Happy Earth Day!

Today is Earth Day! Take a little time to do something good for this wonderful, beautiful planet that supports and sustains us!

- Plant a tree
- Plant a garden
- Ride a bike
- Walk
- Drive less
- Reduce, Reuse and/or Recycle
- Compost
- Start a worm bin
- Find a way to reduce your energy consumption
- Sit outside and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine
- Think of ways to incorporate some of these things into your day, every day

Happy Earth Day, but lets not limit it to once a year!

Aquaponics Experiment Up and Running

40 goldfish all named Dave

After a long time deliberating and trying to find a good source of fish, I finally settled on getting goldfish for the aquaponics experiment (see related posts here and here). They were easy to locate, produce lots of waste and are pretty hard to kill. We've had some goldfish in out animal water tanks (helping to keep them algae-free) for almost a year now. They seem to thrive on neglect.

So, on Sunday, I bought 40 little goldfish and introduced them to their new home. I then planted four tomato plants, three arugula plants, three romaine lettuce plants in the planting bed. I also pulled a bunch of lettuce out of our winter garden to see if it could make the transition.

Three days into the operation with no goldfish floaters and the plants seem to be doing well. I will monitor the water temperature over the summer and see if I will be able to keep it at a suitable temperature for tilapia, or something similar. If so, we will eventually transition over to a more useful fish.

So far, so good. Everything seems to be doing well. Lettuce from our garden is in the foreground and right. Romaine is to the left, arugula to the rear, tomatoes in the middle.

Worm Bin Expansion

New worm bins in place. 

Today we expanded our worm family by adding this new set of worm bins. This setup was very simple to make. All that is needed to make this is a clean barrel (that didn't hold toxic chemicals in its past life), one 8' 2x4, a jig saw, a drill with 1/4" drill bit and a straight edge and Sharpie marker for marking the barrel.

I simply cut the barrel in half with a jig saw using a multi-purpose blade following the lines we marked on the barrel. Then, to make the cradle, I cut the 2x4 in half to make 2 each 4' sections. Using the barrel as a guide. I marked the 2x4's with the curved profile of the barrel, placed the 2x4s together and gang-cut the barrel profile. For this I used my band saw, but a jig saw will work, too. Finally, I put two 1/4" holes in the low end of each barrel half to allow the barrels to drain.

I added this to show the profile I cut into the 2x4's

That's all there is to it. To set it all up, I placed the 2x4's parallel on an old pallet and put the half barrels on top. After creating the bins, I added shredded paper on one end of the barrel for bedding and wet it down to the consistency of a wet sponge.

We filled the half-barrels with a wheelbarrow load of pre-composted worm food each, leaving the shredded paper uncovered. I dumped a half-tray of worm castings and worms from my Worm Factory 360 into each of the barrel halves on top of the shredded paper, and voila.... a couple of new worm bins are born!

The worms loving their home and food

Completed and filled worm bins

Now we just sit back and let the worms do the work. To help keep the temperature somewhat cool and to maintain moisture, I placed the barrels under a shed and put a waxed cardboard box over top of them.

Waxed cardboard will help keep them from drying out too fast
and help to provide the dark environment the worms love.

Fall Leaves

My mother had 22 bags of  leaves from last fall sitting at the end of her driveway so I brought them home. There are lots of things you can do with old leaves. They can be composted, turned in to leaf mold, or used as bedding in the chicken run.

Today I put ten bags of leaves in the chicken run. The chickens LOVED it! Apparently, there were some tasty morsels nestled in the leaves because the chickens were scratching and pecking all afternoon long.

Eventually, these leaves will disappear as they are ripped to shreds and eventually buried in chicken poop. We will keep adding leaves until they are all gone. Later in the summer, we will clean out the run and spread the litter as fertilizer in the garden. It will be well-seasoned and high in nitrogen. 

The Eggs Are Here!

The chickens are FINALLY earning their keep! These are all eggs produced at the Red Clay Farm by our wonderful chicken staff. Of course, each of these eggs probably cost about $25 a piece, factoring in the building of the coop and six months worth of feed, but with each egg they produce, the cost per egg drops!

Six hens are not going to make enough eggs for us to sell them, but we will have waaaaay more than we need. We are getting 3-4 eggs per day and will probably hit six a day pretty soon.

Let us know if you want some fresh eggs. I think we'll have a few to spare.