Curiously, I may have discovered an ideal BSF habitat but accident. Previously I had an open compost pile. The local home owners association banned it (even though the county distributed free bins). I still wanted to compost but didn't want to pay $60 for a new one so I built an enclosed on. Weeks later is was filled with BSF. Here is what I did. Supplies: -Medium size black trash can and a top -hardware cloth -nut and bolt (about 16) that will fit through the slots in the hardware cloth -one bungie cord Building it: I turned over the trash can and using a bowie knife I slowly cut out a hole in the bottom or the trash can (about half the diameter of the bottom of the can. Using wire cutters I then cut a circular hardware cloth piece out slightly larger. I drilled holes in the bottom slightly smaller then the bolts around the hole I had just cut. I then placed the hardware cloth over the hole and bolted it in place. I used the bungie cord to secure the top in place so no critters could get in. The ideas was that water could drain out of the bottom, no large critters could get in the top or bottom and earth worms could get in. What has happened is the enough air (it's on the mulch) has entered the bottom and escaped through the gas in the tops to aerate it a bit. Kitchen scraps have kept it most enough. And about a billion BSF larve live there and come and go as they please through the hardware cloth. I plan to add the materials to the garden at Thanksgiving. After that most scraps I add freeze for the winter and they will have a no batch in the spring. It's essentially an out door disposal. No smell and not much space needed. Everything was purchased at home depot and the total was less than $30 and fit in the back of my subaru forester.

This will probably be my last post in this thread as my "initiation" into vermiculture is past the initial stages. I have, at least until 'things' change, settled on a "plan". (Change is inevitable, and OCCASIONALLY even 'good'.) Being the ending post let me remind those that are still watching of my initial ideas and goals. (Please don't let this being MY last post in this thread - other than to respond to other's posts - deter others from commenting, etc.) The following quote is from my initial post on this forum:http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/verm/msg0322443013790.html START QUOTE "While my interest in vermiculture has many roots, the PRODUCTS I am interested in are worms and soil. I have available at the moment: 1) an unlimited supply of goat manure (mixed with straw to a ratio of about 5:1 manure to straw by weight); 2) an almost unlimited (20 cubic yards per year) supply of birch leaves, 3) a large supply (2 to 3 cubic yards per year), of hardwood saw "dust"), 4) about 5 cubic yards per year of grass clippings, 5) currently about 2 cubic yards of shredded paper/cardboard with a weekly production of a pound or two, 6) about a half a pound per week of coffee grounds, 7) and about 10 chicken egg shells per week (which I grind using a mortar and pestle) into pieces smaller than 0.5mm. I have a modest leaf shredder I intend to start relatively modestly with one commercially available "worm farm" with 4 or 5 stacked bins. This "farm" will be in my shop that is kept at a temperature of 60 degrees F. It is my intent to shred and mix (using the leaf shredder) the birch leaves and goat manure/straw mixture. Here are my questions: 1) Given the "food" I have available, and especially the goat manure, what would "you" recommend that I use as food? (I would point out that native worms LOVE birch leaf piles in the autumn even without them being shredding first.) 2) How much of the eggshells should I add on what schedule - weekly, biweekly, monthly? 3) At this temperature, what do you THINK (I'm not trying to pin anyone down), would be the SOIL production per unit time? 4) At this temperature, what do you THINK the worm production - surplus to be harvested for use as fish food - would be per unit time? 5) Given the "system" I have described, do you see any potential areas of concern? Thank you for taking the time to respond to my specific questions. I would add that I have looked through the first 100 threads in this site." END QUOTE Quite a bit has transpired since that initial post, and my education has been greatly accelerated by the generous folks at this forum. The major departure from the above goals of "making soil" and "making worms" is that I no longer have ANY interest in using worms to "make soil". That's not to say I am not interested in vermicompost and worm castings, but using worms to "make soil" for my applications is not reasonable. Instead, I am going to mix items 1, 2, 3, and 4, plus 5 - 10% sand from the first list above (organic matter on hand), and call that "soil", and "use it like I knew what I was doing." The other primary goal of raising worms to feed my fish, got an 'adjustment' yesterday. The wife of my fishing friend (Jim) fought off breast cancer a few years back. Her immune system was compromised while she was going through chemo-therapy, and Jim was advised by her doctors to get a Mosquito Magnet (hereafter "MM") (http://www.mosquitomagnet.com/resource/lps/mm/3-traps-octenol/trap-video-three-traps.html?gclid=CMi24NzEkL4CFY6RfgodF38A4w) to reduce the probability of an infection from a mosquito bite. They have been using it every summer since. The MM collects ~5000 mosquitoes a week. (YES, I HAVE counted them. It's what I DO.) Mosquitoes represent a significant proportion of native fish's protein intake. I asked Jim to bring over a baggy of his first trappings, and we'd see if my fish were interested. It took a day for them to figure it out, but now they are eating them enthusiastically. I have at least one other friend with a MM that has agreed to save his trappings for me. Therefore, the burden to produce worms is LESSENED, not eliminated. The mosquitoes will likely be frozen and saved for winter feed when worm production will, at best, be minimized. SO... 1) "Making soil" via worm guts is "out", 2) I'm "moving outside" with mendopete's worm cages, at least until the Fall. 3) The 'demand' for worms for fish food is diminished. We'll see what the summer brings. THANKS! to all for helping me 'move along smartly'.(Those that have been in the Navy will appreciate the double meaning.) Paul This post was edited by pskvorc on Sat, May 3, 14 at 16:12

I can see that there are not a lot of bird feeders here who combine the hobby with vermicomposting (smile). I know folks who raise worms primarily to feed reptiles (turtles) and fish. One fellow even went through the trouble of gut-loading (see link for info on "clean" worms). There is a bird feeding store in the area that sells small buckets of worms just for this purpose. I understand that if you have a limited quantity of worms, this would not be a good practice, or if you were not an avid birder. I have way more worms than I could ever give away (and I do give away whenever I can), and I've enjoyed feeding the birds since childhood. For me, vermicomposting and birding are a good combo. There are a number of birds that would not come to a feeder if it were not for the worms which I occasionally put out. Note that feeding chicken manure to worms, and then putting the resulting compost back in chicken coops was an early application of vermicomposting discussed in farm books years ago. It was a good way to reprocess waste (still is). Renais, the birder and wormer Here is a link that might be useful: Bird feeding

Ooh, vaporvac - Clotilde Soupert is gorgeous!!! I love the last pic, especially with the pink centres. I will see if she's available here - it's a bit frustrating as there are often roses I hear you all talk about but which aren't available for me, especially in Perth - as I need to get it from the local rose nursery which grafts on Fortuniana so I'm stuck with what they offer. I have to confess, I'm not keen on pale/white roses - I like them to have a "solid" colour. ;-) (unless the white is very "solid" - like a strong ivory or snowy white)... if I'm making sense? But otherwise, it just looks sort of washed out - or in the very bright Aussie sunshine, I find that the flowers reflect light terribly and just look like white blurs in the garden. Like so far, I'm not very impressed with Evelyn because she seems like such a pale, wishy-washy "non-colour". Perhaps I'm being unfair as she hasn't rebloomed like the other Austins (after Reine Victoria, she's the next LEAST performing rose so far) - so maybe I haven't seen any decent flowers from her yet and I'm judging too early. I also wonder if white blooms wouldn't stand out much against the white wall? I was actually thinking I'd really like a climbing rose with darker blooms - like dark pink - the only problem is finding one that would be shade tolerant! Here's another picture of the wall. As you can see, I don't have a lot of space to play with and if I fan Nahema out, I don't know if I'll have space for another climbing rose! It would have to go farther to the left, on the wall just behind Lady of Shalott ( the bush with the GIANT octopus arm - LOL!), next to the window - and I'm not sure there is enough space in the bed. It's very narrow. But I suppose I could move LOS to somewhere else - I was planning to anyway. Also, I had 3 hollyhocks growing at the back, behind LOS and POAK, along the wall (they're still there - I've just cut their tall stalks down) - so if I put a climbing rose in, I'd have to sacrifice some hollyhock space for next year - and I do love my hollyhocks... Argh! Wish I had a wider / deeper bed!! :-) ~ HY