Poop Plants, 071711

Plants grow out of the poop regularly. And, no, they aren't "weeds" like Chuck might let you think.

This is the batch of poop that I sifted Cang's little quantity out of. See that strainer? It was pilfered from my kitchen. Note the seedlings in the poop.

Normally, I pull the plants and continue in sorting the poop. Due to Cang's recent bottle plant excitement, I decided to transplant these two. Judging by the leaves, I think they are squash plants.

I went to Home Depot and bought these two pots and platter-reservoir-water-catcher-thingies. Oh yeah, and a bag of potting soil. I planned on going large with my planting and growing.

And look! Those two plants in their individual pots! Aren't they just adorably dreamy? I loved them immediately as they made me feel so green-thumbish.

Originally, the plan was to do one plant in primarily poop, the other in primarily potting soil. I forget now which is which -- I suck. The experiment was sort of botched from the get-go anyhow. I'd accidentally messed up the roots of one plant during transplant and was much more conscious of how extensive the root-lings were on the second plant. Again, I don't know which was which. I need a lab notebook at home.

The rest of the poop? That was delivered to Luis. Now that I think of it, he needs to return my poop container, the butthead.  

Worm Food, Corn Growth, and OC Registers 070911

I didn't have much food for the worms the weekend of July 9th. Turns out, they didn't need much so it worked out ok.

Most of the bins had food leftover. Like this bin with the germinating kernels of corn. There were three in the bin, each of them sprouting like mad.

The pile of OC Registers is getting out of control. How long had I been receiving them by the 9th? I'm not sure, but I need to cancel this shit as the pile is even bigger now.

Deciding to chop of some of the papers, I came across an article in an edition about how OC Food Banks' shelves are sparse. It was a good reminder that food banks usually get the most donations in winter months and are sparse in summer.

Here's a list of kitchens if you have anything to donate: OC Food Banks/Kitchens.

Chuck Gets Poop

Late March I was invited to Chuck's house for a wine-bottling event scheduled for early April. Not sure if I'd be able to attend, I was all wishy-washy about it. The thing I had to do wound up being postponed so I was suddenly free. While I don't drink wine, it'd be neat to check out a home-bottling.

What do ya bring a guy who has everything including a vineyard and what turned out to be a pretty freakin' sweet kitchen (nevermind the picturesque wife, child and dog)? Am I little jealous? Maybe. It would be awesome to have a sweet kitchen. A wife would be really handy too, especially if as cool as Chuck's Jen. Just sayin'. 

A batch of poop, of course!

I had this batch from The Offspring laying around, destined for Bill. Eh, Bill wouldn't need a whole batch anyway. As a matter of fact, as I'd suspected he would, Bill gave his batch to Tone. And certainly, Tone made it a point to mention that, per Clare's suggestion, he shouldn't lose his place in the queue. I figured that was coming and of course, will comply. I'm not an ogre.

This batch is on the low side as it's fairly dry due to drying out for over a month. Stuff had been sprouting, growing, and dying in this container that whole time, dying because I wasn't watering the poop, intentionally killing limiting growth.

As I cleaned out about 1/4-1/3 of the batch of seedlings, seeds and plastics, I wondered what nifty container I could pick up to gift the poop in. A counter-top compost bin maybe?

Push came to shove and I skipped the cutey-cuteness factor. The poop was pretty clean and the worms I found were put back into The Offspring. I wasn't sure how Jen would feel about a batch of poop, nevermind a batch of poop complete with worms. I rolled with the usual poop delivery container.

And see how pretty Chuck's little batch of pooh looks!

Yeah, so what if you click on the photo and see a bunch of seeds in there. I did my best with the time I had available.

Since then, Chuck let me know that weeds were growing out of the poop.

Weeds my ass! They are tomatoes or melons or squash...or something. Far from weeds! Chuck suggested I microwave my poop to prevent this from happening in the future. I told Chuck in a very kind, roundabout, way that maybe he should just piss up a rope relax.

Surprise, surprise, Chuck recently let me know he wanted some poop and worms for his latest endeavor, the strawberries he'd planted. That'll be my next achievement, worm delivery. I have a batch of pooh nearly ready to begin processing; I'll get the worms from that batch.

I'm sure Chuck will have something to complain about when he gets the worms. I'll keep you posted.

FYI the wine-bottling experience was kick-ass! I loved it! Chuck and Jen had a good layout happening from the onset with breads, cheeses and dips available for incoming guests to congregate and meet-and-greet over.

While Chuck prepped for the bottling, he and Jen coordinated a dinner before the actual event including grilled tri-tip and sides, some of which were "old family" Costco recipes of Chuck's, including scalloped potatoes and macaroni and cheese; others brought by guests that were really homemade included a Persian dish by Ali and a spinach-and-strawberry salad among others. 

The bottling event itself was enough to accomodate 15-20 or more people and there was just enough action happening to keep most everyone busy in some aspect. Best was that Chuck and Jen made it a point to allow everyone opportunity to work each "station" in the process. As Chuck does, he talked the entire time; this time I actually learned something relevant to what was going on rather than random information suitable for a segment of Jeopardy!.

With each change of wine to be bottled came a wine-tasting. I'd expound, but I don't drink wine. I showed up to be, specifically, a thorn in Chuck's side.

At evening end, participants were allowed to select a recently-bottled bottle of wine or two to take home. I left my bottle for someone who'd actually drink their efforts.

I highly recommend attending Chuck's wine-bottling if you are offered an invite. There is much to learn that I haven't disclosed, plus there is good company and food to enjoy. 

Screw it. If you hear Chuck might be hosting another event like this, just show up. Bring him a box of worm poop and tell him I sent ya. I'll be there to back you.

Tony's Impromptu Garden

A few months ago, maybe back in September, Tony had a trench in front of his house that needed filling. I had a couple of worm bins of poop I could unload. It was a perfect match. Sure as shit, stuff started growing out of that worm poopy trench.

Tony was smooth enough to talk his girl, Clare, into collecting images of the growth over the past couple months. I plan to get these progressive images up one of these days. Meanwhile, we'd been scratching our heads over what the hell could be growing and determined that it must be some sort of squash.

Here's where you should imagine me leaning back in a high-backed leather chair, puffing on a pipe Camel while wearing a smoking jacket with leather on the elbows and a reminiscent thought bubble over my cartoon head as I thought back to

the squash I'd eaten
and the pulpy,
stringy gunk
and seeds
from those squashes
I'd fed to the worms
over the past couple years or so.

It was narrowed down to summer squashes like zucchini or yellow crookneck.
Or winter squash such as carnival, butternut or delicata.
Of course, there are the squash I may have eaten and forgotten about entirely. Like the acorn, which I suddenly remember having eaten.
So really, we just had it narrowed down to squash.
Thankfully, I did my undergrad biology/microscopy thesis on Curcurbita maxima, otherwise I'd have never believed Tony and Clare's leaves as squash since tomatoes were most prevalent thus far.

Based on Tony's verbal description and the photos Clare graciously supplied today, it looks like they might be growing some of these:

That shiny thing in the bottom of the image isn't a squash, it's a quarter. You can use it as a reference for squash size. Or you can go by the fact that the butternut in the back weighs in at 3.53 lbs and the giant pickle-like delicata came in at 1.03 lbs.

It'll be cool to see if Tone's growths grow up to be 100% identifiable. Considering that it's getting below 60°F regularly now, we might not see that happen. Keep your fingers crossed. Better yet, get on Tony's ass about putting together some sort of impromptu greenhouse for the sake of us being able to determine that we were right about the fruits being squash.

Anyone have an old swing-set they want to get rid of? I've a truck I can move it with.

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In other real-time news, since I haven't posted in nearly 3 weeks:

1. I fed the worms some of Ali's liquid diet lemon halves from the big bag outside 2.5 weeks ago. Then I put the little bag I'd been keeping in my fridge inside the big bag and put the bag outside. More than a week ago, I brought that bag inside to feed the worms. Because I was so concerned about my snake, Sleepy, being constipated and having a wacko lesion on his neck, I forgot about the lemons. The bag of lemons has been sitting on the floor of my kitchen (kicked toward the slider -- it's cooler there) since then. I'll feed some more to the worms this weekend. On a side-note, trash compactor bags are pretty heavy-duty; the lemons haven't leaked and I can't smell them. I'm sure though the lemons are quite disgusting by now.
2. How Chuck's grape-bits went over with the worms is still in my "things-to-post" queue.
3. Outskirts had another uber-wet worm-bin issue where she saw that there were again INCHES of water in the catch bin. This time around, I nosed around because inches of water just doesn't make any freakin' sense. Turns out, she was soaking all of the paper she was giving her worms this whole time. Remind me, and we'll discuss this later.
4. Bill's Banana Peel's baggie, other than visits by yours truly, hasn't seen much action. Because I can't stand the texture of bananas, it's pretty much full of apple cores from Fuji or Ambrosia apples I eat for breakfast. Again, Bill sucks. He says he doesn't want to touch the exterior of the bag as he's sure it's covered in "rotten food scum".
5. Kimberly hasn't coughed up any of her shredded paper. I need to get on her about that.

Speaking of things I need to get on, I need to get onto posting more regularly. News is lengthier than the post.

Oh, and judging from extremely quick glances of recent mud-run photos observed today, Cang has hot legs. Just sayin'.

Number 4 Gets Chuck's Grape Bits

Now that you know about Number 4, it's time you met face-to-face.

Everyone, meet Number 4.


As I told you previously, I had prepared Numbers 4 and 5 like normal worm bins, but instead of supplying a pound of worms in each, I simply added some worms in from when I was finishing older bins.

This is what it looked like:


All I did was add whatever worms and remaining organics were in an older "finished" bin to the tops of 4 and 5. So you can see 4 had at least some pistachio shells and an avocado pit added to the paper. In there next to the avocado pit is a new growth of some sort.

Digging around, I saw that at least one of the worms was still alive!


Since I didn't see any remaining food in the bin from when I made my first food placement, I decided to give Number 4 some of Chuck's goods: those grape stems and husks. At this point, the grape stems and husks were becoming pretty moldy. I'm sure the worms were chomping at their tiny bits for some of that action! So I dumped a good few tong-fuls in each side of the bin.


And then I buried the grape bits with the paper goods in the bin. We'll see how it goes over for these immature guys.

All of the feeding above happened September 4th.
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Today is Nov. 17th. Time for new news:

While you'd think it'd be about Number 4, it's not. It's new news.

I told you that I'd received a bunch of lemon halves from one of my coworkers. Ali, the crazy Persian who went on a self-inflicted liquid diet for 10 days, yielded a ton of lemons which he left to leak in my cubicle.

The larger of two bags of lemon halves has been sitting outside my front door since Friday. The smaller bag has been in my fridge. Hey, now, I was sick over the weekend and didn't have the strength or memory to bring the outside bag inside. No matter, the worms will like them whatever their condition. I will feed the worms some of these lemon halves this weekend at the latest.

Stay tuned.

And I swear, I'll give an update on Chuck's grape remnants. Poke a needle in my eye if I don't.

Let Me Explain #4 and #5

Yeah, so I said that next up would be a follow-up to the feeding of Chuck's grape husks and stems. Other things need to be addressed though, and since this is my blog, I can cry if I want to do what I want.

Worm Bin #5

Worm bins Number 4 and 5 are experimental worm bins. I started them when sorting worm poop from finished worm bins, right around mid-to-late August. I realize that might need some explanation but let's gloss over that for the time being. I'm still warming you up for starting a worm bin; no need to talk about how to "finish" one at this point.

Rather than starting these bins with a fresh 1-lb package of worms or by stacking a second story on a single-story bin, I simply had a couple worm bins prepared and threw some worms into each of them. Guessing, #4 and #5 started with about 100 immature worms each. I wanted to see if I could "grow" a decent worm population with a small handful of immature worms.

Let's take a look at #5 from early September.


Opening the lid, it's evident that there is a slight quantity plant growth. That's good for me. The more plant growth there is, the less room I have for feeding the worms garbage from my fridge as they have chow built-in.

Taking a closer look, I see there is a worm eating its way through some paper. All of that weird brown miniscule fluffy stuff is digested paper. That pink-brown thing right there left of center is the tail-end of the worm that's been doing the work.


Man, I love worms! They are so hearty and diligent in their work.

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Earlier today, I spoke with my Outskirts-of-Chicago friend. Back when I first started this gig, she thought I was clinically insane.  However she regularly asked about my worms, likely for fun conversation fodder when conversing with her mother. One day I sent Outskirts a gallon of the worm poop. That week, Outskirts was asking for more. I told her to grow her own.

Sure enough, she wanted to know how to get started. Girl was SERIOUS. I gave her a verbal Build A Plastic Worm Bin. Meanwhile I ordered some worms from Flowerfield Enterprises to be shipped to her direct. I think that was back in May.

Here it is, November, and she's talking about her worm bin like a pro.  Sure she had questions when she first started, but they weren't anything extraordinary. Today Outskirts said she'd checked on the worms and they were at the top of the bin. Straight away, she recognized that the bin was too moist. Checking the catch bin and seeing that liquid had accumulated, which confirmed her original thought, she went ahead to clean up the bin -- without having to consult me. When she told me about her worm situation, it wasn't for assurance or recommendation, but a simple matter of "oh, this is what happened" sort of thing.

IT'S THAT EASY! 

Once Outskirts-of-Chicago got a hang of it and didn't second-guess herself, she learned her worms and their habits.  I am wondering why she doesn't have a second story on her bin yet (we'd talked previously and it seemed evident it was time to transition worms to a new bin so poop can be processed), but still, girl knows her worms. I think she might be in that position I was in when my first bin was "done". She'll get into that soon enough.

Handy's Tomato

One Monday morning about a month ago (August 17th, to be exact, I'm anal that way) I went into work, all set for a slew of emails and documentation. While plopping my backpack (which really serves as a *choke* purse slash lunchbag but in a much less femmie way) I spied a surprise on my desk: a giant Roma tomato.

And was that sucker huge! It was the size of an avocado, I kid you not.

Is this worm fodder like I usually get from Kimberly*? Nah, can't be! This baby was ready for eatin', not at all past it's prime.

There it sat on a regular 3x3" Post-It (I'm sort of anal that way too).

Check it out:

In case you can't read what the Post-It says:

Grown accidentally from your compost! The bush is bigger than the filing cabinet behind you!

And that filing cabinet is big: a 4-drawer fire-proof behemoth. Big. Fireproof. (Thanks Bill*!). Big. Fireproof big. And note the use of the word "bush" rather than "plant". Take a look at those giant tomato plants -- in an apartment complex no less. Amazing!

Above image courtesy of Handy.

That's one big-assed lot of tomato plant(s) grown accidentally from seeds of a tomato I'd eaten the majority of many months ago and neglected to remove from the worm poop I gave Handy* back in May/June. (I could look up the exact date if you want. Again, I'm anal that way).

Turns out, that was one delicious tomato.

And, Chuck*? That tomato didn't turn out to be poisonous at all, so you can quit all of that tomatoes-growing-from-seeds-being-poisonous paranoia-spreading nonsense.

Thanks, Handy, I appreciate the feedback!

*Names may or may not have been changed to protect the innocent.