To conserve moisture and protect your plants from the heat, use a good mulch or ground cover to help with treated area.
Whether it be ground-up corncobs, nutshells, spent beer hops or coffee grounds, go for the popular aged wood or bark mulches or consider shredded leaves, grass clippings with shredded newspaper, straw, pine needles, or thin plastic. Be ware of some wood mulches, that can produce “shotgun” fungus. Instead use bark mulch, gravel, stone or black plastic.
Buy from a reputable garden center, look out for someone selling cheap mulch , you may be sorry.
Have you noticed that if you just put your leaves/grass into large black plastic trash bags and leave them for a few months, what happens?
I am a lazy person, so if I turn them over once in a while, it’s their lucky day. The only problem, with turning them is, they may burst open, spilling out the contents.
I left several bags of grass and leaves lying around for most of the year. The bags burst open, when I tried to move them, but I still was able to salvage most of the nice black, moist compost.
I don’t encourage this, but it’s an easy way to do it, if you have a corner of your yard that, you don’t use often. Then just plop a few bags of leaves/grass there and let then lay. Too easy, right?
So, you think earthworms are outdoors creatures? Well, you can actually raise them indoors, and use their castings to improve your soil, indoors and out.
Container
Make it large and manageable, space 8 to 12 inches deep. They feed on the top layers of the bedding. Bins can be plastic or wood.
Drill 8 to 12, ¼-inch-diameter holes in the bottom and sides for aeration and drainage. Drill more holes if using plastic or bedding stays wet. Place a tray under bin to collect “tea” that drips from bin. Tea makes good fertilizer for houseplants.
Bedding
Options; shredded cardboard, newspaper, or coir (coconut husks); and peat moss. Mist bedding with water if it looks dry.
Cover bins to keep worms in dark. Keep temperatures between 40°F and 80°F for survival, place bins in cellar, warm garage.
Red wigglers thrive in temperatures between 55°F and 77°F (Worms from garden, night crawlers, prefer cooler and deeper soils.) Buy red wigglers through the mail or at a bait shop.
One pound of red wiggler worms (about 1,000 worms) can eat a 1/2 pound of scraps a day.
Food
Feed worms vegetable scraps, fruit peels, coffee grounds, tea bags, crushed egg shells, and even leftover pasta. No spicy foods. Avoid meats, fish, fatty and oily foods, and bones. Lay a thin layer on top of bedding. Worms feed in the dark.
A small amount of potting soil or cornmeal help your worms digest their meal.
Harvest
After 3 to 4 months your worms should have eaten the bedding and the scraps. Top layer of matter should be dark brown and the consistency of chunky sand. Harvest the castings. Push the castings to side, add more bedding and scraps. Worms will go to the new bedding and scraps. Dig out castings and add more bedding and scraps. Make sure to pick out stray wigglers and return
