Special Events and Corporate Meetings are Becoming Environmental

Planning for the Environment Changing the Way We do Business

At any given moment there are thousands of business meetings and special events going on with millions of guests traveling to and from different locations throughout the world. The event and hospitality industry is perfectly situated to have an extraordinary environmental and ecological impact by planning events with better awareness and by greening up their decision making process. Green planning is a responsible way of doing business that includes energy conservation, minimizing consumption of natural resources, reducing waste, reusing resources, recycling, and using earth-friendly products.

Green meetings and events are not main stream today but will be mandate before we know it. Times are evolving rapidly in that direction and event planners, venues, suppliers and participants are responding. They are beginning to follow ecological practices and implementing environmentally friendly processes and programs into the way they design their events. The more an event planner requests and ultimately hires green services, the more suppliers and vendors will begin to incorporate green practices as well. They will have to keep up with the times and the requests of their clients.

These suggestions listed below are for you if you gather people for any reason what-so-ever! It doesnt matter what type of event you plan. Whether you are coordinating a special event, planning a corporate event, are part of the team planning conventions, involved in conference planning or business meetings and seminars. Maybe your are in charge of planning a company party, a sporting event, grand openings, a reception, a charity event or a fundraiser, or have volunteered to do your daughters wedding or son's school play or bake sale. You might be planning festivals, rock concerts, reunions, retreats, or book signing events. Or perhaps you are just having the family and friends over for a holiday get-together. The list is endless - thousand of events are being planned as you read this! ALL of them could use environmental practices.

Listed below are a few simple choices you can make today as you plan your special event or corporate meeting that will make an immediate difference with little effort. Do just one or do them all. The more you integrate into your planning practices the easier they become.

10 Easy Steps to Put into Practice Today

Here are ten simple steps that you can take right now to lessen the impact of any event:

1. Create Standards. Establish environmental standards in writing and get buy-in from your clients, the organization's management and/or your clientele. Share your standards with suppliers, vendors, speakers, and participants.
2. Use Technology. Use new media and electronic technology to cut down your paper needs. Create an informational web site, offer electronic registration and confirmation, and advertise using the web and use various forms of email. Create podcasts, webcasting, and video streaming to alleviate travel for and accommodate those who cannot travel.
3. Choose a Local Destination. Picking a local or close venue will reduce distances traveled by speakers and participants. Choose the host city that is the closest to participants locale. Choose a venue and hotel that are near the airport and within walking distance of each other or close to public transportation.
4. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Ask your hotel or event venue to provide visible, accessible reduction, reuse, and recycling services for paper, metal, plastic, and glass. Also if food is involved in your event, ask them about their composting regime or give away programs.
5. Volume Up. Have the food and beverage provider serve sugar, salt, pepper, cream, and other condiments in bulk dispensers. Use volume serving verses individual packaging. If you are using hotel rooms, find a venue that does not use individual shampoo and lotion bottles rather large dispensers. Also one that that offers a linen reuse program.
6. Use Less. Be aware of what you use and how you use it whether it is food or product. When you order food or drinks for any occasion, try to order only what you will be using. And think about your give away items, are they really necessary. These are just a few areas where using less will help.
7. Eat Healthy and Locally. Plan meals using local, seasonal produce and free range meats. Include vegetarian meals and order only what you need. Also use local flora in your decorating and keep the flowers in pots verse cut so you can use them as gifts and prizes.
8. Use paper wisely. Published all printed materials on recycled paper using vegetable-based inks and print on both sides of the pages.
9. Save Energy. Coordinate with the event venue to ensure lights, audio visual equipment and air conditioning will be turned off when rooms are empty.
10. Spread the News! Tell participants, speakers, and the media about your success. You will be surprised. Green efforts are contagious.

Some of these suggestions may seem obvious and they are, however, if you were to make the changes listed above, you would be way ahead of the game in becoming an environmental planner. The bigger event you produce the more these suggestions matter. For more information on how you can become more environmental, the Chapter Planning for the Environment in my book, The Complete Guide to Successful Event Planning. Visit my web site at www.successfuleventplanning.com to purchase the book.

As an event planner for over 25 years I have seen it all. Throughout that time I was creating timelines and checklists so I wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel for each event. This eventually became my latest book The Complete Guide to Successful Event Planning, a 2007 release. Inside this book you will discover an extensive chapter on Planning for the Environment. We have a long way to go but this is a fabulous first step.

Visit my web site to learn more about me and my book. http://www.successfuleventplanning.com

Do You Love Flowers? Design a Cutting Garden and Grow Your Own

If you love flowers and enjoy having them in your home but cant afford buying cut flowers, flower gardening is for you. Too much work? Dont have time? Hate the weeding, watering and fertilizing? Well, take heart, cutting gardens are easy to establish and fun to care for. Think of all that beauty around you every time you set foot into that fantastic garden. Cutting gardens can be traced back to the sixteenth century. If you dont have space for a full sized cutting garden, grow a perennial or annual flower border around you vegetable garden or lawn.

There is nothing magic or complicated about planting a cutting garden. The same steps that apply to a flower garden apply to a vegetable garden. They're simple:

a) Location

b) Design

c) What to plant

d) Soil selection and preparation

e) Maintenance

A flower bed for a cutting garden should be placed in a spot that gets plenty of sunshine. Find an out of the way spot where you will be free to work without worrying about getting in the way of other plants. After all, this garden is for producing flowers that will be harvested for use in indoor spaces.
Since this garden is for production, dont worry too much about how it looks. Layout depends on how much space you have. Long rows are the easiest to plant and maintain. If the space limits you from planting in rows consider, planting in square plots or beds. Make sure you layout the beds with space around them for maintaining and cutting the flowers.

Flower gardens are no different that any other garden. The soil is the primary key to your success. The soil should be loose but not fall apart when you squeeze some in your hand. It should not form a solid ball either. The soil should hold moisture but also allow the moisture to drain away.

Once you have tested the soil you can go about bringing it up to your specifications by working in organic material such as compost and peat moss. Once this is accomplished, work in a slow release fertilizer. Apply enough fertilizer to last through the growing season. Always contact a specialist at your garden supply store or nursery for answers to questions about composting and fertilizing the soil.

Now the decision as to what to plant. Simple, plant the flowers you like and enjoy. Dont settle on annuals alone. Plant perennials, too. Bulbs and some foliage plants must also be considered. ear.

Your flower garden will require watering. Dont sprinkle the surface of the soil. Sprinkling only penetrates the soil and inch or two and will encourage shallow root systems on your plants. Plants should be watered weekly down to 5 to 6 inches to assure deep root systems and plenty of moisture.

You may want to consider a drip irrigation system. Drip irrigation systems assure an optimum supply of water is available. Most importantly, a drip irrigation system will allow for air to be available constantly. Heavy watering saturates the soil and causes extreme fluctuations in moisture and aeration. Drip irrigation systems are easy to install and relatively inexpensive for a small garden. These systems dont require the amount of time on site a hose watering system does. Also, if you wish you can set them up with a timing system.

Cutting flower gardens have been grown specifically for making flower arrangements for several centuries. Growing a cutting flower garden is as simple as following a few simple steps: location, design, soil preparation. If flowers help brighten your life, dont spend another growing season looking around your local supermarket or floral shop for some nice flowers to buy to brighten up your home. Grow your own and have whatever you want. Its just a matter of starting.

Copyright Larry Gildea, All Rights Reserved.

This article may be distributed freely on your website and in your ezines, as long as this entire article, copyright notice, links and the resource box are unchanged.

Dr. Larry Gildea has authored several articles on gardening. Dr. Gildea also created the Gardening Bonanza website, http://gardeningbonanza.com Gardening Bonanza.com covers many types of gardening, including, bonsai design and cultivation, container gardening, flower gardening, rose gardening, hydroponics gardening and several others.

How to Start a Worm Farm

Getting started on a worm farm is not that complicated, all you'll need is a love for recycling and a little bit of worm trivia so here's some worm trivia that could help motivate and inspire you with your new venture. How much do worms usually eat? Mature worms capable of eating up to three times their own body weight every day and for those who are just starting in the world of worms and what to know how to make the worms eat more and have a lot more productivity.

The answer is simple - shred, mash or blend food scraps since these will make the food more digestible and is very easily eaten by the worms. Also maintain worm bed temperature at around 23-25 degrees Celsius, since it is at these temperatures that worms feel their best, but don't feed your worms foods high in acid content as it will screw up their digestive system. The following are a few things you'll want avoid feeding your worms, manure, onions, citrus fruits or peelings, garlic, garden waste sprayed with insecticides, dairy products like milk and cheese or meat.

Watering the farm will enhance the production of the fertilizer but take care not to add too much water in the farm or the worms will die. Take note that food wastes are actually eighty percent water content which is released as the worms begin to break it down. So, if you happen to pour water over the system every couple to few weeks be sure to just add sufficient water to make sure that the bed remains damp and cool, and you will have a constant supply of this fertilizer.

You will not be able to harvest the worms since they'll regulate themselves within any space and the amount of food made available to them. Here are a few other questions that you might find yourself inquiring.

Why is it common for worms to gather on the lid of the farm when it is raining? It's a perfectly normal response for these worms to act in this manner during the rainy season to avoid getting drowned.to avoid drowning. Just take the farm containers to an area where it won't be exposed to too much rain and drop the worms to the farm bedding.

Why don't the worms just relocate to the upper level of the tray? If could be the result of you putting in new food before the worms have completed the earlier batch. Worms have an instinct to stay with leftover food and won't seek out to find a new food source until it consumes what was left previously. Therefore, before adding new trays, halt the feeding of the worms for at least five days so you can be sure the old food has been eaten and make sure that the levels in the tray needs to be placed high enough for the worms to pass easily up to the next tray.

Do worms have the ability endure high temperatures? worms are able to stand a temperature ranging between ten to thirty degrees Celsius. so if it gets hotter than they can stand, place the farm in a nice shady cool place where it can regulate the moisture and humidity of the boxes. In colder temps make sure to cover the box with old clothes, blankets and wool shavings to sustain the warm temperature. It's also good to feed the worms at least a quarter more than you're supposed to since more food by the worms gives way for more heat to be generated within their bodies. So use these ideas and you can be on your way to create a great worm farm.

P Abbey owns and operates http://www.wormcompostingdiy.com - Worm Composting Troubleshooting

Starting Seeds for Your Garden Indoors

In much of the United States, the only way to take advantage of a full growing season is to start your plants from seeds indoors. In areas where the last frost can be as late as the end of May, and the first as early as the beginning of October, the abbreviated growing season can mean a short garden season and a severe limitation on plants and flowers that would otherwise flourish. One solution is to choose only native plants for your garden. A more workable solution is to cover your kitchen table with newspaper one day in March, pull out the potting soil, seeds and pots, and give your garden an early jump on the season.

What You Need to Start Plants Indoors

Location

Your best option is a room with south-facing windows that get direct sun at least 6-8 hours a day, but if adequate sunlit space is not available, grow lights are fairly inexpensive and very easy to set up. Set up your plants with enough space for you to move around and water the plants.

Equipment and Supplies

You can buy commercial flats at any department or home supply store for under $5. Theyre flat trays with individual compartments each meant to hold one seedling. An alternative that works quite well is cardboard egg cartons. Theyre biodegradable, provide drainage and can easily be cut apart when it is time to transplant your seedlings outside.

Purchased potting soil is a good growing medium, but if you want to really give your plants a great start, you can mix up a batch of potting soil with compost and peat moss, or leave the soil out entirely and grow in peat moss, vermiculite and compost. Basil, tomatoes, carrots, asters, marigolds, nasturtiums, petunias and pansies are all good candidates for starting indoors, but you can choose any garden plant that can be started from seed.

When to Plant

Most garden plants can be started indoors about six weeks before the anticipated last frost. In most northern states, thats mid-March. You can transplant the seedlings outside when theyve reached 4-6 inches in height, after the last frost.

How to Start Seeds

Loosely fill each compartment or egg cup with soil to just below the top. Do not pack down! Use your index finger to poke a hole about an inch into the soil. Drop seeds into the hole. For large seeds like beans, use one seed per cup. For tinier seeds, sprinkle a pinch into the hole. Lightly cover the seed by raking soil over it with your fingertips. Move trays to a sunny window (or beneath grow lights). Water well, but dont over-soak. Loosely cover each egg tray with a sheet of clear plastic wrap, and then leave them alone.

Check daily for signs of moisture, and when you dont see any, lift the plastic wrap and mist well with a mister, then re-cover. You can remove the wrap when seedlings have two leaves, or are touching the plastic.

When the seedlings are 1-2 inches tall, its time to thin them. In any container that holds more than two seedlings, pluck out all but the hardiest so that theyll have the best chance at setting root and growing. Water and mist frequently until the danger of frost is past, then transplant to your garden outside.

Ed Rooney is the creator of http://www.garden-helper.com - an online gardening resource for gardeners to learn, share, plan, and shop for their gardens. Gardening articles, garden forums, blog, plant fact sheets, horticultural zone maps, professionally designed garden and landscape plans, garden business directories, shopping recommendations, recipes and more can all be found at http://www.garden-helper.com

The Best Lawn Fertilizer

It is hard to determine one best lawn fertilizer because there are so many different kinds of grass. You also have to look at the soil of the area to determine what the needs will be in fertilizer. The amount of sun and shade that your lawn gets also has a direct influence on the way the grass grows and how green it gets. Walk on the lawn and see whether or not the grass remains down in your footstep. This could be a sign that you need to water the lawn or that the grass does not have the right nourishment for growing well.

When you use a fertilizer on your lawn, it will stimulate the growth of the grass. This will also mean you have to mow the lawn more often. Experts recommend that you do apply fertilizer at least 4 times a year. There are different fertilizers you should use at the different times of the year. In spring, choose a fertilizer just for that time of the year. As the grass begins to grow stronger in late spring, you should use a turf builder and during the summer, you need to use a summer guard that won't burn up your lawn. There is also a winter fertilizer you can use to help prepare the lawn for the coming spring.

While most of the commercial fertilizers do contain chemicals, if you want your lawn to be environmentally friendly, there are organic fertilizers for your needs. You can also leave small grass clippings on the lawn rather than raking them up. This is the most natural kind of fertilizer apart from animal manure. Although manure is one of the best fertilizers it is also unsightly and smelly.

For more information on the best fertilizer for a lawn, lawn sweepers and other lawn care and related topics visit TheLawnCareGuide.com

Composting Citywide

I always thought it would be cool if the cities we lived in picked up our composting right along with the recycling and the trash. Imagine the space it would save us in the landfills! Not only that, but we could replenish our community parks and gardens with usable soil, and create some new city jobs in the process. Sounds good, doesn't it?

Well, apparently I'm not the first person to think so. As it turns out, the City of San Francisco does just that with their newly improved "3-Cart Curbside Recycling Program."

The plan, under Mayor Gavin Newsom, seeks to divert 75% of the city's waste from landfills by the year 2010. More ambitiously, the hope is that by 2020, San Francisco will become 100% waste-free. Perhaps to the naysayer the plan sounds impossible. But consider this: already the city is successfully diverting an astonishing 70% of its waste from the landfills.

How do they do it, you ask? It's actually very simple: they recycle everything and they provide incentives to both private residences and business owners that reward folks who put less in the trash heap.

Under the program, people are given three bins: black for trash, blue for recyclables, and green for compost. The color-coded bins are free and come in a variety of sizes. Residents simply sort their waste into the three bins, and the city makes its pick up. Easy.

So far the program is a success. The city's recycling rate is higher than any other city in the US. Residents are encouraged to recycle a broad range of products that are normally thrown in the trash; city employees later hand sort the items for recycling.

As far as the composting component, everything that is biodegradable waste is accepted. This includes all food scraps - a practice most composters don't even resort to. In addition to food scraps, the green cart is also where San Franciscans toss their food soiled paper products (napkins, paper plates, milk cartons, etc.), and yard-trimmings. This aggressive method of composting has resulted in the city's pick up of over 300 tons of biodegradable waste daily. The compost generated by the city is later sold to Bay Area farms and the vineyards of Napa and Sonoma.

All things considered, the San Francisco should be commended for their composting and waste management program. Part of the goal of this program is to model a citywide composting and recycling program for other cities to emulate.

Given the emphasis and growing trends in green culture, we'll probably be hearing a lot more about citywide recycling and composting programs. If you're inspired to try it yourself, check out some books on composting. Get yourself a compost bin, and give composting a shot on a small scale. If San Francisco's innovating composting program is any indication, we'll probably all be doing it sooner or later!

Composters.com is an online retailer of eco-friendly compost bins, compost tumblers, rain barrel, and other composting supplies.

Composting For Sustainable Organic Gardening

SUSTAINABLE SOIL building for organic gardening begins after the initial garden soil testing and the addition of fertilizers and conditioners. It is very important to maintain and improve the soil when trying to garden organically. Sustaining the soil means that you have a means of replenishing the garden soil with what you have at hand - compost, beneficial microbes, enzymes, and earthworms. Ideally, once your organic garden is established it could be sustained with garden compost alone - by removing garden soil and layering it in your compost. This method uses the microbes in your soil to inoculate your compost, which in turn will feed your soil. SHREDDED ALFALFA HAY is one of the secrets of great compost. It is worth it to rent a shredder for the weekend, and shred up a few bales of alfalfa hay. Worms thrive on it, and it provides the best mulch and soil additive for your garden soil.

BUILDING YOUR PILE

BUILD YOUR PILE about four feet in diameter, and four feet high, on a well-drained site. A ring of hog wire with a ring of chicken wire on the outside of it works well - providing air circulation, keeping the pile contained, is easily taken apart for turning or sifting, and, it is economical and very easy to maintain. We let our piles set for a year and then sift them in the spring when we are adding compost to our garden beds. No Turning! If you want to turn your pile, let it set 3-4 months, remove the wire and set it up next to your pile. Take the pile apart, mix it, and add it to the new pile, moistening it as you go. You may do this as often as you like. This will speed up your composting process.

FIRST LAYER on the bottom should be about three inches of roughage - corn stalks, brush, or other materials to provide air circulation.

SECOND LAYER is two to four inches of dry vegetation - carbon-rich "brown" materials, like fall leaves, straw, dead flowers shredded newspaper, shredded alfalfa hay or dry manure. Water well.

THIRD LAYER should be two to four inches of green vegetation - nitrogen-rich materials, like grass clippings, weeds, garden waste, vegetable peelings, tea leaves, coffee grounds, and crushed eggshells. Kitchen waste may be added but never use meat scraps, diseased plants, dog or cat manure, or poisonous plants, plant-based kitchen waste. Water until moistened. (Too much water will compact your pile and reduce available oxygen.)

FOURTH LAYER is garden soil, two inches thick. It is important to add garden soil because it contains a supply of microorganisms and nutrients, which will inoculate your compost pile. As microorganisms grow, they collect essential nutrients containing antibiotics, vitamins, and catalytic enzymes in their body tissues and release them slowly as they die and decompose.

REPEAT LAYERS of dry vegetation, green vegetation, and garden soil - moistening each layer - until the pile is three or four feet high. To insure enough green vegetation one can plant extra garden greens, or devote one of the garden beds to the growing of compost. Good composting greens are broccoli, cauliflower, kale, comfrey (grow it in an isolated spot, and do not disturb the roots, because it can be invasive), peas, beans, and all the rest of the garden weeds and greens.

COVER THE TOP of the pile with three to four inches of garden soil, making a ridge around the outside edge to prevent the water from running off. Use a broom handle or iron bar to make air holes from the top, deep into the pile every eight inches or so, for ventilation and water. Top off the pile with two inches of shredded alfalfa hay. Water regularly to keep moistened.

CURED COMPOST

CURED COMPOST has almost all the nutrients the crops contained, and so many beneficial microbes that it is one of the best things you can do for your garden. It also contains enough humus to replenish your soil's supply. Your compost is ready when it is dark, rich looking, broken down, crumbles in your hand and smells like clean earth. Parts of the compost pile along the outside edges that have not completely broken down will be removed when your pile is sifted and can be placed at the bottom, and between the layers of the next compost pile.

SIFTING COMPOST

SIFTING COMPOST is easily done by placing a 4 x 4 foot square of inch wire mesh over your wheelbarrow and bending the edges over the sides. Then a shovel full of compost may be placed on top of the wire mesh and rubbed. The siftings fall into the wheelbarrow and the lumps will remain on top. One side of the wire can be lifted from the wheelbarrow and these clumps will fall to the ground into a pile. When you are done, these can be shoveled into a new compost pile, and be layered accordingly.

COMPOST PROBLEMS

PROBLEMS can occur if conditions are unfavorable. Some of the problems are:

BAD ODORS indicate that there is not enough air in your pile make more air holes in your pile, or turn the pile, or start a new one.

CENTER OF PILE IS DRY means there is not enough water in your pile. Make more air holes, and fill them with water, and the water will disperse throughout the pile.

PILE IS DAMP BUT ONLY WARM IN THE MIDDLE indicates that your pile is too small. Increase the size of your pile to at least four feet high and four feet wide.

PILE IS DAMP AND SWEET SMELLING, BUT REMAINS COOL indicates a lack of nitrogen, not enough green matter or manure. Cover the pile with black plastic for a few days, but be careful not to cook all your microbes. The pile also may need more water.

SPEEDING UP COMPOSTING

TO SPEED UP THE COMPOSTING PROCESS and increase the decomposition rate you can add extra nitrogen, fishmeal or blood meal, to your layers. Using a metal rod to make holes in your pile will increase the amount of oxygen and stimulate aerobic activity. You can also shred your components fine, which causes faster decomposition. Compost innoculants can also be used to add nitrogen fixing, decomposing, and other soil bacteria, enzymes and hormones.

VERMI-COMPOSTING

VERMI-COMPOSTING is another organic gardening technique, which uses earthworms to make compost, which will be rich in organic matter and worm castings, and is one of the best soil builders available. Worms can eat their body weight daily in organic matter and convert it into dark, soil enriching castings full of live micro organisms, growth hormones, and nutrients, humic acids which condition the soil, and a neutral pH. Worm castings are free from disease pathogens, which are killed in the process. They prefer a temperature range of 60 to 70 degrees, but will tolerate 32 - 84 degrees. They require a moist, pesticide free environment with plenty of organic matter to eat. There are two types of Vermicomposting, indoor and outdoor.

OUTDOOR VERMI-COMPOSTING, ABOVE OR BELOW THE GROUND

ABOVE THE GROUND BIN: composting red worms are an excellent addition to a compost pile. The worms help to process the pile by eating the decayed matter and turn the waste into fine topsoil in approximately 2 to 3 months, depending on the quantity of worms introduced into the pile, the outside temperatures, and the time of year. A compost heap that is 4 x 4 x 4 should have a minimum of 3,000 to 10,000 worms introduced into the pile - about two pounds. Add them to your compost pile when it has broken down and is warm but not hot in the center. Dig down about a foot and add the worms. Keep the pile moistened, but not soggy wet. This pile will be your "breeding area".

WHEN YOU WANT TO REMOVE some of the worms for next compost pile, begin feeding the worms at one spot near the edge, and when the worms move to this area after a few days, add some of the worms to your other compost pile. At this time you can also remove some of the soil and worm castings for your garden lowering your pile a foot or so. Keep feeding the worms in the breeding area by adding greens and shredded alfalfa hay to the top of the pile every few weeks. Be sure to add four or five inches of shredded alfalfa hay for winter protection, and keep the pile moistened, but not wet.

BELOW THE GROUND BIN: Dig a 2x8 foot trench two or three feet deep into the ground below frost level. Place a six-inch layer of peat moss and shredded newspaper or cardboard on the bottom, and water until evenly moistened, but not soggy wet.

FILL THE BIN full with a mixture of 2/3 corrugated cardboard and 1/3 sphagnum peat moss, shredded newspaper, shredded leaves, or shredded alfalfa hay, add a little crumbled aged or composted manure, and a cup or so of fine sand mixed with equal parts of wood ashes, and ground limestone. Mix well, moisten, and add two to three inches of a mix of finely chopped vegetal kitchen wastes, garden waste, and aged manure to one end of the pit.

ADD ONE POUND of red compost worms, which can be ordered through the mail. (When your worms first arrive they may be dehydrated, you can feed them a light dusting of corn meal before you cover them.)

LOOSELY COVER worms/waste with a 2-inch layer with shredded alfalfa hay. Water and feed two or three times a week - adding vegetable waste under the alfalfa layer to keep the process going. Each time you feed your worms place the waste mix next to the previous feeding area, working your way toward the opposite end of the pit. When you get to the end of the pit, feed back towards the beginning. As you continue these layers and reach the top, leave a four-inch space between the cover and the mixture for ventilation.

COVER THE TOP of the pit with a sheet of plywood to keep out the elements and critters, and weight down with rocks.

IN A FEW MONTHS and under the alfalfa layer you will have worm castings, which can be transferred to your garden beds. To harvest your worm castings wait until the worms are being fed are at one end of the pit. You can remove the castings from the opposite end of the pit. Replace the castings with the mix of 2/3 corrugated cardboard and 1/3 sphagnum peat moss, shredded newspaper, shredded leaves, a little crumbled aged or composted manure, and a cup or so of fine sand mixed with equal parts of wood ashes, and ground limestone. Cover with the 2-inch layer of damp shredded newspaper or cardboard mixed with straw.

INDOOR WORM BINS

COMPOST CAN BE MADE INDOORS by using wood, metal or plastic bins with lids. Special worm composting bins may be ordered through the mail, or you can easily make your own. Special worms are used in Vermicomposting: Eisenia foetida or Lumbricus rubellas, which can be ordered from worm farms, or some nurseries. Start with about a pound or worms, around 1000. They can multiply quickly, and the surplus can just be added to your summer garden, or given to friends.

BUILD OR BUY A BOX:

FOR TWO PEOPLE, a box 2' x 2' x 8" deep, or so, wood, metal, or plastic, will suffice. For a larger family, make it 2' x 3' x 1' deep. There should be some small " holes in the bottom for drainage, and the box should be set on a tray with 1" spacers between the tray and the box, for aeration and drainage. A garden shed would be a useful to hold all of your extra supplies and gardening tools.

LINE THE BOTTOM with shredded 1-inch strips of newspaper, inch wide strips of cardboard boxes, and peat moss. A mix of 2/3 corrugated cardboard and 1/3 sphagnum peat moss, or newspaper, is a good bedding mixture. You can also add shredded leaves and a little aged or composted manure, and a cup or so of fine sand, ashes, and limestone. Moisten the bedding, mix it well, and add the worms. Let it set for a few days before kitchen waste is added. Your worms will happily feed and make castings.

ADD KITCHEN WASTE every day or so, by burying it a few inches or so in the bedding mix in one end of the box. Kitchen waste can include: vegetable and fruit scraps, coffee grounds and the filters, tea bags, without the tags, any vegetable matter, bread scraps, dried and crushed eggshells, and small amounts of finely chopped meat scraps, garlic and onion.

COVER THE TOP of the compost bedding with a layer of damp newspapers, and a loosely fitting lid with holes for air. Every time you add waste, work your way to the other end of the box, so you will have about 8 or 9 different adding areas. When you get to the end of the box, start over at the other end. Worms will eat the bedding along with the scraps, and you may need to add more. Keep the bedding mix/scraps moistened, but not soggy wet. In a few months you will be ready to harvest your compost.

TO HARVEST COMPOST castings, follow the same procedures for gathering outdoor castings. Only add the castings to your garden beds, these special worms live indoors only.

"Worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibers of plants, by drawing straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it, and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure for grain or grass." The Rev. Gilbert White of Selborne, 1777

Resources for compost supplies

Home of the Organic Gardener Planet Natural Peaceful Valley Farm Supply Fertile Garden Harmony Farm Supply All Natures Safeway Extremely Green Gardening Company

Frank and Vicky Giannangelo
Copyright (c) 2008 Giannangelo Farms Southwest