My Crew Gets Fed Grape Bits

So I had about 10 pounds of grape husks and stems to feed the worms. The bag sat in my fridge until the weekend, which is feeding time for the crew. I could be feeding them twice a week, but I don't. I'm working up to it. But then again, it's getting on to winter, so they'll be eating more slowly unless I figure out a way to keep them warmer. It'd probably help if I turned on the heater, but I don't know how to work it and thus, haven't used it once in the three years I've lived here. That's a boring story for the future if I'm desperate for blogging material. Not likely.

Check out my crew! The first string are the bins on the floor: Adam, Eve, and The Offspring. Guess which came first!

Note that each worm bin has breathing holes on the sides and the lids; and that each one is sitting in a catch bin. I'm not CraYZzeEE! Leakage-onto-the-floor-prevention is always a good idea.

Everyone, meet Adam.


You can tell Adam from the others because he's got 12, 3, 6 and 9 written on him in Sharpie. That's from back in the beginning when I was a newbie and tried feeding one location one day and another location another day per the recommendation from a website written by someone who doesn't have much to do but keep track of what clock area was last fed. You can also tell it's Adam because he's the Big Cheese. His cardboard paper-covering even says so.

This is what Adam looks like under his moisture-retention-Big-Cheese-cardboard layer.

The bin level is a couple inches below the lower breathing holes, though it's hard to determine that from this view. You just gotta trust.

When I feed my worms, I essentially dig up the left (12:00) side right down to the bottom, piling whatever paper and castings on the right (6:00) side, making a big poopy paper mountain. And yes, it sometimes spills over if I'm hasty. That's why I don't keep or feed the worms in my carpeted living area.

Once the left side is essentially aerated and a "hole" dug, I scoop worm food into it. In this case, I grabbed the food with tongs and tossed it in, tongful by tongful. Grape stems are difficult to scoop.


Once the food is in, a good pound or so, I spread the mountain of bedding over it, then proceed to dig up the right side, making sure to dig up the center of the bin too. It has a tendency to get compacted. Then I dump food in the right side too, another generous pound or so.

At this point, I started picking out the grape stems and throwing them in the garbage. There were a lot and while the worms will eat them eventually, it takes a while. The stems wind up being more of a nuisance for me as they get stuck in my little three-pronged gardening trowel.

Once both sides of Adam were fed, I simply spread the bedding over the entire bin. If the level is still low relative to the smaller, lower, breathing holes, I'll top the bin off with more shredded paper and depending on the weather/season will mist it from my handy-dandy water bottle.

This time, I didn't bother topping off with paper. The level is nice and high, just below the lower set of small breathing holes. Additional water wasn't really necessary as everything was still damp like a sponge and there was still quite a bit of juice in the grape husks.


And that's it, Adam's fed, good to go for a few days or a month. After returning the Big Cheese cardboard and snapping the blue lid back on, I simply shoved Adam back into his corner. He doesn't care if I get pushy.

A majority of the grape bits were fed to Adam, Eve, and The Offspring. That left me with about 1/5-2/5th's of the grape bits I'd started with.

Chuck, the worms thank you for the chow.

Next up: what's left of the grape bits at next feeding.
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In real-time news:

1. I've continued on with my "I'll kick Korean language class ass" and didn't drop last week, though honestly I was seriously considering it.
2. Ken jovially accused me of being a "cruncher", or what I'd call "a dirty hippy", because I'm saving fruit cast-offs in a baggie in one of the kitchen freezers. I must say now that I still bathe regularly and do not, and have never, owned a pair of Birkenstocks. If I wasn't so against toe-exposure by all, I might consider those 'stocks.
3. As for Bill, he's been slacking when it comes to putting his banana peels into the baggie. Loser.
4. Two of my friends at work have been on a Master Cleanse "lemonade/maple syrup diet". While they might be sick in the head for doing the diet, I did receive a plastic grocery bag FULL of lemon-half cast-offs today. There was still enough juice in the previously-squoze halves that while double-grocery-bagged, the halves leaked juice onto the floor of my cubicle. The worms are gonna love it! And they'll be lemony-fresh too. I always like a lemon-scented worm bin.
5. I ran into Kimberly and she asked me what "her" worms need. I told her I'd like some of her shredded paper (shredded being key, I like her shredded paper as it's not cross-cut and doesn't tend to mat). I'm behind on shredded paper anyway, but am much more so what with the sudden influx of lemon halves.