Worm Farms - Under Mulch Irrigation - Why use compost on your garden - The Tumbleweed Composter Mulching - Bokashi Bucket
Living Earth Supplies Fact Sheet - Worm Farms
Worm Farms are a great way to deal with household waste material. Providing the waste material was once living the worms can eat it. There are many different types of worm farms that can be purchased or you can make your own.
We use and recommend the Tumbleweed worm farm. Having used several different models over the years we have found these to be the easiest to use and most long lasting. There are three models available The Original Worm Factory, The Can O Worms and the Worm Café, they are all available for sale in the nursery.
Some waste materials are less palatable to the worms and should be fed sparingly for example onions and capsicums. The instructions supplied with the worm farm give detailed lists of suitable foods.
The worm farm will produce worm castings and worm ‘juice’. Castings can be used to improve garden soil or potting mix. The ‘juice’ drained from the bottom of the worm farms can be used diluted (or undiluted) as a fertilizer for plants.
The following excerpt from the publication ‘Earthworms in Australia’ by David Murphy explains just how valuable worm castings are to plant health.
‘The castings produced by worms act as a fertilizer. Worms have a very simple and unsophisticated digestive system, yet a proportion of insoluble minerals passing through it is converted into a plant available soluble form and cellulose is partially broken down. This digestive process is carried out by enzyme-producing bacteria and, when the castings are excreted, the bacteria and enzymes are excreted along with them. The bacteria are soil benevolent and continue in the soil the work they carried out in the worm’s gut, ie converting minerals into a plant-available soluble form and breaking down cellulose, making humus.
The marriage between bacteria and worms is a good illustration of harmony in nature. The dense population of bacteria in the worm’s gut can exist only because of the worm’s ability to absorb oxygen readily. In return, the bacteria not only see to the digestion of their host’s food, but actually become worm food themselves as they die off. Then, after being deposited in the soil by the worms, they break down cellulose into a form in which it can be ingested by the worms as food.’
Worm Farms are easy to use, dispose of many different types of household waste (reducing landfill) and best of all produce the most amazing fertilizer and liquid feed for your garden. Come and see our working farms
Living Earth Supplies Fact Sheet - Under Mulch Irrigation
At Living Earth Supplies we use a drip line under our mulch and compost.
Every 6 months we top dress our vegetable and ornamental garden beds with compost and then cover this with Lucerne mulch. The compost is layered over the previous season’s mulch. Therefore the irrigation is always kept covered by the latest addition of compost and Lucerne mulch.
Covering the irrigation pipe protects it from UV, keeps the pipe cooler and dramatically reduces evaporation as the water disperses into the soil.
Beneficial organisms within the soil enjoy the dark, damp and cool conditions that the combination of mulch and dripline provide. Worms also love these conditions and will multiply rapidly. The beneficial organisms and worms all work busily away under the soil producing a lovely easy feeding environment for our plants to enjoy. There is no need to use artificial fertilizers for your plants if you can keep your soil and beneficial organisms healthy. Healthy soil = healthy plants.
There are several different under mulch dripline products on the market however we use Netafim Techline.
Living Earth Supplies Fact Sheet - Why use compost
Supporting their philosophy of healthy soils, Living Earth Supplies stocks a wide range of soil improvement products including top soil and composts. The key to improving plant health is to improve the soil.
All our composts are turned and hydrated and use an aerobic composting process to turn the original organic waste into this gardener's 'dream product'. The beauty of compost is that it is teeming with beneficial micro-organisms which will improve the health of your soil and thus make more nutrients available to your plants. Compost can be made from any organic material ie something that once lived.
Compost is a fundamental plant food. It feeds the soil from which all your plants draw their goodness. After a season of fruiting, flowering and vegetable production a natural way to revitalize your tired old soil is with an application of well-prepared compost. Plants grown in these freshly composted beds will flourish in an abundance of bright colours and green leaves: ‘their strength will deter most pests too’ (with thanks to David and Yvonne Taylor – The Compost Book).
We recommend top dressing the remains of your mulch with compost every 6 months before re-mulching with Lucerne hay.
See this process in action in our display beds at Living Earth Supplies.
Living Earth Supplies Fact Sheet - The Tumbleweed Composter
Most people today, including us, have a lot less space and time than our parents did.
We use the Tumbleweed because, it is much easier than other methods we have tried to make compost with and, it requires very little of our time to make it work.
The Tumbleweed can be used to process all your household food scraps however in order to make the composting process more effective add grass clippings. Always ensure the mix is kept as moist as a ‘wrung out’ wet sponge. Ideally turn the tumbler daily and you should have beautiful compost within six weeks. Grass clippings can be added at any time to help keep the aerobic composting process going.
Use the compost you make to top dress your garden beds (mulch over the compost), top dress your pot plants or spread on your lawn.
Compost uses recycled products (you can compost anything that was once living) so by composting you are reducing landfill. Making your own compost in your backyard is surely one of the most sustainable activities you can participate in.
Living Earth Supplies Fact Sheet - Mulching
Why Mulch’ If only we had a dollar for every time we are asked this question. To list a few benefits:
At Living Earth Supplies we compost and re-mulch every 6 months. Come and see our Display beds to see this system in action.
Living Earth Supplies Fact Sheet - >Bokashi Bucket
Bokashi, worm farming and traditional composting are three methods which deal with your kitchen waste to create great fertilizer and avoid the methane emissions and leaching problems that your scraps will produce at the rubbish tip in landfill.
Worm farming and traditional composting require some outdoor space and different conditions are required for each. However a Bokashi system is designed to be stored under the sink and requires no special conditions such as full sun, summer shade or winter warmth.
‘The Bokashi Bucket is a practical and convenient alternative for transforming kitchen waste into a nutrient rich soil conditioner. This unique composting system uses the revolutionary EM (Effective Micro-Organism) Bokashi to create the ideal conditions for airtight (anaerobic) composting.
Great for houses, the eco-friendly Bokashi Bucket and EM Bokashi eliminate the odors and unpleasantness associated with putrefaction and decay.
You can compost almost every kitchen food waste in your Bokashi Bucket including fruit and vegetables, prepared foods, cooked and uncooked meats and fish, cheese, eggs, bread, coffee grinds, tea bags, wilted flowers and tissues. Bokashi starter kits contain all you need to get started.’
Source: http://www.bokashi.com.au/