Want to know how to make the best fertilizer in the world? Take a bull horn and stuff it with the manure from a lactating cow, bury it in the ground for 6 months, then dig it up and stick it in your compost pile.
I swear, I didn’t make this up. According to ancient wisdom and the science of biodynamics, this process with make enzymes that activate the compost and makes all kinds wonderful things that helps plants grow.
I got this picture off the internet just to prove that I didn’t make it up.
I don’t know where to get bull horns and I have never seen a lactating cow with my own eyes, so I won’t be stuffing poo into the bones of dead animals any time soon. However, I want to grow a garden so I can have free food.
Vegetables are good for you, and if you eat mostly foods in their natural state, your body will be healthier and you’ll weigh a lot less. Green vegetables, like lettuce for salads, can be grown in a sunny window in the house, but the problem is, potting soil is expensive if you have to keep buying it over and over again.
But what if there was a way to turn your garbage into soil to grow food that you could eat? OMG! There is. It’s called vermicomposting! Did you know that worms can eat your garbage? And did you also know that you can use worm poo and put it on your plants and it will make your plants grow bigger than if you used miracle grow.
It doesn’t stink either, so you can do this in your house.
Poke holes in a couple of storage bins.
Then you add a bit of soil, and toss in the worms. Actually, gently place the worms under the bedding with an apple core or two. They eat half their weight in food every day. Don’t overfeed!
I’ve never done this before, but I’ve always wanted too. http://vermicomposting.com/
It’s the epitome of being self sufficient. We’re trying to have more money coming into the bank from our investments than we spend. When we hit that goal, we’ll be financially independent. Then my husband can quit his job and we can move to the country and plant a food forest.
But in order to hit our goal faster, we have to spend way less, which means we have to grow our own food in our little suburban backyard. And if some worms can eat my garbage and make some awesome nutrient rich food for my fig trees, then I want to do it.
Did you know that people will pay good money for worm poo? It’s awesome, you can have worms eat your garbage, then sell the poo for money, which you could trade for a bar of gold? Technically speaking, wouldn’t that make worm farming a sort of alchemy? So, if I have a worm farm, I could just tell people that I am an alchemist.
So I begged my husband to let me have a worm farm. I promised to feed them and take care of them and do all of the work. He finally agreed, and now my worms are in the mail. I bought them off ebay.
I told my teenage son that we’re getting worms. He asked me if that meant that we would all have to get back on the medicine again. (I’d rather not explain that one).
You might be interested in checking out this Texas based company http://www.compostmania.com. They came out and did a talk for the community gardens I worked with a couple of years ago and are VERY enthusiastic.
From the look of the worm picture, I just hope no one answers the door and thinks FedEx is delivering a spaghetti supper from the local Italian restaurant.
You’re definitely a resourceful one!
hog poo is excellent too!
I watched a video where they were putting pig poo into this giant worm composting bin in some pig farm. Very cool. I hear swine feces can pollute streams and rivers.
I think any feces is not good for water supplies. I’ve just seen the results of it used as a fertilizer and it’s amazing. One my friend has an exellent garden and he uses black soil rich because it came from where hogs lived. And I have a lot in CR that was where they load the hogs from the pig farm. I have an incredible garden there…..I like your blog and agree with a lot you say… a lot of it is common sense.
I love my composting worms, though I decided not to compost inside this winter. Best of luck with your worms.
My husband wants to keep the worms outside, but how to you keep the worms warm in the winter and cool in the summer?
Depends, how cold does it get where you live? And in the summer I kept the bins on the north side of the house in the shade.
Might I add that along with not over feeding you don’t want to over water them either.
In my preschool class years ago one of my kids decided the worms were thirsty and didn’t tell me. A few days later I went looking for the horrible stink… I found it.
Thanks for the great link, Clotilda!
I think just having kids in general can be a stinky job. I am always finding rotting apples under the couch. Last week my house was really stinky and I found a moldy cantaloupe behind the drapes. I will have to have a bin with drainage and make sure my kids don’t put too much food in. thanks for the tip.
I think there is a country song in there somewhere.
Lol. Worm farming in Texas…
Never got that bit with the burying horn thing with biodynamic farming. Everything makes a lot of sense though
we composted for many years, it is a great way to create soil.
bat poo is excellent. Chicken, goat, sheep, cow. You can use all of them
That’s true, I found someone who wanted someone to pick up all of their horse poo from the pasture. It was a year old and mixed with hay. It was perfect. The lady offered to deliver it to my house, but I just had surgery and I couldn’t spread it in my yard and my husband is too busy this month. Oh well.
I bought worms at a bait shop, felt good about saving their lives, and just put them directly into my garden . They trive and eat and poo..I put little bits of scraps in the soil from time to time. great idea to raise them and sale the poo….have fun and may your garden florish.
The topic was not at all what I expected from the title…
I have a friend who has worms. They eat the kitchen waste and the chicken waste, and then they get fed to the chickens, and the worm “tea” gets poured on the garden, which grows things that in part become more kitchen waste. He’s got quite the “circle of life” going on there! Best of luck to you. There’s nothing like fresh, chemical free food that you grew yourself.
Really like your food forest vision. I hope it happens for you soon.
worms are fun. don’t take much time unless you find yourself just enjoying the process.
Didn’t Jimmy Carter’s worms all crawl away when the lights got turned on one night? Take care…
I think I missed that episode of the Jimmy Carter Show. Oh wait, he’s was the president, at first I was thinking of Johnny Carson.
Awesome!
I admit it – I make ‘poo horns’ (as I call them) and they are incredible! So are worm farms, of which we also use to enrich our soil.
Great blog post! Hooray for all peeps who love the land and take care of it. Free food for your troubles? Double awesome!! Bless xx
You make poo horns, really? Does it have to be a special horn of a magical cow dropped under the sign of Pices during a waxing moon? I just ordered the biodynamic calendar for 2013, and boy, that is way over my head.
there’s a lesson in there somewhere for me…I can feel it and have plenty of worms as its raining cats and dogs…. must try!
GO, WORMS! I love my worms! I compost right in my raised beds now, and they do great. Your kids are gonna love worm farming.
I am familiar with Steiner’s Biodynamics hear in Oregon. They are all the rage with vineyard managers who have more money than sense.
Organic ingredients, now that’s they way to go. Love this one.
Reblogged this on mylifeonlybetter and commented:
On my god you have no idea how many times I have contemplated a worm farm. Seriously. Maybe it’s time I did some more research. If I can actually SELL worm poo…OH MY GOD!!! Fucking genius.
I saw someone selling worm poo in craigslist. The local farm store sells it too.
Ew. Interesting though. My mother had a massive pile of compost that would steam all winter long when not in use. Nice thick black dirt, made everything grow.
Merry Christmas! You have won the STAR Award ….go to my link and check it out……http://cherryberrylemonlime.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/merry-christmas-my-first-star-award-im-passing-it-forward-look-and-see-if-its-you/
I would love to be your next door neighbor. It would be such fun!
Actually, I wouldn’t mind if you moved into the house behind me. Those people that live there now are absolutely loony.
I love those last lines! Hilarious!
What an awesome compost, er, I mean, post!
Seriously, this is GREAT information, so thanks!
My daughter is obsessed with worms. Whenever it rains she goes on digging expeditions. I can’t help but to think if we had a compost box with worms in it in my house she would be hovering around that bin constantly and I would be finding worms all over the place.
It really is a great idea though to reduce garbage and help the garden grow. More folks should do it.
I loved worms when I was little. I used to take them for rides on the back of my purple tricycle. It really freaked my sister out.
besides having some interesting content, I love your sense of humor and style of writing!
A worm farm. Brilliant. This is one of the things that I really must get into. Not least because when people ask me what I do, I can tell them that not only am I a practicising phlyarologist, I’m a vermicomposter and an alchemist, too!
Awesome, thanks for the ideas
My parents did this for an experiment that my 3 brothers wanted to do. Set it up in the basement for months and never smelled anything odd!
My compost bin is small, but chock-full-o-worms! Just wish there weren’t what feels like even more slugs. Evil things!
I have a cold creeping up and have been self-medicating with Christmas Ale and spiced rum, so I’ve been unable to find the post I read earlier about potato ends and whatnot growing when you think they won’t. I’ve grown some fantastic garlic by shoving into planters the cloves that get old, dry, and have nearly died in the effort of sending up green shoots in a desperate attempt at life. Not sure how it would work in your part of the world, but here you do it like tulips – plant in the fall and dig em up at the end of summer. Nearly free and soooo tasty when fresh!