Worm Farmin

Our plan for this Spring is to start a vegetable garden - nothing outrageous, just a little garden with a couple of veggies to get our toes wet.  Neither of us has ever had a real garden before so we're starting slow.  Our end goal is to be growing at least 50-70% of our food right here at home... But we're a long way from that goal.  For now, we're prepping our beds for Spring planting.  Luckily for us, we're on the Gulf Coast of Texas, where historically speaking winters are pretty mild and working outdoors is probably easier to do in winter than in the height of summer.

So we purchased some seeds online.  Planned where our beds are going to go.  Sourced some incredible dirt. And ordered some worms from Amazon.com... You know... the usual!

So you're surprised about the worms? While researching soil and composting I kept reading more and more about vermicomposting.  I remember a friend of mine used to have a vermicompost bin under the sink in her kitchen (in the UK) and she always said it was super easy to keep up, not smelly, reduces trash, but she never used the compost - that I was aware of.

The basic theory behind vermicomposting is this:  

You add a combination of carbon and nitrogen to your worm bin, the worms eat it, the worms poop, the poop is AWESOME in gardens.  The end.

Pretty basic right?  But how does one set up a vermicomposter?

1)  You order/build some kind of tote/tub/vermicomposter (loads of these online - check Google).

2)  You throw in equal parts carbon (brown stuff) and nitrogen (green stuff).

3)  You leave it to sit and break down for a couple of weeks so brown stuff and green stuff can start rotting and breaking down.

4)  Your worms arrive and you dig a hole in the side, pour them in, add water* to the bin, close it up and walk away.

* Important to note that you don't add a LOT of water, just enough to call the soil/dirt damp.

Here's how my little guys looked when I tipped them out of their sack.  I ordered 1lb of European Nightcrawlers.  There are really two good options for vermicomposting worms here in the States, Red wigglers, or European Nightcrawlers.  I believe the Euros are better with extreme temps - Texas y'all - and are really good for fishing -- which we do a lot.  So for us they were the best fit.

It is not uncommon for them to arrive in the mail skinny and small as you see to the right here.  But after adding water they swelled up pretty quickly.

Here's an updated picture taken today - Obviously they're not all near the surface and that's what you want.  The deeper they dig, the more of the older rotting stuff they're working on.  We still have a BUNCH of them in here -- I don't think we've lost any/many at all. Well.. you know... aside from the ones we pulled for the chickens.  Our ladies really LOVE their wormy treats!

And so we started a blog...

We've ALWAYS been interested in prepping for the worst.  We've never really been FULL ON preppers -- you know, the people you see on TV with elaborate bunkers, food stashes in the woods, giant bullet proof bug out vehicles, etc.  We're the kind of preppers who have emergency get-home packs with us at all times, try and make a conscious effort to have a reasonable stockpile of food, and Roddy has a decent stash of tools, knives, etc.  So I guess you could say we're more prepared than the average Joe, but nowhere near the people on that show Doomsday Preppers, (though I do think the hubs aspires to that in some way).

We recently moved onto Roddy's parent's 5 acres of land.  We have a lovely home of our own on one side of the land.  It's the best of both worlds, being really close to family, but still having our own space and privacy.

Roddy's mom and I have talked extensively about getting some chickens.  We've talked about it, but it just was never going to happen - we'd need a lot of things first, a secure coop for one thing! One day we decided to just make it happen, and we did.  We improvised and created a coop of sorts and went out and got ourselves some chickens and that was that.  Quite simple.

Then, I started thinking about growing our own food.  I've always had some kind of food stock pile - mostly grains, and long term shelf stable items, but the idea of growing our own food has always intrigued me.  So I ordered seeds, in winter, and started them indoors.

Reading up on chicken-keeping I started noticing how many people also have goats on their small farms.  That got me to thinking... Hmm... goats? I now truly understand what people mean when they say that chickens are a gateway animal!

We have deposits down on three lovely little Nigerian Dwarf goat does, even though we don't yet have anywhere for them to live.  But that's exactly how all of this has come together.  First we leap, and then we build our landing pad while flying through the air.

So now I guess we have a mini Homestead? I am not sure.  We're certainly backyard farmers. And here we are to share our adventures as beginner homesteader/backyard farmers/preppers?