Tampa Worm Company - Vermicomposting - Vermiculture - Vermicast: Square Foot Gardening

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Square Foot Gardening

Some people think it takes a lot of space to grow a garden and it might if you are planting a traditional row garden, but with a little creativity you can grow a lot in even the smallest space.

Several years ago Mel Bartholomew authored a book about Square Foot Gardening that has helped many aspiring backyard gardeners get started growing their own food.

You can built a square foot garden from wooden planks, scraps of plastic, or even vinyl fencing. Here's a picture of one built from vinyl fence scraps that might give you some ideas for building your own.

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About Us

TampaWormCompany.com was established to increase awareness of organic waste recycling. The average American household generates more than 500 pounds of organic waste annually, which equates to 250,000 tons of organic waste generated by residents of the Tampa metropolitan area each year.

Processing organic waste with worms - called VERMICOMPOSTING - transforms garbage into a nutrient-rich, odorless, pathogen-free, organic soil amendment that dramatically enhances the health of indoor plants, gardens, trees, landscaping, lawns, and crops.

Save Our Landfills

Worm castings, known as VERMICAST, recycles nutrients as a valuable soil amendment as nature designed. Vermicast can be harvested from your own personal worm bin and harvested for your own use. The average family generates four pounds of food waste per week. If only 5,000 households implemented a worm composting program with red wigglers, the organic waste diverted to landfills would be reduced dramatically.

5,000 households x 4 pounds per week = 20,000 pounds or 10 tons; 10 tons x 52 weeks = 520 tons of waste would be elimited from Tampa garbage dumps each year.

How to feed your worms

Select foods that are suitable for worms including most fruits and vegetables. Worms will also eat cardboard, news print, coffee grounds w/filters and tea bags. Avoid paper that is glossy or that shines or shimmers. It is best to cut food scraps into small pieces before placing them in the bin. Worms are not crazy about garlic, onion, broccoli, or citrus. No meat, bones, non-food trash, or grass cuttings with any pesticide or herbicide. Do Not Use Pineapple or Papaya in your bins!

Keep several inches (6-8) of moist bedding over the food at all times. Bedding helps keep the bin dark and moist and discourages fruit flies. Materials that can be used include: shredded newspaper, white paper, burlap, shredded cardboard or paperboard, straw, and brown leaves. The worms live in these materials and they also eat them.

How much food to feed

Worms need to adjust to their new home and new foods, so do not over-feed them the first few weeks. You can always add more, but overfeeding is difficult to correct. In addition to the food you are giving them, they're also eating their new bedding.

It is especially important not to overfeed in warm weather, as the added moisture and microbial activity will raise the bin temperatures. Attempt to place the food in different areas of the bin each time you feed. This will reduce the chance for over heating.

The bin will require more food as its population grows. Worms usually can eat about half their weight in food, but it will take them about a month to get to that point. It's a good plan to feed small amounts every 2 or 3 days. Then you can make small adjustments as your confidence grows and you get to know your worms.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Square Foot Gardening

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