaves are pale thanks to mycelial bloom, beginning to break down.






This is a bokashi bag that should have been planted about a month ago. Don't know how much you can tell from this picture, but the bag is still identifiably a bag, while the materials within are well on their way to homogeneous etc. And, unlike grub pudding, nutrient sequestration doesn't seem to be an issue--I'm guessing the bokashi juice supplies nourishment to the plant for that first span.






And finally, a recipe I'm going to have to try again: one part each bokashi, dried leaves, and coco coir, fed to worms. This isn't a finished vermicast product, but a lightweight potting mix with a lively microbial profile and incredible results in my just-barely-started seedling mix tests. Not quite ready to use, as there are still identifiable bits, but that's my determining factor. Takes about a month, comparable to hot-composting, but with at least some of the benefits of vermicompost, and not so rich it can't be used straight (which finished vermicompost cannot be, as a seeding medium). This batch looks about a week away from harvest-time.

And I just couldn't resist the image with one Verne-bit too stubborn to leave. Sun had largely set, anyway, so not much light to bother him, and I don't think worms are photo-phobic in the other sense.

There really was a reason for this post, but I forget. Maybe I need a vacation...

DSF



*I don't worry about undesirable microbes, since Repulsive receives generous doses of EM. Nor is that additional processing a problem. These days, my grubbery is the top of a tower, with a wormery planter just beneath; all I have to do is harvest now and then. It's not perfect--fewer adult BSF find the unit than are necessary for a really vigorous population. if the goal is just to dispose of food, it works, but I have an experiment I've been planning for winter, and I may resort to bait bags once before the weather turns, to ensure a large enough colony.

Leaping Lizards!

Okay, so the Mediterranean House Gecko didn't jump--but I did. Opened the temporarily rampless grubbery and found one of these guys clinging to the side and chowing down, presumably on the baby grubs as I don't think his mouth is large enough for big ones. I was braced for the sight of disgustingly squirming banded grubs, but not in a starring role as breakfast! Yecch.

Note to self: duct tape. Since apparently plugs are not sufficient protection against intruders, though they do keep the grubs from wandering. (Of course, I could just go install that ramp, but where's the fun in that? -G-)

Queasily,
DSF


[image and species ID linked from California Herps.com]

Grubbing Around

Image from Hooks & Lattice, with which company I have no affiliation--but there's an anniversary coming up... (hint, hint)

Weird week here in Bucketville. Among other things, I had multiple requests for BSFL! Not all this week's requests were for grubberies, some folks just wanted grubs: To try out as feed for a particularly fussy pet reptile, for a fishing trip, and to replenish an industrial-sized retail unit from which I'm guessing there's been some over-enthusiastic harvesting, plus a pet waste disposal unit and a bird-feed "farm" (that's two separate things, at different locations, even).

So I spent Saturday morning playing chauffer to Repulsive's offspring, after a session of harvesting the disgusting things. Seemed like a good time to retire the various and sundry experiments, since 1) I've settled on a permanent design, and 2) it's a lot easier to secure a single unit against raccoon and possum incursions. Since the standard adapted bokashi-bucket design works, though it's no longer my preferred model, I just handed that one over to the folks who wanted a bird-feeder hatchery. The coir-liner test works very well, too, but I used scrounged materials for the first model, and the result was far too large for my space or needs. Rather than deal with the nightmare of separating hatchlings and feeding grubs from the exploded coir mat, I passed that on, plus such harvested grubs as I had left once all the other requests were filled, to the folks with the Bio-Pod. Hey, they asked for grubs, they didn't specify mode of delivery!

But I liked the results of the coir so much that I actually went out and (gasp!) spent money buying a smaller coir basket liner for the grubbery's permanent installation. Not just a mat to go on the bottom, a natural alternative to the synthetic mesh I've seen in Bio-Pods, but a large enough single piece of matting to cover the bottom and sides, all the way up to the single row of small holes I've had to admit are necessary for practicality.

Apparently, laziness beats squeamishness in the end--I used to set out bait bags for the layers because I couldn't handle the thought of grubs using air- or laying-holes to escape a feeding unit; but bait bags have to be emptied and refilled, not to mention protected from the cursed four-foots, and I got tired of it. Other grubbery models have pipes to let layers into the bucket, but that was way too much for me. So I watched the adults awhile, to see where they preferred to lay. Which seems to be into tiny holes with free space behind them and damp protected space just below, plus the food source, naturally. Explains why I never had much luck with cardboard laying disks: I left them too accessible. Sigh.

The only problem with the coir liner--unless one has a sudden need to harvest immature grubs in significant quantity--is that the material expands more than you might expect, reducing the bucket's effective volume. But I'd rather have a slightly larger container with no escapees than a smaller one that requires warning labels. And this is about as close to hands-free as I'm likely to get; the necessary maintenance during a working season has been reduced to feeding the grubbery, and exchanging a full catchment bottle for an empty one and hanging the birdfeeder. No draining reservoirs, no grubbing about with eggs or feeding populations, no need to remediate for moisture or carbon levels. Assuming the occasional addition of EM in some form, there's no off-odors. And almost no chance of grubs on the lid when you open it, though I can't say no risk ever of seeing the things. (Drat! And it was so close to perfect. -G-)

Probably ought to buy a new camera so I can post pictures of things. Ah, well. Repulsive's permanent home consists of:

1) A small lidded bucket with holes in the bottom and around the bottom inch of the sides, plus a single row of small holes beneath the rim.
2) A coir bucket liner reaching up to the row of holes.
3) A collection ramp, in this case half-inch tubing and threading to fasten into a soda bottle, with the part of the tube inside the bucket cut in half to create a U shaped ramp the maturing grubs can climb.
4) A largish planter filled with cheap dirt or soil-based potting mix (at least as much soil as the bucket would hold, though in a large enough planter you could mix some carbon after that requirement is met), into which the bucket is set at least three inches deep and as far down as desired so long as there's no chance of the upper row of holes being buried or completely blocked.
5) Optional but recommended, a two-inch layer of good potting mix and some plants. It looks better, but more importantly, it helps keep the predators away. Between the grubs and the worms that will move in even if you don't add any, it's a protein-rich feast--and birds, raccoons, possums, toads, and lizards have all found Repulsive in some of his less-protected iterations.

Considering what I choose to feed Repulsive, I'm going with decoratives rather than edible plants around his tower. It's not my usual preference, but I do have a few, gifts or volunteers or flowers to keep the landfolks happy, and some of those should be tolerant enough of salts and acidity to work here. (Salts from the foods; acidity more from the EM I add than anything.) If I were less squeamish, I suppose some edibles might be possible. Red orache springs to mind, but it's certainly not the only likely crop. Guess maybe I could try it. There's no requirement that I actually eat what I grow, right? Well, maybe.

And maybe there's another experiment to try: coir liner on the sides but not the bottom of the bucket. Which would allow the worms greater access to what the soldier fly folks have taken to calling "grub pudding," while still giving the mama layers their preferred egg-despoting space.

Just what I needed, more grubbing around. They do sell coir by the roll...

DSF

A hole above the ground

Necessity is the mother of…Repulsive 2010 beta.


My usual spigots can’t handle grubbery leachate; it's pretty nearly sludge, thinner if the filter hasn't been dislodged yet but always muddy and with fine-silt particles that clog the tap. I can’t lift a full inner bucket right now to get at the lower one to empty it (wrist injury’s healing, but not yet fixed). And letting the reservoir back up into the unit is not an option. So I set the inner bucket on top of a soil-filled planter that had once been fitted out as a wormery--which means that it had ventilation holes on the sides and bottom, plus a drip-tray beneath. Also, since Verne has no concept of personal space or respect for ancestral colony gravebins, some worms.

This largish unit has about the same volume of soil beneath as potential food-and-grub volume above, and I’m not sure I’d try much less than that; eight inches of soil minimum, if my admittedly sketchy math is correct.

So far, it’s working quite well. A few grubs have no doubt squirmed into the soil, but most of them stay near the top, that being where food comes in. (I decided not to worry about it unless or until I saw a grub using the wormery part to escape; so far, no grubs have been sighted emerging from the soil layer or hatching in the soil-packed vent holes, and the mamas don't tend to bother probing them.) It's quite possible there are worms in the grubbery's inner bucket, but that's not a problem either, and the holes are there should any aggregate bit decide to move. Leachate seeps out of the grubbery into the soil, where it serves to keep the worms fed and moistened, and since soil regulates temperature and pH, there’s no need to worry about Verne no matter what the grubbery gets up to. Too, between the weight of the soil and the nesting of base and rim, plus the inevitable-here-in-Bucketville weight on top, the grubbery’s as nearly secure as I can make it. No human-perceptible odor escapes except when it's very wet--as in, after our recent storm-cycle--and then it smells like fertile wet soil, no trouble at all. Judging by the adults flying around, happy-BSFL pheromones are being produced and food-scent is perceptible to them, since despite crawl-off there's no population shortage on the horizon, but so long as my neighbors and I can't smell it, it's a success.

I'm kind of excited: a moisture-regulating grubbery means one less chore, and one less chance I might accidentally spot one of the aggregate bits that earned Repulsive his name. Well worth the temporary reallocation of a bucket of cheap dirt! Have to say, I’m not sure how well it’d work without worms in the soil layer and/or EM in the foodstuffs. Or, ideally, both. But since I do have both, this is a workable model for me.

At some point, of course, I’ll have to do something with the unit, but with any luck at all, that won't be until fall. Lure the last layers to an alternate location, let the grubs in the unit mature and crawl off or go dormant, let the worms work the bucket over the winter, and in spring and harvest a bucket or so of rich vermidirt and worms. From stuff I wasn't willing to feed my bokashi buckets.

The obvious next step is to test this as an urban pet waste disposal; I've had some success with temporary in-ground units, but that only works where you have a hole in the ground away and downslope from your garden! Too, that was to get rid of the leavings from the neighbors' dogs. The household feline's box is a very different matter. EM, obviously, but what then? I'd thought about BSFL before, but they don't like clay, and there remained the question of what to do about the remains in the bucket once they'd done their part.

Worms were also a possibility, of course, but they can't handle fresh liquid wastes. Grubs + worms seemed reasonable, except for everyone saying how difficult it is to maintain them together.

We shall, as ever, see.


Glad to be back,
DSF


Photo courtesy of USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service , where some very odd photo categories can be found!

It's an image thing

Lolcats are cute. Repulsive...lives up to his name. But Grubbery 2010's directions aren't too different from this. You know, except for the part where you actually look!

Happy grubbing,

DSF

The Return of Repulsive

Soldier Fly

What I learned this year: don't let him freeze. If you're willing to have a grubbery, it may as well be a year-round one. Also, way too much work to get it started up again! Though I imagine part of the problem is my refusal to let the things roam free...

Six or seven weeks ago, the early-waking grubs wandered out of their winter beds and went wherever maturing grubs go to sprout wings. (Not toward the space I occupy, fortunately!) Putting together a starter-pack for someone around March 28, I discovered that I had only a couple of dozen dormant ones left, plus the last few just waking. Didn't seem worth the effort to set up a hatchery--obviously, they'd done just fine in the leaf-filled berry punnets I'd used for winter quarters--so I left the stragglers alone to do their thing.

And in the meantime, I cleaned out the frozen grubbery, to my relief much less disgusting than had it been active, and soaked it in a strong dilution of AEM as a sort of compromise between the impulse to scour and the desire to retain some happy-grub pheromone. While I was mucking about, I converted the grubbery full of finished proto-compost to a wormery [which sounds much more involved than it was: I dumped a cup of unfiltered half-finished vermicompost in there], then confirmed that all the dormant ones had crawled away and set up bait bags to await the egg-layers.

March 30 or so. First recorded sighting of an adult: April 24th. Checked the bait-bags that day, but nothing.

And more nothing. And still more. I used bait bags all last summer and fall, to replenish grubbery populations since my unit does not provide free access for egg-layers (any hole an adult can use to get in, a larva can use to get out, and I can't handle that). Simple design: mylar coffee bag about half-full of UCG, closed, with one or more holes above but near the level of the organics. Propped up next to or behind the grubbery to take advantage of that fabled happy-grub scent. It worked very, very well all last year. But this spring? Nope.

What if I left the bag open at the top? Well, then I got flies--just not the right sort. The only thing worse than a bait-bag full of BSFL is one full of ...things... that are not BSFL. Yecch! Tried different sorts of foods with pretty much the same results, though I did achieve small populations of BSFL with cured bokashi. No idea whether predation or selective egg-laying was the cause of that less-than-boom, but a quart of cured bokashi netted me only about an ounce of BSFL. And this early in the year, those new-hatched bits of Repulsive showed no inclination to hurry up and mature so they could breed more.

Not that they should need to. The adults were flying around, they just weren't laying in the bait-bags. Or in the proto-compost wormery, though I left it open for a few days to see if they would. Apparently, there's no happy-grub pheremone if they finish their meal. Call that lesson #2. And for #3: nor is their happy-grub pheromone if the grubs die in the grubbery!

But Repulsive is endemic in my area, which is how I ended up with him in the first place. Additional pheromone signatures shouldn't have been necessary. Why wasn't he (well, his female members)laying where I wanted him????

Lesson #4. Finally got the right conditions, but it had nothing to do with me: It rained. Rain got into the various baits, and all of them sprouted BSFL as if by magic. (Black magic, that'd be. -G-) Grubs in all their disgusting multitudes, so numerous and so voracious that they went through the baits in no time. Writhing, squirming, smelly mud, just what every gardener needs! But, hey, I set out food for them, guess I really did want the things. (Why, again?) No need to tolerate the muck, now they're hatched; they're getting dumped into the grubbery, along with a whole bunch of EM bokashi bran.

And I'm going back to spritzing AEM into bagged UCG. It hadn't occurred to me that lack of moisture might be the deterrent, as UCG tends to be fairly damp, but the last set of bait bags were all filled from the same batch of collected UCG, and it was much drier than I'm used to seeing. My other baits all seemed wet enough to start with, but Austin's doing its usual summer-preview thing, with strings of 90+ and sunny days. Enough to dry out anything!

Had I put the bait(s) in a standard-model grubbery, with the access holes for egg-layers, it'd have stayed damp enough to be inviting. But, all in all, I think I'm sticking with the no-escape grubbery. Other folks have good results with barriers, but I'm just too squeamish to try it again. Ramp into bird feeder bottle for the pre-adults; bait bags for the mamas to lay. And no grubs roaming free!

He's Repulsive enough when I know where he'll be.

Happy grubbing!

DSF

Mucking about

Repulsive's waking (I was quite surprised to find active grubs in the dormant-grub boxes this weekend), so it's time to do something about his grubberies. Yes, that's plural--he had two last year, though not simultaneously. Unlike Verne, he is not allowed to colonize at his pleasure! I changed buckets early in the fall, as it was that or deal with the horror of emptying the "proto-compost" from an active grubbery, but while the stated intent was to let the stuff cure, and the actual intent to let any remaining grubs mature and move away, I think at this point it's just taking up space.

About three gallons of space. It's not all finished grub poo, as I use the grubberies for bone, which shouldn't yet be wholly decomposed, but the total bone volume can't be so much as a full gallon. All the rest is...not soil, but something not too unrelated to use for making mud-pies, assuming you were far less squeamish than I, or didn't know where it came from, maybe.

So if I have two-thirds of a bucket of aged soil-like material, why haven't I used it up yet? Two reasons. The first is half superstition: I'm afraid of the lure of the happy-grub pheromone! BSFL excreta is supposed to be prime worm-food, but I'm worried that if I add it to the towers, grubs will follow. A singular grub in the wormery isn't an issue, but I don't want Repulsive to feel welcome in the worm-homes. It's not so much of a concern as all that, considering that the towers are fed largely on dried leaves and there's a fair bit of soil in there, too, so BSFL wouldn't thrive, but I haven't the courage to risk it. The second reason it's still sitting around is consistency: the stuff Repulsive (ahem) leaves behind is more finely textured than espresso grounds. Far too finely textured to be of much use to me as a soil amendment, with my containers and reservoirs, though in-ground gardeners might well benefit from it.

What am I to do with it? I've used some in starter-packs, but can't make any more of those just now--the dormant grubs have awakened and left their boxes to roam uncontained! [Yecch.] Could just dump it, I suppose, use it to fill a ditch or pothole or something. It'd break down in time, but before that, might attract worms to the area. Perhaps I could dump it one of the area's unofficial dog parks, where a few BSFL would be helpful! Or, rather than carry it offsite, I could start a bog garden in a bucket or planter with rather more surface area than the grubbery, an idea I have to admit holds some appeal.

But I'm lazy, and there are so many different experiments running already! This time, I think I'll add a scoop of Verne and what happens.

DSF


today's image is from National Geographic; that's Arizona Slot Canyon mud, and I'm pretty sure there's no way to make BSFL produce anything that looks like that.

The Well-Dressed Bucket

Shh. Repulsive is in disguise. The recent hard freeze made it necessary to move him into the shared laundry room, and my fellow tenants are only slightly less squeamish than I, so he's been impersonating a plant stand. Which I figured was excuse enough for the image above, from Sesame Street's Wormy Gras.

What, you didn't know Verne's kind like to dress up in costume and party? -G-

Apparently, they're not alone: Repulsive has his very own wardrobe.

I have to say, I did not intend to give him one. It just kind of happened. Saw a heavy denim wrap skirt at a box sale, neglected for its lack of style or impractical size, I don't know--but the color might have influenced me, as it's a brown not too far off from the expensive ground cloths I'd been pricing recently. Denim is a good insulator, so I figured I might as well give it a try. The nights were getting cold, you see.

That skirt turned out to be well fitted for the purpose, its construction making it simple to fasten around the bucket grubbery at base and sides, with material enough to fold over the top between feedings or fold back down on warmer days. Granted, it looked a little weird, but this is an assemblage made of two kitty litter buckets, a spigot, some weatherstripping, and, until recently, a hollow tube with a soda bottle on the end! I'm not sure there's any way the thing could be made to look normal.

First freeze warning of the season, I decided Repulsive's skirt might not be adequate. So I gave him a second layer, a lightweight synthetic blanket of the sort used on airplanes, draped over the bucket and tied into place. This must be removed in order to open the bucket, which is not a good idea for me--reluctant grub-feeder that I am, it's too easy for me to "forget" there's an option beyond tossing the bokashi-ineligible things in the garbage--but the larvae were still active after T-Day, when I unwrapped it to toss some bones and sundry items in. And temps had dropped below 40 twice by then.

The first hard freeze came this past weekend. I couldn't imagine that Repulsive's scanty winter clothing would be sufficient protection against actual frost-and-freezing winter, not for active grubs, but before taking any further measures, I figured I should see if Repulsive was, in fact, still awake. Those earlier night-time drops had been followed by warmer days, but the preceding three hadn't warmed appreciably, and the continued chill might have ended grub season already.

Might have, maybe, I'm still not actually sure. When I undid Repulsive's clothing--which sounds wrong on so many levels!--I discovered that I'd inadvertently left the lid unsealed the last time, and a number of mature grubs had chosen to wriggle through the gap and down the side to take their winter nap in a denim nest. The bucket grubbery wasn't untenanted, however; beneath the hollow shell of a cucumber was a mass of paler grubs, not moving in response to dim early morning overcast, but rousable when poked at with a very long stick. Drowsing?

On the chance they would wake to eat, I added the food I had ready, drained the reservoir, and moved the re-dressed grubbery into the laundry room. (Less the dormant ones, of course, that I moved to a proper winter bed.) That's not a heated space, but protected, anyway, and the best I've got. Stuck Repulsive in the back row, topped with a potted plant, and hoped for the best...

None of the plants have melted into slime, so presumably it remained above freezing. Warm enough for grubs? Not for peak activity, there's no creepy horror-movie rustling noise coming from the bucket, but it does seem a bit warmer (or less cold) to the touch than the planter resting on top of it. I'd open it to see, but that'd let out the heat.

Also, disarrange the folds of his shawl. -G- Though I guess I really should, if only so I know whether or not I should be shopping for some sort of grubby overcoat.

DSF

Mutant armadillo maggots

"Say, what's in that bird feeder?"

Yep.

Chilly nights, so I've pulled Repulsive's ramp-to-adulthood for the season. While the latest angled tube was not a perfect solution, this year's version had one feature I shall definitely reprise: the hands-free catchment jar. 'Cause I'm all about not having to handle the BSFL.

A soda bottle and a threaded plastic elbow joint made a perfect terminus for mature larvae, with a few pinpricks around the bottle's shoulders allow for sufficient airflow to keep them from immediately suffocating, and the dry wheat bran I sometimes remembered to include to slow them down a bit.

Still haven't found a chicken farm in need of any calcigrubs.

Leaving mature grubs in a closed system seems to upset the still-feeding ones--not to mention, it can become extremely unpleasant when they die in droves and more or less liquefy--so Repulsive's ramp is necessary for much of the year whether or not I do anything with the late-instar iterations. Leaving the bottle off the end of the tube isn't happening; setting them all free would only invite the possums and raccoons to an all-night buffet. So now and then I have a bottle half filled with grubs. I could, I suppose, bring that bottle to the landfolks' place and give their pet chickens a treat, but if the goal is just to feed birds, I have those closer to home. A whole flock of wood doves, a few mockingbirds, cardinals and assorted songbirds I couldn't tell apart with a guide...

Campfire Girls, Boy Scouts, 4H-ers and all the rest know how to make a bird feeder out of a soda bottle and a bit of wire, a plate and this and that. Or one could simply buy a feeder kit like the one pictured above (no affiliation, but it's a whole lot prettier than mine!).

Next year, I might think about camoflaging the bottle so as to hide the contents from my view. Certainly I should have thought about that before hanging one on someone else's property, though I did have permission to do so. Hadn't really thought what it might look like to the neighbors.

"Wow. Birds really like that new feeder there. Um, uh. Where'd you get that weird feed? It looks like it's...MOVING!"

Now there's a marketing strategy: Armadillo grubs. Local-grown living bird feed.

Actually, here in Austin, that might just work.

DSF