1. Venue.
The meeting was held at Sarah Hodgson’s home in Claremont. Many thanks to Sarah for hosting the meeting.
2. Apologies
Angila Kent, Ally Reidy, Ilse Meershoek, Nicky Louw,Debbie Turberville
3. Visitors
None
4. What to do in the garden this month
Roses must be pruned by mid August
Prune Hydrangeas now
Tidy up summer flowering shrubs
Don’t touch anything that will be flowering in Spring
Give fuchsias nitrogen rich fertilizer now
5. Whats on
Alphen Spring show is on the 3rd and 4th Sept. (Cherise will be doing a talk on Streptocarpus!!)
6. General
- Members must please send in their apologies by Thursday lunch time at the latest prior to meetings so we can establish numbers for catering purposes.
- As detailed in the constitution, there are 6 seats on the committee. Every year, 3 new members will be elected for the new committee at the September meeting. They will be effective on the committee from 1 January 2012. Please come forward at the next meeting if you would like to serve on the committee. The committee positions are detailed in the constitution.
7. Speaker
Thank you to Avril and Emile from the company ywaste. Avril gave a very interesting talk on worm farming. Here are some of the things Avril spoke about :
The worms to use for worm farms are called Red Wigglers. The average household can recycle about 5 kg of kitchen waste per week in the wormery.
Feed worms anything from banana peels, to egg shells and egg boxes, tea bags and any other organic stuff. Avoid meat, citrus, dairy, onions and potato peels. Limit tomato as its very acidic. If the wormery is too acidic or too wet it will attract fruit flies. If you manage the worm farm properly, there shouldn’t be any fruit flies. Its preferable to cut food into bite sized pieces as you get quicker results. If you put something bad into the wormery which the worms dislike, they may escape and leave the wormery.
Mealie meal is good for worms, but not flour.
Soil must be added to the worm farm as they use soil to digest their food. If you leave the worms in the pure vermicompost, they will die (it happened to me!) as its their poo. You must add soil.
Harvest the vermicompost about 4 times per year, then add a spade full of soil.
The wormery must be moist at all times as worms breathe through their skin.
To start the wormery :
Put plain paper at the bottom of your vessel and wet it. No glossy printed paper. Put soil at the bottom and add some vermicompost in it to give it a kick start. Put worms in. Wet some newspaper and fluff it up to let the air in or use old underfelt and cover the wormery. Keep it dark. The worms live in the top 5cm of soil.
To harvest the vermicompost:
Wait for at least 6 months before the initial harvest of vermicompost to let eggs hatch and for the worms to settle. Worms have no eyes, but they are light sensitive. Put the worm food aside and place the compost and worms on a tray. Make a mound of compost. Leave this for about 1 hour in good light, but not direct sun or your worms may dry out and die. Take the compost from the top and sides and put worms back into wormery. Any clumps of yellow mass are the cocoons of eggs. Be sure to place these back into the wormery. Another way to harvest vermicompost is to feed only half the surface area and worms will migrate to the food area. Remove the compost from the non-food area. This takes more time though.
If the wormery is too wet, put dry leaves or dry newspaper into the vermicompost and mix it in, this will absorb some of the moisture.
Worm Tea can be used to activate your garden compost heap. Dilute the tea 1 -100 with water for this purpose. Dilute 1 – 10 with water for your plants and pour on with a watering can.
Use 25% vermicompost to 75% garden area and dig it in a little. This can be done every 2 months. You can also use vermicompost to put onto pot plants. 1 teaspoon into a small pot every 2 months.
Bokashi was also discussed. This is a process where microbes are used to break down anything from meat to citrus to onions and dairy and even cooked left over food. A similar system is used whereby one bucket is full of holes and then placed into another bucket containing a tap. You then decant the liquid which falls though the holes and use it on your garden in a very diluted state (1 – 100). When the bucket is full, dig a hole in the garden and bury the contents. This stuff will turn into compost at a much quicker rate that a normal garden compost heap.
Avril can be found at the Porters Market every Saturday from 09h00 till 13h00.
Her number is 082 439 6395 and Emile is 082 823 0757
Email : ywaste@telkomsa.net
Web : www.y-waste.net
8. The next meeting.
The next meeting will take place at Jo Austin’s home in Clovelly on 3 September at 09h00.
