Harvest Time

I have been harvesting my VC regularly for about a month now. Previously I had just been putting what fell through the grate back in the top of the bin. Now we have a good garden going and I decided it's time to reap the benefits of the worming. I didn't have a good tray to sort the worms out of the VC, so I had been using pizza box lids and the like. That got old fast, so I went in search of a better solution. I used a wine crate we had lying around (What? Thats not weird! Who doesn't have wine crates lying around?) and made some frames to fit inside. I stapled hardware cloth to the frames and made myself a sorting tray. It works well, and the 'product' is much easier to spread on the garden than the clumps I had been getting.

Woo Hoo!

All fixed. The wooden rods, even though I had painted them, soaked up water and started to get soft. As they softened they bowed and pulled out of the holes. The hot glue I had originally used to secure them didn't stand a chance. I went to l'homme de'pot and bought 8-32 x 12" long plated threaded rods and some nuts. I was able to just push the threaded rods through the compost and line up the holes. The paper bottom finally gave way and lot of mostly finished VC, cocoons and worms fell down in the process. I'm not ready to use it yet so I put it right back in the top of the bin.

Catastrophe!!!

My grate buckled and three of my bars broke loose. Just as things were starting to settle down :( I don't think I can fix it without emptying the bin.