Pn, I think you can keep the thrill alive by growing something new, but you're right the first year is probably the most exciting lol... Congrats on the zuke Aili!

Thanks everyone, sorry for the late response. I have been out of wi-fi range for a few days. Ah!! Warm fuzzies n bunnies. Woohooman, I had most of my peppers started pretty early, main issue was the learning curve, I replanted some due to lack of sun and some I planted in inadequate soil others were just late additions in the name of learning, now I know what areas get ample sun and have a good idea of what soils to use. Growing em is as addictive as eating them, maybe not the best for my OCD ;-) dj

When to harvest the castings from the bottom tier of the Can O Worms (COW) is tyically more reliably determined by worm activity than a specific physical characteristic of the finished material. If the bottom tray contents contains little if any recognizable material and few if any worms this is the generally recommended cue to empty it. If many worms remain and/or if there is a significant volume of recognizable material present, leave it in the system for further processing. Castings often look like compost, and the appearance can differ depending on the feedstock and bin environment. Trying to determine what is a worm cast and what is a pile of decomposed organic matter that did not pass through the worm gut by simply looking at it is usually pretty tough. While it is sometimes possible to differentiate casts from compost, it is certainly not typical that we can, thus, as is so often the best course of action, let the worms be your guide. Avocado skins often remain for extended periods in worm bins, not because worms dislike them, but because they are highly resistant to microbiological decay. Because bacteria and fungi cannot readily degrade them the peels are not fragmented into sufficiently small pieces that they can be ingested by the worms. Further, it is the microbiology associated with decomposting orgnanic materials that supply the bulk of nutrient in the worm diet, not the organic matter itself, thus any orgnanic material not highly biologically active will be of little interest to the worms. The outer fiber of melon rind, corn cobs and husks, and citrus rinds are all materials that often remain unprocessed in the bin for extended periods for these reasons. As to eggshells, earthworms have a high requirement for calcium, thus having recognizable bits is recommended in all systems. It is not required that they are crushed however. Microorganisms will extract calcium from the shells and pass that calcium to the worms when the microbes themselves are later ingested. The worms do not necessarily need to ingest the shell itself to obtain the calcium. Some vermicomposters use crushed shells to supply grit that aids worm digestion, but the addition of grit is not always necessary. If the bin is set up with leaves or other organic materials that have been in soil contact there is typically sufficient grit to keep the worms happily digesting. Further, a handful of simple garden soil is all the grit a worm bin needs and does not require that you resort to mortar and pestle for egg shell grinding. If grinding the shell is something that appeals to you, however, there is certainly nothing wrong with doing so! Using castings is the payoff for self-management of home kitchen waste. The casts contain a rich consortium of microorganisms and concentrations of chemical compounds that significantly benefit plant growth and productivity. Casts are also, however, high in salts by virtue of the fact that they are the manure of an animal (we all concentrate salt in our wastes). It takes only a small volume of castings to demonstrate maximum impact, while using too much can actually stress plants due to salt toxicity. The generally recommended application rate is for castings to comprise between 5 and 20% of any potting medium. Now, it's important to understand that this is a general recommendation, not a hard and fast rule. You may well read that some folks use castings at higher concentrations to good effect (some coffee growers in Mexico, for instance, use castings as nearly 50% of their starting medium to get maximum benefit). What all of this means is that 1) more is not always better, and 2) start with the accepted application rate, but feel free to experiment on your own. Because no two worm systems and no two batches of castings will be identical, there are few hard and fast rules in vermicomposting. Personal experimentation is highly encouraged! If your system has produced more castings than you can currently use you can send them to me ::grin:: or simply store them in a container that will not be decomposed by the micorbial life ( no paper or cardboard, for instance), and keep them in the dark. They can be stored for upwards of three years with no loss of "potency". Kelly S

Here's a quick shot of the baby figs of my main crop. They are about the size of my thumb. We just moved to a new house little more than a year now, so all of my trees are still rather young, so that means they provide me a bundle of that first year harvest excitement/happiness :) video