Rainbow Worms

Worm Tea on your Roses

2013-04-18T11:40:00.001-07:00

Worm tea is worm castings which have been soaked in water and oxygenated. The extra oxygen causes a bloom of the good bacteria, plus the added benefit of nitrogen, phosphate, calcium, magnesium and potash.
The liquid that drains out of a worm composting bin is leachate. Leachate contains undissolved solids and some potentially harmful bacteria. However, it can be aerated as described below and used.
Some of the benefits of the tea include:

a natural repellent for scale, mites, white flies, and aphids
natural fungicide in soil and on plant surfaces
increase in plant stem size and foliage
acts as a soil conditioner
will not burn plants
creates healthy soil for healthy plants
aides in the creation of colloidal humus
grows healthier fruits and vegetables than those treated with chemical fertilizers
improves water retention in soil
reduces the amount of waste going to the landfill, because worms eat our garbage

USING WORM TEA

Since the tea is alive and full of microbes, it has a shelf life. The quicker you use it, the greater the benefit. It can always be re-aerated using the instructions above.
If your tea stinks, it has gone bad, and don’t use it.
The most common way to use the tea is to put it in a hand sprayer and spray your plants with it. You can even spray the lawn. Aerated tea will not burn your plants, and it helps repel certain insects.
Think of worm tea as a natural immune system booster for plants. It provides the good microorganisms and nutrients needed for plants and soil to repel insects and disease.
You can also water your plants with it. It’s great for seedlings since it provides nutrients but absolutely will not burn.
You too can get results Like this

Start your Vegetable Seeds Indoors

2013-04-18T11:37:00.002-07:00

Step 1

Read the information on the seed packet. It will tell you when to start your seeds and what they need in the way of soil and air temperature, humidity and light, as well as any special pre-planting treatment.

Step 2

Start seeds in a flat – a shallow box, usually plastic, between 2 1/4 and 4 inches deep with holes in the bottom for drainage. You can find flats and complete seed-starting kits in most garden catalogs or at your local nursery.

Step 3

Fill the flat to about 1 1/4 inches from the top with a sterile growing medium made especially for starting seeds. Put the filled flat in a larger pan and add water to about halfway up the sides of the flat. Let the flat stand overnight to moisten the soil.

Step 4

Press the seeds into the planting mix to the depth recommended on the seed packet. Water with a misting spray bottle or with a fine overhead spray from a watering can. Keep the growing medium evenly moist, but never waterlogged.

Step 5

Ensure sufficient humidity by placing a thin pane of glass on top of the flat, and keep it in a spot where you can provide the soil and air temperatures and the amount of light recommended on your seed packet.

Step 6

Make up for any deficiency of sunlight by placing fluorescent light about six inches above the flat. Keep the lights on around the clock until the seeds germinate.

Step 7

Watch for signs of germination: The first thing you’ll see will be a set of what appear to be small leaves. These are actually food storage cells called cotyledons. (Germination times vary greatly; again, your seed packet will tell you when to expect the first signs of life.) Continue to water so that the soil stays evenly moist.

Step 8

Watch for the next step, which will be the first set of true leaves. When they appear, thin the seedlings to the spacing recommended on the seed packet.

Step 9

Choose the smallest and weakest-looking seedlings, pull them out gently so you don’t disturb the remaining plants, and add them to the compost pile. Begin to feed the plants once a week with a water-soluble organic fertilizer at 1/4 of the directed strength.

Step 10

Transplant the seedlings to individual pots filled with potting soil when you see two or three sets of leaves. Just before transplanting, water the seedlings, then gently lift them out with a spoon or a miniature trowel.

Step 11

Set each seedling into its pot, carefully firming the soil around the roots. Water gently but well, and continue feeding until it’s time to harden off the plants and move them to the garden.

Tips

Though you can buy seedlings of common vegetables such as tomatoes and peppers at your local nursery, you won’t find a fraction of the colorful, flavorful varieties you can choose from if you start from seed.
Some seeds need a period of chilling before you plant them; others need to be soaked in water overnight or scarified (nicked with a file or knife) to speed germination. Some seeds need light to germinate; others require total darkness. Read your seed packets carefully.
Peat pots make ideal homes for transplanted seedlings, because at planting time you set pot itself into the soil, thus avoiding damage to delicate roots.
Gardening is as much art as science, and there are many ways to do about everything. Over time, you’ll develop your own methods, shortcuts and tricks.
Don’t Forget Worm Castings for your newly planted Seeds

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Feed Your Blue Birds

2013-04-18T11:35:00.001-07:00

You may not think of it at first, but depending on where you live, your blue birds needs may include food. Here you will find out when and how to feed you bluebirds.
If you live in an area without many natural fields or trees around, it is probably a good idea to put out food for your bluebirds.
Bluebirds are not the normal seed eating birds. They prefer live food. One of the most common and most widely used food for bluebirds are mealworms. They are easy to contain, harmless to humans, and inexpensive.
A mealworm feeder is easy to make. All you need is a basin-like structure for bluebirds to come to and get the mealworms, which will be in a substance such as cornmeal or some other similar meal.
Keeping mealworms is also easy. Their diet is very simple. It requires only a grain/meal food. Some good choices are cornmeal, wheat bran, oatmeal, or chicken mash. Keep the mixture moist with an object such as a moist sponge, paper towel, etc. But, do not let it get too moist.
Keep your mealworms in a dark, bucketlike container (a bucket itself would work fine) that is around 3-8 gallons. Use a lid that blocks light but not circulation. Make sure to store the container in the dark.
How many to feed
How many to feed: Fawzi Emad recommends offering about 15 mealworms per bluebird per day. I’ve seen each blue eating about 3-10 per visit. NABS indicates that “because they should be used as a supplemental food, mealworms should only be offered once or twice a day unless poor weather conditions dictate more frequent feeding. A hundred or so worms offered morning and evening would be adequate for a pair with a box of nestlings.” Feeding smaller amounts twice a day is a good idea to ensure that bluebirds get some, and to prevent other species from “discovering” the feeder. One of the nice things about mealworms is that there is no waste left behind – no seeds or shells.
Offering an unlimited supply of mealworms is probably NOT recommended, as the nestlings need a varied diet..
Occasionally after nestlings have fledged you may find a few mealworms in the nesting material. Not to worry – they probably got missed by the babies during feeding.
Sometimes yellow jackets will go after mealworms. If you limit quantities so that the ones you put out are eaten right away, this shouldn’t be a problem.
Winter Feeding:
In August when birds may need higher calories foods like berries, or when temperatures drop below 40 degrees F, blues may lose interest in mealworms. However, I saw a male gobble down 10 on a December morning when it was 18 degrees F out. One bluebirder offers mealworms in a container that sits in the water of a heated birdbath, which keeps the mealworms mobile and possibly makes them more attractive. Heated mealworm feeders are available, but some are outrageously expensive. Judith Mangireo puts out a shallow dish of live mealworms on a small heating pad used for small animals that live outdoors (available at rainbowworms.com.) This is much cheaper than mealworm warmer cup. Put a very thin bed of bran at the bottom of the saucer and the worms are happy.
Bluebirds may also learn to eat suet and scrambled eggs. Suet is a good winter food – see recipes.
Some people freeze mealworms to offer to adults after nesting is complete.
Feeder Location: Do not put feeders too close to nestboxes (except temporarily during training.) The feeder should be about 100′ away from a nestbox so predators and nestbox competitors are not attracted to the box. If you use a feeding bowl on on top of or on the nestbox pole (which I don’t recommend), only put in enough worms to be eaten immediately (~ 5 per bird) while you are nearby. Mockingbirds are sometimes a problem, as they may drive bluebirds away. Try moving the feeder away from where mockingbirds nest (e.g., conifers). Also see concerns about hawks. I do not place mealworm feeders next to seed feeders, as it just teaches other birds to eat mealworms (which are expensive.)
At the end of the nesting season, don’t buy too many, as sometimes bluebirds disappear after the last brood fledges.

Mealworm Feeder

Get a bird feeder that holds mealworms

Regular house feeders or tube feeders won’t dispense mealworms, so you have to get a bluebird or platform feeder. The ideal feeder should either have a platform so birds could perch to eat or a hole where birds could enter a fixed enclosure containing the mealworms. If you’re feeding bluebirds, place the feeder near a bluebird house.
We have a Large Variety Of Wild Bird Supplies

Rainbow Worm In the News

2011-03-09T20:03:00.000-08:00

http://www.examiner.com/organic-gardening-in-san-francisco/worm-tea-for-beautiful-spring-roses

Raising Red Worms In The Spring

2011-03-05T08:09:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year when many raising red worms will find it difficult and find their worms are dying off. This can easily be avoided if you take precautions when raising your red worms.

Seasonal changes affect the way one raises their red worms. When winter arrives we concentrate on keeping our red worms warm. It is much easier when raising red worms to keep a worm bin warm than trying to keep it cool enough during the warmer months.
Moving from the summer through fall and into winter is actually easier since even though the temperatures drop, so does humidity. Once summer arrives the humidity rises in most parts of the country which can make your red worm bin become an oven similar to roasting a roast.
Even if you live in areas such as Arizona where the temperatures are hot but the humidity remains low, remember your worm bin has trapped moisture within it, hence creating humidity within the worm environment.
Another reason why it becomes easier to raise red worms during the cooler months is the fact many are composting by throwing in loads of food scraps such as vegetables. This helps to heat up the worm bin which works fine during the winter.
During the transition from winter to spring, things begin to heat up. While adding plenty of nitrogen rich, green products, such as leftover vegetable scraps work well during colder, drier months, this can prove detrimental when transitioning from winter to spring into summer.
Raising red worms and transitioning from winter to spring can be relatively simple if you approach it properly.
Start by making sure your worm bin does not have too much moisture. Moisture and heat do not mix when it comes to raising red worms. A soil moisture meter can be purchased at most hardware, home improvement and even discount stores this time of year. A good year round moisture percentage to maintain is 60% to 70%.
I know many people purchase a worm farm of one sort or another offering a spigot at the bottom by which is advertised to produce worm tea. First, this is not worm tea but rather leachate, which can be anaerobic and detrimental to your worms. Leachate can be full of detrimental anaerobic microbes rather than beneficial aerobic microbes hence why landfills for example need to build retainers to catch the leachate to prevent run off into local soil and drinking wells. If you are producing liquid within your worm bin this time of year as well as during the summer months there is a good chance you will kill off your red worms.
To reduce the heat within your red worm bin, slow down on the green products and begin adding more brown which are carbon products. Carbon products consist of shredded newspaper and cardboard for one. These products will not generate nearly as much heat within your worm bin as green products do. At the same time they do not increase the moisture content but rather absorb it. Green products not only generate heat but also produce moisture content.
Certain vegetables produce more moisture than others. This is a good time of year to avoid melons and vegetables such as cucumbers for a while.
If you are raising red worms in a garage or basement that becomes hot during the summer months, now is the time to start thinking about where you can move them to. Garages that reach even 80 degrees Fahrenheit will end up cooking your worms as the internal temperature of the worm bin will exceed this.
Think of a sauna and how the steam literally heats up within the room and makes you hot. The same holds true when raising red worms within the worm bin and the heat and moisture content builds up within.
If raising your red worms outside, now is the time to find a nice shady spot for them if you have not done so already. Direct sun on the worm bin will bake your worms quickly and leave a foul odor.
Heading these precautions will save you and your red worms much aggravation and are the same guidelines used at Red Worms For Sale worm farm to insure healthy red worms. For additional information on raising red worms, be sure to sign up for the Rainbow Newsletter.
source: worm composting

“Dirty Little Secret” about composting with Worms?

2011-02-28T19:28:00.000-08:00

What is the “Dirty Little Secret” about composting with Worms? It’s that most people use plastic bins to house their worms. Plastic is an inefficient material to use for a worm bin, as it does not breathe.
Want Proof?
Ask anyone with a plastic bin two questions:
1. Are you constantly dealing with mud?
2. Are you forced to dole out your food scraps to your worms, knowing that if you put all your food scraps in your worm bin, you would kill your worms.

With The Worm Inn , you can forget about most of the old rules of composting. This is because of the total air flow of The Worm Inn.

No need to water with a tiny mist bottle, you can use your hose if you would like…you can’t overwater The Worm inn.

No need to dole out your food scraps a bit at a time. If you can feed them to worms, you can put them in The Worm Inn ….ALL AT ONCE!

Two comments I receive over and over about The Worm Inn are:

“It’s much larger than it looks in the pictures” (But still fits in an 18″ x 18″ footprint!)
“It’s built really well”
The choice is yours. For about the same price as a commercial plastic bin, you can have a system that forces you to dole out your fruit and vegetable waste a handful at a time….or you can have a system that allows you to process your fruit and vegetable waste by the bucketload!
Which would you choose?

A much Larger Worm Inn

2011-02-28T19:10:00.000-08:00

Well if you Like the Worm Inn Composter , Well then your in for a surprise, I just recivied the 1st Pictures of the New Much Larger Worm Inn Maxium Size. This unit is over 5X the size of The Worm Inn

AVAILABLE IN CAMO, BURGUNDY, BROWN, GREEN, AND PLUM

I hear Sugested Retail Will Be $169.00 and recomended qty of Worms to Start is 10lbs This Sounds Like a Composting Machine.

http://www.rainbowworms.com/ Will Be taking Pre Orders for 4-1-11 Shipments.

Rose Gardens with Worm Tea

2011-02-26T20:40:00.000-08:00

If you have a Rose Garden then Worm Tea is a Must for you. No need for chemicals, Worm Tea is Organic and is a good Fertilizer, Fungicide, and pest repellent it will help prevent and remove Black , and Rust Spots, Mildew , and also keep aphids off your plants. I'm Using the Soil Soup 7 Gal Bio Blender To make, My Worm Tea. its very efficient and cost effective. Cost per gallon is about $1.55 when the 7 gal system is purchased . You cant get this kind of results with chemicals at this Price. These are pictures from July 2010. With spring around the corner now is the time to start using as a foliage spray as the new growth starts .

Using the Worm Factory 360 For Composting Dog Poo

2011-02-26T19:45:00.000-08:00

A few Weeks ago I approached my Neighbor about Composting his Dogs Poo they have a small Dog perfect for the capacity of the Worm Factory 360. As most people they went yuk I explained how I was composting about 20lbs a month from my two larger Dogs, and could use a test ground for a smaller Worm Bin. I explained how they Dog Poo could be Composted and used safely on their Flower garden. (Do Not Use Composted Dog Poo On Vegetable Gardens). So Lilly Has been recruited and we should see how well the Worm Factory Works in Processing. I will Post back soon as to how it’s going.