Wood Worm Farms

The new place is a new-build greenhouse on Carya Farm's land.
We have a medium and a large scale vermicomposting units, (the medium-scale vermicomposter is shown on the picture), a lot of space and friendly atmosphere.
Now it will be much more convenient to visit the place, to get bins and worms, to see
the vermicomposting in action and to get some experience on how to make vermicompost.
Also the final product itself will have immediate use for greenhouse needs.

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I started this aquarium on August 23, 2009 with 11 wild fish.
At the beginning the fish were too shy. And I had a problem of what and how to feed them.
When I lost 4 of them in the next two weeks I thought there is no chance for the others.
But one day I decided to feed them some worms from an outdoor bin, that was filled with grass clippings and dead leaves. And that worked! Later I added to their diet feeder platys.
Now they seem to happily eat even the worms from indoor - 'food scrap' - bins and saw-bugs.
Their behaviour also changed. They became less shy and even recognize me, when I bring the worms.
Generally the whole aquaponic system functions well. From all the seeds I planted in the trays only water cress and basil prosper. The lights are insufficient for lettuce, chives, spinach and dill.
It's hard to judge on if the fish grew or not (the fact that those seven survived is more then enough by itself). This will probably need more time.
Some statistics:
7 fish eat in average 17 worms a day. Each worm weight is approximately 1g.
So total in a week = 119g = 1/4lb, in a year 6,205 g = 13.7 lb
This daily quantity of worms is usually found in a volume of 2 cubic inch of an upper tray of my bin. It looks like the worms easily replenish their losses.

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Wood Worm Farms had reached an agreement with Ferme du Zéphyr and Carya Farm to host a medium size vermicomposting unit in a new-built greenhouse.
This greenhouse should become a new stage in vermicomposting on Montreal West Island.
Around 15% of its area will be dedicated for worm bins. The vermicompost will be used for growing organic crops for popular baskets supplied by both farms. The excess worms will help to reduce the price for a pound of worms in Canada.
This agreement is showing an increasing understanding of necessity to grow organic produce and use organic fertilizers.

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First freeze came - it's a time to turn up the rain barrel. But it would be unwise just pour out
the precious water, I collected all the summer. Many live creatures in my home need this water: fish, plans and, of course, worms.
For fish I change 2 gallons of water each week to reduce pollution. I also add a teaspoon of aquarium salt to compensate the low salinity of rain water. Plus I add 1.5 gallons of water to compensate evaporation.
For plants I use those 2 gallons removed from the fish tank.
The worms need some water at winter time, when their bin becomes too dry.

So, I moved the rain barrel to the basement with water - just 60 gallons - not so heavy...
The move was done in two steps, using a utility pump and a garden hose:
1. Pumping the water from the barrel to temporary containers
2. Pumping the water back into the barrel.

In algorithms this is called a trivial exchange. Unfortunately I couldn't find a way to make an exchange in just one step...

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It was a beautiful day! Not only the weather, but also the atmosphere of cooperation and understanding to change our way of living in sustainable direction.
The people changed a lot for the last two years, since we started to participate in such events.
There were no more questions "What is composting?" or "Do you eat those worms?".
All of them had a compost bin (mostly outdoor one), many of them had a vermicomposter at home. This was our greatest success from all the exhibitions.

And all this happened thanks to Cooperative du Grand Orme and, Veronique Vendette personally.
There is no doubt the coop has all it's success due to her hard work and dedication.

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