Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Kellogg Garden YouTube channel. I'm Bridget, and today we're going
to do a check-in on my worm composting and my raised beds or vermicomposting. First, go ahead and
hit that subscribe button, and that notification bell, if you haven't already so, you can grow along
with Kellogg Garden this season and if you enjoyed this video if you could tap that like button we'd
appreciate that too. Alright, so we're going to jump into these beds. We've actually had
a wicked hot spell, I'm in Southern California it's gotten up into the high 90s low
100s here, so not only have I had to watch my plants, really do some deep watering in the morning,
and use some shade cloth to protect them. I also had to worry about my poor little worms,
and just to make sure that it stays cool enough for them in the beds. Now, if you want to go back
and see the video I did before it'll show you how I put it together
the containers I'm using and why I decided to put them in my bed, so let's jump in. We're going to
look at it and I'm going to tell you the good, the bad, the ugly, about how this is all coming together.
So first, I actually covered my little containers, and I covered it partly because
I didn't like that big white thing, you can cover it with soil but I also covered it with
something that I thought would weigh it down a little bit because sometimes they start to push
up, the roots start to push my little beds up and my little containers up, so I put something kind of
heavy just on one and I actually like it. I think that it helps keep it down but I also think that
it helps with temperature a little bit. Now, so far they are actually doing pretty good I checked them
this morning. I went in and I made sure to feed them for the hot spell, but I went in
and I was looking at a couple of things. One thing I wanted to look at was moisture.
How's the moisture? Because I did some heavy watering, and I wanted to make sure that not only
is it moist enough, but there's not too much moisture in it, and actually these beds
are great, really good. I like the moisture. It looks really nice. The worms seem to be happy in here.
Let's see if I can grab a few; I saw some this morning so that's probably why they're hiding
from me now, because I disturbed them this morning. I've got some little ones that are just starting
which is always nice to see. That means that I have some new worms coming in. So, so far so
good. The other thing again, I wanted to check was I wanted to check temperature so I really just use
a kitchen meat thermometer to kind of check to see
where we're at, and it says I'm at about 80 degrees/82 degrees.
I think this thermometer is a little off. I think it's actually, a little bit cooler than that, but
that's fine not too hot. The good thing I think about putting it in your bed is that I think that
it allows the worms to go and leave that little location, go deep into the bed if it starts to get
too warm, so I really like that about having it in the beds. I also like that the worms are going
through and they're aerating the soil, plus leaving their droppings all throughout the bed. Now,
I do like that I have the worm castings in a convenient place, where I can
go in here and start sifting them out and get some really nice beautiful soil to add
to my beds, but the worms are doing the work the entire time, so even if I don't grab the soil or
the worm castings in this soil. I'm still getting the benefit of them, so I think that's great.
So, there are quite a few things I like about having the worm composting in the beds
and the other positive and I'm going to be completely honest full, disclosure here,
these worms would not be alive if they weren't in the bed. I'm not sure that I am the best at
feeding them all the time, so I think I the fact that they're in the beds
has helped them quite a bit. I do notice if I'm not feeding them as much you don't see as
much worm activity, so they are regulating themselves. Now, a couple of things that
I don't like about having them in the beds. One, is that it takes up room. I'm greedy I want that
room to plant and even though I'm not taking up a lot of space, I'm still taking up some so that
kind of drives me crazy a little bit. The other thing is all these holes in the sides, I love that
that the plants can grow into the container, I think that's great, but the negative is that,
yeah, the container itself gets crazy root bound especially if it's near something like a tomato
plant which actually all three of mine are, so those roots grow in there, and it starts to get
a little crazy in there. Now, another thing I've noticed is that worms...Okay. Okay. You, stop it. Titan
has an opinion. That worms don't like tomatoes. They're a little acidic, maybe that's why, but
anytime we put tomatoes in here. They do nothing with those tomatoes, so they're not big fans
of tomatoes and I had a few that I put in here and they don't touch them, but overall this bed
and this worm compost looks really, really good. You can see the roots in here. They're from that
tomato plant. This actually doesn't look too bad. I have another one that is really, really root-bound.
The other thing I found in here, and I found them the other day, I found little roly-polies in here
and I pulled those out. I don't want anything else in here but worms.
But I said in the last video, the one thing
that's kept some of my gnats and things like that down is that I really mix the
food scraps in with the soil, so it doesn't just sit on top, and that has really helped keep some
things down, so that's good. Overall, pretty good. These guys did great in this heatwave,
and now, of course, I'm on video and I can't find any worms in here
because I messed with them earlier. I mean, they've got a few things in here.
They got some blueberries, they got quite a bit in here
to feed on right now. It's looking pretty good though, looking pretty good. Now, one
of the companies that does this, if you don't want to do your own containers,
I did use a food-grade container. One of the companies that does this is Subpod.
I didn't use Subpod because they were way too big for my beds. Now, I just saw that they introduced a
mini Subpod, so I'm gonna go check that out and see if that'll work for me. Again, my beds are
expensive real estate, right? I want to grow in them, so I want to make sure that whatever I
use, I love the idea of having in the beds, I just don't want it to take up a lot of room.
The other thing I mentioned, in my last one, was that I didn't cut out the bottoms of my little containers.
And, I thought that I might need to at some point, but honestly, I don't. Those worms go in and out
of their own accord, so I haven't had an issue. Oh! I think I found some.
So, just holes in the sides and the bottoms have been enough for this bed
but so far, I really like it. I mean, I love
the soil in here. Now, sifting it out. I have a very small container, so going in and sifting
out the worm castings, that's a lot of work, it hasn't worked out for me. This starts to get pretty full
as everything is breaking down, so what I do is, I just grab the soil. I sift it
for worms, I put the worms back in and I just take all of it. I'm not really looking for
the worm castings per se. This is almost, you know, just a really good compost to me and then I
sprinkle that in my beds. As opposed to sifting for just worm castings, so that's a different way to do
it. So, would I do this again? Absolutely! I'm glad I did it and even though it's taking up precious
real estate, I think it's great and I've enjoyed having it in the beds. I do think it's beneficial.
Still, you're going to use your compost I have a compost bin, I'm still composting, I'm still
adding organic nutrients and minerals. It's not going to take the place of that but, I still think
it is really really beneficial. So, if you haven't watched the other video or you're looking to do
this yourself go ahead and check that out. I will let you know if I try out the Subpod Mini to see
if that really works. Or is it just a buy it, put it in, and then be done with it, type of thing, instead of
doing it yourself, but so far so good. So, I'm excited with it. Again, if you haven't. Subscribe
to the channel, go ahead and do that now, and hit that notification bell. There's a lot of great
contributors on the Kellogg Garden channel. There are contributors from the East Coast to the West Coast
some that have small spaces like mine. We have an urban farmer on an acre, she's a seed farmer.
All sorts of different ideas and different ways to do things, so definitely go check out the
channel, and again if you like this video, please tap that like button it helps people find us.
Alight, thanks so much for joining me and I will talk to you guys again soon. Happy gardening!