Free Vermicomposting Workshops in Chattanooga

Come see our booth and the NEW Worm Factory® 360 at Crabtreee Farms on Saturday September 19th 9AM-1PM and Sunday 20th 11AM-3PM at the Fall Festival and Plant Sale.  Come learn about composting with worms at our free workshops!  If you start Vermicomposting now – and through the winter, you will be ready for spring seed starting with your own homemade vermicompost! 

Fall Plant Sale

Customers can choose from a wide variety of fall vegetable starts including lettuce mix, spinach, snap peas, and perennial herbs and flowers. Fall is the best time to plant perennials in your garden or floral beds. The winter months allow them to nestle in and prepare to burst forth in the spring.

Fall Festival
Celebrate All Things Local at the Fall Plant Sale. Shop local growers and handmade crafts and visit with outreach booths while basking in cooler weather. There will be free kids activities and farm tours. Kids which enjoy the Petting Zoo on Sunday only. Hay Rides for all ($2 fee per person).
Attend a free workshop:
Saturday 10am, Fall Garden Tips

Saturday 11am, Composting with Worms
Sunday 12:30, Composting with Worms
Sunday 1:30, Fall Garden Tips

DIRECTIONS to Crabtree Farms:

From Downtown
Proceed South on Market Street
Past the Choo Choo, at light take Left on Main Street
Proceed ½ mile to light at Central, take Right
Keep left, Left onto Rossville Blvd.
Go 1 mile on Rossville Blvd.
Right on East 30th Street
Stay on East 30th Street, wind through residential neighborhood
East 30th Dead Ends at Crabtree Farm
The gate will be closed but not locked. Please close it behind you.
Drive up to Barn!

From 1-24
Take I-24 into Chattanooga to the Rossville Boulevard South exit
Go less than 1 mile south on Rossville Blvd. to East 30th Street
Right on East 30th Street
Stay on East 30th Street, wind through residential neighborhood
East 30th Dead Ends at Crabtree Farm
The gate will be closed but not locked. Please close it behind you.
Drive up to Barn!

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best compost bin, build compost bin, homemade compost bins

The best compost bin is a wormbin. Come on- you made it to a worm composting website. I am a worm farmer and of course I truly believe in what I do so I highly recommend a worm farm. Why am I so passionate about worms? Composting with them is:
1. NOT space prohibitive
2. NOT stinky
3. Way faster than a heap
4. Worms are cool.

Really: I do both worms and have a tradional pile. My heap works during the warm months but my worms work all year long. My heap processes the big bulky items and my worms produce me with a finer end product. I feed and water them 4 times a month (weekly) and they eat, breed and poop. What a life! What are you waiting for? Start a worm farm today.

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El Salvador?

by Betsy
(El Salvador)

Hi,
I am currently living in El Salvador and would like to start a worm bin. Are you able to ship abroad or do you have any connections with central american worm farmers?
If not do you know if I can bring them on a plane with me?
Thanks,
Betsy

No, I do not ship internationally, and I do not know of any farmers that do. you can try findworms.com to see if you can find a worm supplier that way. And no you cannot take worms on a plane.

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Composting and Flies

It is getting warm outside and it is breeding season for flies. It is always breeding season for flies but it is super-breeding season for flies right now. Every type of nasty fly and gnat is attracted to your compost pile.

This is one of the worst parts of composting with worms. The flies lay eggs in the food you placed in the compost bin or bed and more flies are born.

A very simple remedy is to bury the food. Place the scraps a couple of inches beneath the bedding and use a new location each time you add more scraps. The flies can’t burrow and need to touch the food to lay eggs in it. This will mean more food for your worms and many fewer flies.

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composting basics, compost how to make, composting methods

This article will discuss Composting Basics. Although I strongly prefer worm composting (thus the website), there are other methods that appeal to many people. Such as: traditional pile, bokashi and trenching.

I must first start with vermicomposting, using worms to compost is odor free and not space prohibitive. Browse all through this website for more information on worm composting.

Traditional piles have their advantages - for example - a pile can process a lot of materials but there are also challenges: need for increased space, critters (like possums/rats) and odors. When you are doing a tradional pile type, you must have the guidelines to be successful.

Read this article "Traditional Pile VS Worm Bins"

Bokashi is a method that uses a yogurt like culture to process your scraps. An advantage of this method is that you can process almost all items, even meat and dairy.

Trench Composting is a super simple method of digging a hole or trench and burying your scraps. A big down side to this is time and dogs. It takes a while for the scraps to break down AND dogs will dig up the goodies if you don't bury them deep enough.

What is the

Best Compost Bin? I hope this article helps you decide which composting method is right for you.

One more thing you need is a kitchen compost pail . I tried operating out of plastic bags to collect the scraps and it gets really nasty. A collection pail will make your live easier, trust me.

Once you decide which composting method is right for you, it is time to build a bin . All you have left to do is start making COMPOST!

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free composting class, free worm composting class, online composting course

One of the cities here in Texas has developed a free composting class as an online interactive course.

I am so excited about it. BUT picky me has some little things I disagree with. (These are my opinions)
1. The bin they demonstrate will only accomodate up to a 1/2 pound of worms
2. I do not suggest adding soil or calcium to your bin.
3. I do not suggest newspaper as a starter bedding. I suggest using a starter mix.
Thanks again to the City of Plano.

Click here to go directly to the Plano course

I hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions, please feel free to use the contact me form below.

I also offer an online course, is complementary when you buy worms from me or it is $4.99 by itself. Click on the button on the left navigation bar to go to BigTex Worms ecourse.

And don't forget to sign up for the forum and newsletter. Both to the left also. Happy Worming! Big Tex Worms

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Fatten Your Worms

I’ve read a great deal about how red worms(Esenia Fetida) are not good enough to be used a a bait worm.   I disagree.  Red Worms (Esenia Fetida) are a great bait worm and they are easy to grow and can be quite attractive to fish if you fatten them up with the right fattener.

If you pull a red worm right out of a pile of manure it might not be too tempting to fish, but if you fatten it with a homemade fattener that I’m going to show you how to make then the fish will coming biting and you be a happy camper…or fisherman.

Worm fattener does exactly what it sounds like it does, it fattens worms but it also changes the taste of the worms in such a way that fish actually find them more attractive when used as bait.

This is what you will need:

Chicken Food Egg Laying Pellets-

Pellets are better than the powdered stuff because the powdered stuff usually has chunks of corn that are not broken down enough.  The pellets are reduced to a powder and then formed into pellets.

Powdered Milk

Wheat or Rice Bran

Wheat Flour

Agricultural Lime

Rabbit Pellets (alfalfa pellets)

Get a big bowl or pot

Mix in 5 Parts of the chicken food.

Add 2 parts of rice or wheat bran

Add one part of each of the other ingredients.

To simplify, If you add 5 cups of chicken food then you will add 2 cups of wheat bran and 1 cup of each of the other ingredients.

You can mix these together and use them dry on the fattening beds.  A fattening bed is a bed of adult worms that you wish to fatten.

Moisten the bed first and then add the food dry to the top.

You can also use a blender and blend all of the mixed ingredients into a fine powder that you sprinkle over the bed.

Another way is to moisten the mixture and feed the worms by laying patties of the fattener on top of the bed.  Cover the top of the bed with some landscaping cloth and the worms will come up and eat themselves into fat bait worms.

Enjoy you fishing.  I’d like to hear from you if you have other fattener recipes or if you use this one.

Thanks for stopping in.

Ken

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