Every day is Friday

Throwing away some lemon and apple tree seedlings.  Clearing space.  More santolina in the ground.  Using less water all the time. Took apart one of 3 compost bins and discovered whip-tail worms.  These are a local epigeic worm species and incredibly efficient at breaking down organic matter into castings, which is premium plant fertilizer.  Pretty sure that since they are naturalized in this area that we can use them as much as we want to without fear that they might negatively impact the local ecosystems.  Also, none of the local wild-lands have any kind of litter dependent growth systems, so not really an issue anyways.

Worm bin cost (cost for 8'x4'x4' wooden bin)($43.50):

• posts - 2"x2"x8' - 5ea - $7.50
• sides - 8'x8" - 18ea - $36.00
• hinges
• plastic
• screws
• paint

Additional notes regarding worm bins

Thirty-two square feet of surface area.  128 lbs of worms, 64# processing capacity per container,  aeration, temperature control, humidity, nutritional minimums.

plant-based lipids, micro and macronutrients, bacterial innoculation

favorite foods for worms:

• melon
• avocado
• squash

possible products:

• worm grit
• bacterial inoculant
• bedding?
• chow type feed
• FGDE
• castings

These kinds of worms are incredibly active and shouldn't be utilized anywhere near any kind of wild space that accumulates litter on the forest floor.  Litter is rotting leaves and plant material and is fluffy and light and is the perfect place for ferns and other soft understory plants to reproduce.  Whip-tails invade the litter and consume it, rapidly making the nutrients available to the roots of plants, and removing it's capacity for fostering understory growth.  Redwood forests and other ecosystems which evolved without worms depend on the slow decay of rotting material to maintain consistent moisture levels and a slower release of nutrients in the soil.

Local businesses produce tons of bio-organic waste, so there is no shortage of feedstock.  What is required is an intelligent understanding of the worm's needs vs. available feedstock and maybe additional marketing to establish commercial markets for product.

It may be possible to eliminate all wet garbage from landfills.  By concentrating biodegradable wet-garbage separately from other refuse, it can be decomposed in a controlled environment.  There is much research being done with bacterial mitigation to reduce and overpopulate negative biological activities in wet-garbage.

Overpopulating in this instance is used to describe flooding a system with beneficial, well-understood, controlled bacterial activity, which is generally complimentary and well-behaved, flooding out negative activity, which exists in our environments, not controlled, not well-understood, and is comprised of primarily opportunistic organisms.  In this way, pathogenic populations are miniscule in comparison and are consumed and overpopulated by the beneficial organisms, and then by worms, leaving only castings which are beneficial for plant growth.

Paulownia leaves

Additional concerns are related to heavy metal contamination or other compounds which may have a negative impact on plant or human health.  By separating wet-garbage into two categories, castings are produced at two levels of quality:

• Food grade - Produced from food garbage, manure, safe landscape waste and most paper products - Castings at this level would require regular testing, but would normally be free from contamination at any significant levels and would be safe for all farming/plant growing needs.
• Industrial grade - Produced from shredded waste lumber (possibly treated), treated paper products, raw sewage, certain kinds of industrial effluent etc.  Efforts to reduce contamination of these kinds of wet waste and to track and identify contaminants present in the castings would require constant testing, and castings produced in these kinds of systems could be used for industrial crops, producing biomass fuel stocks, lumber etc, provided there is clear understanding of possible impacts on environments.

My primary areas of interest are agricultural residues including landscaping waste and in the utilization of paper wastes.  Bacterial mitigation is readily available and capable of reducing these odors by converting ammonia producing systems to systems which produce less-odiferous kinds of nitrogenic compounds.  Basically, instead of smelling rotting poop and festering urine, people working in and around these systems could be smelling an odor that smells mildly of fermenting beer.

The title of this post, "Every day is Friday" is related to the feeling that a person has as they approach actualization.  Buena suerte, salud y dinero para usted.