Growing up in a gorgeous permaculture garden builds some unusual adult expectations. Our children played with worms, cuddled chickens, climbed trees, nibbled on flowers and sometimes fell into patches of stinging nettle. When our son grew up he was shocked by the city waste and frustrated that he could no longer compost. Confined to a totally indoor existence, his idea for an indoor worm-farm was conceived.
Our first worm-farm towers were developed by one of our permaculture design course graduates, Robyn Crossland. The worm-farm adventure is ever developing.
Waste in a Tiny Space
We looked at old worm-farm systems which are pretty cool and decided to create a tiny version. The coffee-addict indoor worm farm was the smallest prototype. Then we up-sized to an old kitchen bin.
Even though we have plenty of space outdoors, we didn’t expect the indoor worm-farm to be so convenient. We loved it. The waste items that are not suitable for the poultry (such as banana peels) go directly into the worm-farm. So, we kept one for ourselves.
Do Worms Like being Indoors?
Worms like a steady temperature, they don’t like hot black housing in the full sun. Worms instinctively hide from sunlight. Nor do they thrive in cold mouldy places. Compost worms, [Perionyx Excavatus and friends] come from the tropical treetops. Our great indoors are cosy for worms, especially in winter.
Are Worms Smelly?
Worms don’t smell bad. Rotting food smells bad. Imagine having house-mates who don’t bother to put out the garbage until it gets smelly. That was the situation our son was living with. How could worms living in the food waste possibly be worse than that?
The first challenge is to learn what can be put into the worm-farm. Basically, worms can eat anything that was once living, but they prefer not to eat citrus or onion. Meat can be a problem because it goes off quickly. So leave out meat, onion and citrus and add some shredded paper and cotton rags every now and then to reduce wetness.
What Do I Need?
For a Simple Worm-farm You need:
a fully sealedbut not air-tight container. It is important to be able to keep out other creatures (like cockroaches, flies or vinegar flies)
Use a recycled strong plastic bag(grain bag) with small holes cut into it for drainage. This protect the worms from accidental drowning
Position an upturned potor two to support the bag off the base. This provides space at the bottom of the farm where fertilizer-rich fluid may collect. Also, the pots provide something for any lost worms to climb back up.
Include some beddinginside the bag. Bedding is usually an open-weave fabric. It holds the worm eggs. You can use hessian or a loose weave rag, preferably no nylon or plastics, only natural materials.
What Do I Need To Do?
Feed the worms kitchen scraps and torn plain paper. Worms love coffee grinds and banana peels. If you are going on a vacation, fill up the bin with fallen leaves and weeds from the street or your potted plants.
Take the worm bin outside periodically to tip out the liquid build-up. How often depends on how much liquid you put into the farm. We check ours each week. We don’t put any liquid into the farm, just coffee grinds and banana peels.
Sort out the worms from the castings outside or in a bathroom as it can get messy. Use the castings for potting mixture for more potted plants or feed the castings and liquid manure on a street tree or in a local park.
Advanced Potted Worm-farm system
Follow the instructions for a Basic Worm farm then add plants on top. You need:
a tight fitting pot to sit on top with potted herbs and
a feeding tube that runs all the way down the pot plant and to a hole to the worms in the next section down.
add a cap over the feeding tube (you can use an upturned pot)
Are Worms Fast? Yes But…
Worms are not the fastest composting organism but they are low risk. If you want fast composting, make a black soldier larvae farm. [Don’t have a larvae farm indoors without really strict hygiene controls].
What Kills Worms?
Like everything else, neglect is one of the biggest killers for pets. Indoor worms are likely to die from too much liquid, too little food or too much food. But there is one killer lurking in many household kitchens – insecticide. Poisons would account for sudden deaths. Avoid sprays and cleaners entering the worm bin.
The Chicken is one of the most successful species on the planet. The chicken has traveled the world, exhibited in shows and been pampered affectionately. For centuries they have enjoyed the best seats, fully catered free rides on ships, planes, trains, buses, canoes and rafts. Contrary to recent reports, Chickens are likely to adapt faster to climate change than humans. They have adapted twice already during their companionship with humanity. They are set to stay.
Chickens Process Waste and Provide Perfect Protein
Over Ten Thousand years ago, the chicken became the first domesticated animal. What attracted the chicken to people was the abundance of waste. Chickens don’t mind eating slightly off-meat and love maggots and other distasteful horrors. Chickens rarely compete with humans for food. They eat a wide range of food and grit. People probably decided to keep the persistent chickens because they are relatively easy to catch at night and have highly nutritious eggs. They would have seen how quick and efficient chickens are to clean the waste.
What do Chickens have that we don’t?
Chickens often have carers. Chickens are also opportunistic eaters and learn to adapt to dietary changes. They are persistent parents. In good conditions they will breed every year. The chicks learn quickly and are independent within a few short months. Quite often, if things go poorly in the mothering house, a chicken will simply take a short break, fraternise with her favourite rooster then start laying and sitting again. Each generation provides a chance to genetically adapt. Even old hens [ie. our 9-year-old chicken, ‘Ginger’] suddenly started laying again if the conditions are right.
Chickens wake up with purpose and sleep well.
Chickens have been bred to be docile. Many domestic animals can die from stupidity. Chickens are highly unlikely to cause themselves harm. Chickens have been known to accidentally drown or get trapped. Nor are Chickens so gallant that they choose to die. However, Roosters have been known to nobly defend the flock.
Fast Movers
Chickens come originally from the dense forests of the Tropics. Scientific evidence has demonstrated that they have already adapted twice before to enable them to grow obese and to breed all year round. They can adapt again, if they are given the r. Dr Carl-Johan Rubin of Uppsala University.
When we provide chickens with the chance to shelter in the cool sections of a food forest, they help to control the weeds, fertilise the trees and clean up fallen fruit. Their tendency to get fat makes it easy for us to catch them when we need to.
Creative Chickens Train Their Keepers
It is us, the keepers that need to adapt if we wish to continue enjoying the company of Chickens. We can devise solar passive chicken houses, give the chickens some self-determination about where to lay or hang out during the day and take time out to observe them.
Double digging is a technique where you dig, put the soil to the side, dig a bit more and toss that second lot of soil into the first hole. Essentially, you are turning the soil and bugs upside down and letting their shocked, dead bodies feed the your new plantings. In thin soils (like dryland soils) you would be bringing up the subsoil and trying to turn it into top soil. Double digging is destructive.
Double-Digging can be Instantly Impressive
The growth on plants (and sometimes the weeds) is quick and leafy. Double digging is an old farming technique used for centuries in countries with cool climates, deep soils and a careful regime where the soil is rested for long periods to try to recover. If you are in the modern world where land is expensive and there is pressure on you to do use (no time to rest it), or you want to use the space that is close to your backdoor not far away in a forgotten back corner of your garden. Then double digging is not your best option.
There is a serious cost to double-digging. Put bluntly, double-digging does irreparable damage to your soil. Double-digging
kills the micro-organisms in the soil. The dead creatures make double digging so amazingly productive. Their little bodies become instant fertiliser for the crops.
damages the structure of fragile soils and tempts erosion due to weathering by water and wind.
can bring up the useless, hard clods of subsoil unless you are digging on a rare fertile flood plain.
has a high risk of erosion from the moment vegetation is removed or hard-hoofed animals are put to graze. The typical Australian soil is only centimeters deep. This risk is amplified by the process of digging.
We can buy a fruit tree, dig a hole and put the tree in the ground. In a short time the tree may be fruiting and voilà we have the start of a food forest. Or do we? A real food forest captures condensation (more condensation can come to your garden than rainfall). A Permaculture forest builds soil. Condensation is trapped and rainfall stored in the soil. Water is used and re-used. Organisms are nurtured not sacrificed. A good permaculture forest design optimises the use of natural energies and serves to increase the health of the soil. Healthy soil gives us healthier trees and more nutritious fruit.
What Soil Really Wants
Good soil has 5 components:
Air (digging does increase the air, but so do worms)
Water (digging can increase water penetration) but if not designed well it can lead to erosion
Micro-organisms (digging kills many of these). Mulching provides them habitat
Nutrients (plants including weeds can mine for nutrients and make good air pockets with their long roots) Biochar can boost the nutrients in the soil as well as increase habitat for micro-organisms.
rock or other growing media such as recycled brick.
Jerry Glover displays the impressive roots of grasses versus grain
What could be more satisfying than Digging?
Simple No-dig Gardens
No-dig gardens can be designed to capture and filter the rain-water and protect the soil and micro-organisms from erosion. No-dig gardening
is physically easier and faster to set up
suppresses weeds
can regenerate soil (fertile, rocky, sandy or solid clay)
requires less effort
uses waste materials and
evolves into a beautiful garden
Our abundant little no-dig garden perches on rock-solid subsoil that could not be dug by man or woman.
No dig gardening requires a little patience but the soil is regenerated, fertility is enhanced and the organisms are constantly building in numbers.
Joyous Songs of Worm Charmers
There are many traditional farming techniques where the nutrients and organisms in local forests are brought to their fields to ‘seed’ worms and nutrients into the fields to improve fertility. Some people have turned it into a quirky sport like worm charming.
It is hard to find a productive balance between annual and perennial food plants. Annuals reward us with abundance for their short period growth, whereas perennials do more than just produce food – they give us microclimates, habitat, water filtration, fuel, condensation capture, erosion control, mulch.