Getting the HotBin and Wormeries back in action

 

This is what the repair to the HotBin looks like, once the glue had set. 

Once the Hotbin was back in place, I loaded  it up, as per the instructions, and as I described back in my  original post about setting up my new HotBin

Wood chip, some compost from a bin, paper and then grass, paper, grass, leaves to the very top. 

While I was in gardening and composting mode  and mowing, weeding and tidying outside, I got the Can O Worms and Hungry Bin going again. The worms inside looked very happy!

Busy day in the sunshine

Two years ago (I know, I know) rats ate into my HotBin.  Tony the inventor very kindly sent me a sample of the material it is made from, and suggestions as to how to repair it. 

 Last year, I got COVID-19, and that, and the effects of Long covid, means a lot of non essential stuff just didn't get done around Compost Mansions. 

But now the weather is nice, and my torn bicep is not so painful, and I've recovered from the after effects of my first covid vaccination, I'm finally getting on with stuff.

(We've also got several raised beds infested with bindweed and couch grass, and nothing beats watching them shrivel up and die in a well run HotBin!)

So, we removed all the old compost from the HotBin, dismantled it completely, I cleaned all the fine compost from the base plate and Compostman did the repair to the rat hole.

Hungry Bin and Can O Worms sort out

@hungrybin @omlet @wiggled

I posted a couple of days ago about the HotBin sort out and I have now sorted out the various wormeries which live by the polytunnel as well. One of the reasons I got my hands so dirty yesterday :)

I first emptied out the Can o Worms wormery, bought from Wiggly Wigglers many years ago now and still going strong! I harvested three bucket fulls of lovely worm compost

.

I then emptied out the Hungry Bin tray and got another bucketful from that.

I don't need the compost just yet so I used  a spare CoW I got from Freecycle to store the compost in, five trays full of worm compost - that will allow it to dry out a little and I can use the worm juice in the polytunnel.  I added a top tray with the contents of the kitchen caddy so any remaining worms will move up into the top tray out of the finished compost.

Looking into the Hungry Bin this shows that worms do not eat compostable caddy bags - these obviously need to go into a compost bin for other compost creatures to munch at them. I have added a caddy at the foot of the Hungry bin so we all remember to put the bags in there.

Job done. You can see the orange rubbish bits bucket on the  far left hand side then moving to the right, the "compost storage" Can o Worms, next to it is the "working" Can o Worms wormery, next to that is the Hungry Bin wormery, then the caddy I have put down for the compost caddy bags collection, then the HotBin and the plant hardening off bench with some brassicas waiting to be planted out in the ( newly dug) veg patch. Finally the wooden bench with cold frame on top, containing various perennial plants waiting to be planted out into the new Bee attracting bed by the House.

I got a lot of work done in an afternoon. This area tends to be a bit of a dumping ground ( the outdoor equivalent of the Study of Doom!) and so it was good to sort it all out. Now this area is nice and tidy again.

Busy unpacking and moving and digging

STILL TIME TO ENTER THE HAMPTON COURT DRAW! ->



Well the unpacking was the latest Rocket Gardens delivery - no sooner had I got delivery #2 and 3 in the ground than #4 turned up!

You all know the drill by now I guess - a box turns up here by courier, full of organically grown plug plants, packed in layers of lovely damp hay, which I then unpack and plant on

Lots of lovely layers of lovely plants :)

which I then moved into the polytunnel, while I find somewhere to plant them out.

It must be summer - the fan is back as a fixture in the polytunnel. It is activated when the temperature reaches a set ( by me) level inside. it really helps to keep things cooler during the day. Without it temperatures can soar to far too hot.

I will do a post about the Hot Bin and Hungry Bin separately, suffice to say I have been digging them out and am very pleased with what I have taken out :)

Wrapping up the wormeries.

We have colder weather forecast coming so a couple of days ago Compostman and I   wrapped up the Can o Worms and the Hungry Bin in bubblewrap. They were moved into the Polytunnel in December 2012, and the worms have happily carried on munching our veg waste but I want to make sure they stay cosy and happy and content, even if it does get a little colder in the next few days.

So with bubblewrap around the body and fleece over the top of the wormeries the worms inside should be ok - and I can still get to lift the lids to keep them fed.

The worms are still very active. Hello worms!

I have also grouped all the more vulnerable plants together and draped them with fleece - they should be ok until it gets to below -5 all day - if that happens I will have to get out more fleece, net curtains etc.

Off to harvest the Spinach now - don't want it to spoil from the frost.

Putting the Wormeries to bed for the winter.

With the increasing likelyhood of cold weather I have moved the Hungry Bin and Can O Worms inside the polytunnel for protection against the frost.

Hungry Bin trial after 4 weeks - harvesting the vermicompost for the first time!

 The Hungry Bin has been quietly eating our kitchen waste for a number of weeks, now.
So I decided it was time to risk taking off the bottom tray to look at the vermicompost.

I undid the catches on each side, and carefully lowered the bottom tray - half expecting the entire contents to fall out of the bottom - but no! it all worked exactly as the Hungry Bin web site said it would!

The compost you can see on the ground fell out of the bottom tray when I removed it - none has fallen out from the Hungry Bin itself.

Most of the compost in the bottom tray is from the original material I added when I set up the Hungry Bin more than four weeks ago, but there are some worm casts in there as well.The bottom tray fits neatly into the liquid collection tray, normally seen on the ground under the Hungry Bin

I could only find one worm, who was returned to the Hungry Bin to join the rest of the many thousands in there, busily munching away at our waste.

I added the compost to some pots of veg in the polytunnel, as well as giving the plants a feed of diluted worm tea from the Hungry Bin collection tray. I then put the collection tray back underneath the Hungry Bin - two catches which did up really easily.

My Hungry Bin is now absorbing my daily kitchen waste -about a kilo of it every day, plus whatever else I find to throw in to the worms.

I am SO impressed with this wormery!

Hungry Bin update after 3 weeks

Here at Compost Mansion we generate a kitchen caddy full of waste every couple of days from our kitchen - tea bags, coffee filters and grounds, veg peelings and assorted bits of cardboard all go in there. The caddy lives in the corner by the sink, next to the sink. Typically, we empty about 5 kg of compostables out of it every few days.

I have been re filling the Hungry Bin with assorted kitchen and garden waste every day, a little and often is the best way and I have been adding a couple of inches of food stuff for the worms everyday, as suggested by the  Hungry Bin parent company in New Zealand

This was the view inside the lid of the Hungry Bin on Day 20 of the trial.I added some more assorted  kitchen and garden waste from the kitchen caddy and some of the packaging hay I recieved in my order from Rocket Gardens.

I have now owned a Hungry Bin for 3 weeks and am still delighted with it, despite the warmer weather recently it does not smell and it can handle a lot of kitchen waste.  I have also been using the "worm tea" from the tray at the bottom - diluted 10:1 with water  ( until it is the colour of weak tea, no milk, no sugar) the plants in the polytunnel love it

Next time I will hopefully be reporting on opening up the tray at the bottom to harvest some vermicompost ;-)

Hungry Bin update - Day 9 and the worms are thriving :-)

I have been re filling the Hungry Bin with assorted kitchen and garden waste every day, a little and often is the best way and I have been adding about an inch of food stuff for the worms everyday, as suggested by the  Hungry Bin parent company in New Zealand

This was the view inside the lid of the Hungry Bin on Day 6 of the trial.

And this is the same bin two days later,  - I did not feed the worms on Day 7 as I wanted to get an idea how much the level would drop over a couple of days.

It has dropped by several inches, and the worms have eaten a lot of the material.

 Scraping aside the surface, uneaten layer we see a lot of rich, dark vermicompost. Lovely!

I added some more assorted  kitchen and garden waste -  or as I prefer to think of it - valuable organic worm feed for my wonderful worms;-) 

And shut the lid.

I have now owned a Hungry Bin for 8 days and I must say I am delighted with it, it does not smell, it can handle a lot of kitchen waste, it reduces the waste rapidly and the worms are certainly working hard. I am also very pleased with the "worm tea" I am getting from the tray at the bottom - diluted 10:1 with water  ( until it is the colour of weak tea, no milk, no sugar) it is a fabulous feed for my plants.

Will report back in another few days.

Hungry Bin update Day 3 (07/07/12) and Day 4 (08/07/12)

I was quite worried on Day 3 - the deluge continued here and the worms were obviously convinced that they would be drowned if they stayed in the Hungry Bin so followed their instincts and tried to move up and away from danger- but the lid contained them.

I was concerned that the deluge would fill up the collection tray with rainwater and I would lose all my lovely worm tea, but NO! the design obviously keeps rain from falling into the collection tray - which is good.

Despite having had a lot of rain overnight! This wheelbarrow was next to the Hungry Bin.

I added some more material, about 800 g of mixed kitchen caddy waste, a small amount of cooked food and some roll roll tubes with compost inside which had held some bean plants, but they had been eaten off to soil level by slugs.

When I went back later the same day the tubes were full of worms all munching away.

Day 4, I added a about a kg of assorted waste, paper scraps, chicken droppings, weeds and tomato leaves from the plants in the polytunnel (I had been removing some of the lower leaves to let in air to the plants)which had been sitting in a bucket for a few days

I had a look at the waste and saw lots of worms busily working away with none in the lid so I think they must be happy with their environment.

See how quickly those cardboard tubes have disintegrated!

I laid some cardboard on the top surface so the worms had somewhere to hide under, and closed the lid for another day.

Hungry Bin review (1) - putting it together and setting it up.

When I was at the Masters Conference at Garden Organic I was very interested to see a new ( to me) design of wormery.  Johannes Paul of Omlet was showing a new addition to their product range - the Hungry Bin. Omlet are selling these wormeries in the UK, they originate from New Zealand and are an interesting design,

According to the makers, Low Impact Ltd

The Hungry Bin is a unique design. It creates an ideal living environment for compost worms. The worms convert organic waste into worm castings and a nutrient-rich liquid, which are both high-quality fertilisers. The liquid drains freely from the bin and into a tray placed below it. The tapered shape of the bin compresses the castings, encouraging the worms to move to the surface layer to access fresh food. Compressed castings are easier to handle and largely free of worms. It is a simple process to collect both the castings and liquid produced by the hungry bin.

I must admit I was very impressed by the design when looking at it on display and when Johannes offered me a Hungry Bin to try out, of course I said yes ( I never pass up the chance to experience something new involving composting and worms)

So when the box arrived yesterday, along with two large lidded buckets of worms and bedding, I was really excited (I'm funny like that!) and couldn't wait to get the system set up. Fortunately we had a dry and sunny day yesterday so I was able to take lots of photos as well

 Packaged in a cardboard box, what looks like proper sellotape to seal it (therefore compostable!) and the instructions are in a paper bag. Full marks for packaging!

All the parts nested together, like a Russian Doll

Very easy to understand instructions

Compostman stands next to the completed wormery - it took less than 10 mins to build.

In situ, behind the Barn, facing the Polytunnel - so I can feed it easily "little and often". There is a comprehensive "owners manual" to tell you how to set up the wormery once you have put it together, as well as lots of advice on the Omlet website.

Adding the bedding for the worms - when you first set it up you need to fill it half full with compost, coir, growing medium, soil or a mixture of all of them, to give the worms something to live in. I used spent home made compost from the potato planters I have just harvested.

As soon as I opened one of the worm buckets Babs was there! She must be able to smell worms at 100 paces!

 Worms!
 

A video of the worms, after I added them to the Hungry Bin

Compostgirl adding some growing medium to the Wormery

Titch was bored, so went to sleep as there were no more worms on offer.

The    Hungry Bin  web site says about the design

The hungry bin is the result of several years of design development by inventor Ben Bell, of New Zealand. Ben is a keen gardener, composter and worm farmer. He felt that the existing worm farms on the market could do with some improvement, and in true Kiwi spirit he decided to do it himself.  The original idea for hungry bin evolved from earlier models Ben created using broken kerbside rubbish bins.

I must admit it DOES look a bit like a rubbish bin on wheels!

The unique shape of the bin creates a large surface area allowing all the worms living in the hungry bin to easily access the food scraps at the top – exploiting the fact they’re surface feeders, and increasing their processing capacity. The tapered sides also encourage the worms to stay on the surface, while compressing their castings below.

I was particularly impressed by the large surface area and when I went out tonight to check on the Hungry Bin the worms were busily working in the material I had added on top of the bedding. A lot were on the inside of the lid, though. That tells me it IS going to rain, later on!

Once the compost process is complete, the hungry bin is designed to allow the simple and easy harvest of both finished castings and liquid fertiliser. Harvesting castings does not involve any heavy, messy lifting. The floor of the bin is easily removed, allowing approximately 4 litres (3/4 gallons) of castings to break away at the bottom of the taper. This allows the easy removal of finished castings from the bin. Removing the castings is a relatively clean process. Finished castings are largely free of worms.

I saw this demonstrated at Ryton - the tray really does come out full of worm casts and the material really did stay put! The only fault I can find so far is the liquid tray is easily accessable to the chickens - who will drink the worm "juice".

The lid is at a comfortable operating height, and convenient to open and close. Tight fitting, it prevents pests from entering but has sufficient venting to create healthy airflow. The hungry bin even has wheels, making moving the bin light work.

I found it easy to put material into the bin, so did both Compostman and Compostgirl.

If you are interested in buying one of these bins, you can order one from   the  Omlet Hungry Bin pages

I will write more in a few days, but so far I am very impressed with my Hungry Bin.