New Flowers and... Worm Migration!

Some of the flowers I had planted a few months ago for the wedding are now blooming.  It's so pretty to have flowers around -- most aren't directly practical (edible), but they indirectly help me function better by being such a joy to wake up to every morning.  I'm trying to focus less on strict or direct practicality and learning to appreciate and emphasize habits or other things that indirectly affect my health, mood, and general wellness.  Growing flowers is one great way to do that.

Sunflowers are unique, bold, and beautiful, even before they bloom.  Their phototropism is really neat to observe -- they always turn to face the sun... lots of life metaphors there.

The marigolds just bloomed all of a sudden out of lots of leafy stems.  They're so fiery and vibrant.

Zinnias are one of my favorites now because they're so easy to grow and pretty hardy.  Plus, they come in several pretty colors, and I never know what color they'll be until them bloom!  They're also phototrophic -- if you notice the zinnia on the bottom right hand corner of the box, you'll see how much the stems will bend in order to orient the flower head toward the sun.  It's pretty incredible -- almost like it has a mind of its own.  I really like random curves in plant stems; it's part of the reason I love ranunculus.  They make arrangements look so fluid and organic.

Nasturtiums (bottom) have really interesting leaf shapes, and these little white flowers on top, whatever they are, are really cute and dainty.

We visited the FarmLovers' 3rd Annual Hawaii Coffee Fest at the Kakaako Farmers' Market this past weekend.  We sampled all of the coffees and even came away with a new member of the family -- a Bourbon coffee plant!  I'm not sure how it'll do on the lanai, but it's worth a shot.  The HARC lady selling plants said I could grow it in a container, so that's the plan.  Maybe we'll get a harvest and be able to roast our own beans someday...

We also harvested a bunch of okra.  I bought more from the farmers' market and mixed them (raw) with ponzu, like my friend Cheryl taught me.  I shared it with my family, and I think they liked it.

And now for the worms...

I had been trying to figure out the best way to harvest my vermicompost with only one worm bin.  Many worm bins have multiple levels that allow worms to migrate downward or upward to fresh food sources, leaving behind vermicompost that can eventually be harvested.  Since I only had one bin, I was trying to get the worms to migrate to one end or crawl down to the bottom so I could manually harvest compost, but as you can imagine, it was a long, tedious process.

Now that the wedding's over, I've reclaimed a plastic bin I had been using to grow wildflowers and used it instead as a new top bin for my worms.  There were already holes drilled on the bottom and sides, so all I did was add some pumpkin scraps, eggshells, and newspaper bedding.  

After day one, there were zero worms, so I didn't know if the holes were big enough or whether the worms just hadn't figured out yet there's fresh food up there.  I poked down into some of the holes so it was more obvious that the holes existed.

The next day, I lifted the top bin and noticed several worms, which you can't see very well in this picture, were crawling around on the top of the bottom bin.  

After day two, I noticed lots of worms among the pumpkin seeds, and they seemed to be happily munching their way through the snack.  Success!

Now I guess I just keep adding scraps and bedding to the top and wait a few months for the bottom layer to fully decompose.  I noticed some small bugs and even a worm in the compost I had harvested and added to my plants last time, so I think I need to wait longer before harvesting this time.

I also noticed that the worms seemed to be a little sluggish recently.  After some online sleuthing, my guess is that I hadn't been feeding them enough, which is quite plausible given all the recent wedding distractions.  I've been adding more scraps to the top bin and monitoring the worms.  So far, they seem more active, but I did find one worm outside of the bin today -- not sure if he escaped because the conditions weren't right...