The worm hotel... is there a time when you’d stop putting stuff in the top? Or do you just always put new stuff in and then take the compost out the bottom? How does that work for the subpod that doesn’t have a bottom? 😆🤷🏻♀️❤️
With the wheelie bin ones you can seperate the worms from the soil by emptying it all but we’ve done that a few times and we’ve now decided just to leave them to fully leave the soil so maybe a couple years? So new stuff goes in all the time.
With Subpod in theory the new soil and worm tea just feeds the plants surrounding it but you could also dig it out - my thought with the double one is to move the top layers into one so we can at least see how much work the worms have done. In all honesty food recycling and bio diversity is the win here - I don’t think we’d be making large volumes of soil with them... we’ll see! ✨🌳 🪱
We've had a worm bin for over 10 years now, with descendants of the original worms still working. We're vegan, so we generate quite a few fruit and vegetable scraps, a bucket every couple of days. We put no food scraps in the garbage, so we're been able to reduce garbage pickup to every other week.
Gardening has been a little hit or miss. Our soil is quite poor - we have more than one worm bin can rebuild, although of course it helps. We've just dug out the top six inches of depleted soil and replaced it with good topsoil. I'll be starting work soon planning next year's garden.
You should try speaking to Charlie's school in Rothbury, they have are growing their own wild garden and have just taken part in Climate week. They seem very open to new ideas and have a biodiversity club which you could go and talk to? Sounds great what you're doing and I'm enjoying watching the progress x
We have a slow compost heap which is the usual square box type in the garden into which green waste goes, including grass clippings and some cardboard. No weeds. We also have a plastic drum thing on legs with a winding handle which sits not far from the back door and takes all the non-cooked food waste. It's supposed to make compost in three monthst. It doesn't. It has made a bit of a stinky mess, but I think it's because it lets the rain in and so get's very wet. We're going to try covering it with an old rubber mat and see if that makes any difference. We also make leaf mould from the fallen leaves from garden trees and shrubs. Now that is slow...
Ooo June I don’t envy the stinky mess - was this a hot bin? We looked at those but we decided on Subpods and converted wheelie bins. Leaf mould is so so good isn’t it! Do you enjoy doing it? Cx
No. I've read so many awful things about hot bin that we decided against it, and bought the tumbling drum instead. I think it would be ok if we kept it dry! I love it when it's ready and can go on the garden!
Ahh ok off for a google! We nearly got one that needed 50% woodchip each time but it felt risky with our slow pace... / daves chronic fatigue. Yeah it’s great isn’t it - we dig the bokashi straight into the garden - it’s great! 🍃🪱
I started my first compost bin earlier this year and it's now full. I'm growing some veg for the first time and have had mixed success. But tbh I'm taking it all as a win in my first year. We are currently having work done so the garden is only accessible on the weekends and in the evening. I'm taking it for what it is and learning form everything. I've been following Charles Dowding.
Doing the worm thing is something I've looked at, definitely in the future, just not enough space with everything going on.
We’ve noticed the slow compost bins can take at least a year sometimes two so we were keen to see the difference with worm hotels - having a little team of composters is working wonders! 🪱
That sounds so beautiful Susan!
✨🍃✨🍃✨ how long is your building work going on? 💫 🌲 🏠
It’s all about building up heat with browns and greens - the mistake most of us make at first is having it TOO green... we can make compost in 10 days using the Berkeley method and it’s literal magic - it’s steaming hot and it just composts everything in the heap! We did it a couple of times before we put the lawn down to nourish the soil 🥰
Yeah I feel like ripped up card works wonders and wood chip if you can get any. We get ours free from a local tree surgeon but haven’t had it in a while as my husband can’t shift it... all in good time I guess - the resources are plentiful. ✨🍃
We have a fairly big garden with a very large greenhouse, and an allotment - my husband looks after it all as I don’t have any spare time. It’s not the most organised or tidy, there’s lots of clutter in the way of pots and brushes and tubs and the grass is very patchy from the attentions of 3 dogs 🤦♀️ but I love to sit in it when I can and listen to the wind in the leaves and birds singing. Such a beautiful read Claire, how lovely to be so connected to the cycles of nature 💛
Ahh 😌 this sounds so nice. I’m so interested in the “sacred feminine/ masculine” roles in life. When my husband was sick I had to make friends with cleaning the chickens out and what I found was I needed a system - a box I grabbed with all the things I needed and a place to put the waste to feed the garden - once I had those things it turned a chore into a mindful activity...
There is so so much a garden has to offer isn’t there... I know it can be tempting to see all the jobs but past the jobs there is so so much peace, beauty and many lessons Mother Nature has to teach us... always learning, always growing and so grateful for our connection here Emily. ✨💕🍃💫
We have had a consistent garden for 9 years now! This sounds terrible but I will admit to you that we do not have a compost because we have failed too many times. We give most of our scraps to the chickens and it’s wonderful. The rest of the produce we can’t give to the chickens we put in our green bin with the city. Your garden is beautiful. We also have on and off done a straw bale garden which is great for gophers which is a big problem for us! Love your focus on good soil, it’s so important to the process.
Ahh I hear you Stephanie - so I have one compost that is just straw and chicken manure in a closed bin with holes in it. I put other green waste in it too and it works ok...
That’s so interesting re the gophers - we don’t have those guys here but we’ve had a keen rat 🐀 family a few times over the years. We found a chicken feeder the chickens have to stand on to release the pedal for the food which has helped. We don’t have foxes here which is useful and also interesting as I thought we would?! 🤷🏽♀️
We have too many eggs at the moment - I can’t give them away quickly enough!
Would you use a Subpod? I’ve been so so impressed with it!
I've just been allocated an allotment! Super excited so I'll be going through your columns and YouTube videos
Oh wow Sean that’s amazing! ✨🐸
The worm hotel... is there a time when you’d stop putting stuff in the top? Or do you just always put new stuff in and then take the compost out the bottom? How does that work for the subpod that doesn’t have a bottom? 😆🤷🏻♀️❤️
With the wheelie bin ones you can seperate the worms from the soil by emptying it all but we’ve done that a few times and we’ve now decided just to leave them to fully leave the soil so maybe a couple years? So new stuff goes in all the time.
With Subpod in theory the new soil and worm tea just feeds the plants surrounding it but you could also dig it out - my thought with the double one is to move the top layers into one so we can at least see how much work the worms have done. In all honesty food recycling and bio diversity is the win here - I don’t think we’d be making large volumes of soil with them... we’ll see! ✨🌳 🪱
“David is a qualified permaculture design expert”.
Sure. Sure he is. 👌🏼😅😂
✔️ 5years plus experience! Actually think it’s 9!
✔️ Four Gardens designed
✔️ lots of worms kept alive
✔️keen on making bokasi bran when you could be watching telly!
That would do it!
We've had a worm bin for over 10 years now, with descendants of the original worms still working. We're vegan, so we generate quite a few fruit and vegetable scraps, a bucket every couple of days. We put no food scraps in the garbage, so we're been able to reduce garbage pickup to every other week.
Gardening has been a little hit or miss. Our soil is quite poor - we have more than one worm bin can rebuild, although of course it helps. We've just dug out the top six inches of depleted soil and replaced it with good topsoil. I'll be starting work soon planning next year's garden.
That’s such a beautiful picture John! ✨ 🌳
You should try speaking to Charlie's school in Rothbury, they have are growing their own wild garden and have just taken part in Climate week. They seem very open to new ideas and have a biodiversity club which you could go and talk to? Sounds great what you're doing and I'm enjoying watching the progress x
Oh really!! Finally a school who gets it - will ring this week thanks Beth!! ✨💕
We have a slow compost heap which is the usual square box type in the garden into which green waste goes, including grass clippings and some cardboard. No weeds. We also have a plastic drum thing on legs with a winding handle which sits not far from the back door and takes all the non-cooked food waste. It's supposed to make compost in three monthst. It doesn't. It has made a bit of a stinky mess, but I think it's because it lets the rain in and so get's very wet. We're going to try covering it with an old rubber mat and see if that makes any difference. We also make leaf mould from the fallen leaves from garden trees and shrubs. Now that is slow...
Ooo June I don’t envy the stinky mess - was this a hot bin? We looked at those but we decided on Subpods and converted wheelie bins. Leaf mould is so so good isn’t it! Do you enjoy doing it? Cx
No. I've read so many awful things about hot bin that we decided against it, and bought the tumbling drum instead. I think it would be ok if we kept it dry! I love it when it's ready and can go on the garden!
Ahh ok off for a google! We nearly got one that needed 50% woodchip each time but it felt risky with our slow pace... / daves chronic fatigue. Yeah it’s great isn’t it - we dig the bokashi straight into the garden - it’s great! 🍃🪱
I’ve often thought about using old journals as compost. Planting word seedlings to sprout as new life.
Love that Amie and it's something my friend Zoe suggested I do... I often add them to our woodburning stove in winter...
I started my first compost bin earlier this year and it's now full. I'm growing some veg for the first time and have had mixed success. But tbh I'm taking it all as a win in my first year. We are currently having work done so the garden is only accessible on the weekends and in the evening. I'm taking it for what it is and learning form everything. I've been following Charles Dowding.
Doing the worm thing is something I've looked at, definitely in the future, just not enough space with everything going on.
We’ve noticed the slow compost bins can take at least a year sometimes two so we were keen to see the difference with worm hotels - having a little team of composters is working wonders! 🪱
That sounds so beautiful Susan!
✨🍃✨🍃✨ how long is your building work going on? 💫 🌲 🏠
Should be done by late September ish.
Yeah I was thinking a year, so by planting time next year some of the compost might be ready.
Aww not long - that’s exciting!!
It’s all about building up heat with browns and greens - the mistake most of us make at first is having it TOO green... we can make compost in 10 days using the Berkeley method and it’s literal magic - it’s steaming hot and it just composts everything in the heap! We did it a couple of times before we put the lawn down to nourish the soil 🥰
I started mine off with loads of dead leaves. Reckon I should add some more card actually now as there is a fair amount of green in there 😬😬
Yeah I feel like ripped up card works wonders and wood chip if you can get any. We get ours free from a local tree surgeon but haven’t had it in a while as my husband can’t shift it... all in good time I guess - the resources are plentiful. ✨🍃
We have a fairly big garden with a very large greenhouse, and an allotment - my husband looks after it all as I don’t have any spare time. It’s not the most organised or tidy, there’s lots of clutter in the way of pots and brushes and tubs and the grass is very patchy from the attentions of 3 dogs 🤦♀️ but I love to sit in it when I can and listen to the wind in the leaves and birds singing. Such a beautiful read Claire, how lovely to be so connected to the cycles of nature 💛
Ahh 😌 this sounds so nice. I’m so interested in the “sacred feminine/ masculine” roles in life. When my husband was sick I had to make friends with cleaning the chickens out and what I found was I needed a system - a box I grabbed with all the things I needed and a place to put the waste to feed the garden - once I had those things it turned a chore into a mindful activity...
There is so so much a garden has to offer isn’t there... I know it can be tempting to see all the jobs but past the jobs there is so so much peace, beauty and many lessons Mother Nature has to teach us... always learning, always growing and so grateful for our connection here Emily. ✨💕🍃💫
We have had a consistent garden for 9 years now! This sounds terrible but I will admit to you that we do not have a compost because we have failed too many times. We give most of our scraps to the chickens and it’s wonderful. The rest of the produce we can’t give to the chickens we put in our green bin with the city. Your garden is beautiful. We also have on and off done a straw bale garden which is great for gophers which is a big problem for us! Love your focus on good soil, it’s so important to the process.
Ahh I hear you Stephanie - so I have one compost that is just straw and chicken manure in a closed bin with holes in it. I put other green waste in it too and it works ok...
That’s so interesting re the gophers - we don’t have those guys here but we’ve had a keen rat 🐀 family a few times over the years. We found a chicken feeder the chickens have to stand on to release the pedal for the food which has helped. We don’t have foxes here which is useful and also interesting as I thought we would?! 🤷🏽♀️
We have too many eggs at the moment - I can’t give them away quickly enough!
Would you use a Subpod? I’ve been so so impressed with it!
✨🙏🍃🤓💫🐇