Worms, Day 3

We closely inspected our compost today, and to my surprise we have babies!! Lots and lots of babies, which is great because I seriously doubt there were anywhere near the 1200 worms that supposed to be in the 1lb bag we bought. That is just fine as long as they can keep up with our output of scraps, and the more the merrier.

Hannah spent every free moment with the worms today, she really has taken a likng to them. Elijah, on the other hand, will allow me to place one on his hand, but only for a moment before he tosses it back in the bin. He prefers guessing what the veggies used to be that are half eaten and covered in dirt.

Tomorrow, we go buy a fishtank and begin our set up of the small aquaponics system in our bedroom. I think I have purchased everything we need, but I am sure there will be something I missed. I am very hopeful this batch of fish will survive longer than our poor goldfish we had last year. This should be better, since we have a 'filter system', not just a bowl.

For my first crop, I am planting tomatoes, bell pepper, cilantro, basil and spinach. I am pretty sure the greens will grow no problem, but I am worried the fruiting plants will need supplemental light. I am starting without, and I can always add that later if they look like they need help.

I am looking forward to picking up parts of our dinner from our bedroom.

Vermiculture

I have decided to start a very small scale suburban farm on my little plot of paradise. I am hopeful we can eventually produce 50% of our food, through gardening and aquaponics and possibly even a few chickens for eggs.

There are tons of hurdles to overcome, but I think I am starting early enough this year to make a good stab at it, and I learned a lot last year about gardening in the high desert. I am making plans to convert our ornamental garden beds into veggies, and trying to expand upon our conventional garden a bit this year. I am also very curious how many of the perrenials have made it through the winter.

Our first project is to start a vermiculture compost. I the weather is good enough tomorrow, I will drive to Minden and buy our first batch of worms, and while we re there I will hopefully learn enough to keep them alive.