This video is about how to make a red wiggler worm compost bin. I will show you how to make the bin and what items to put in it. The parts used are two plastic tubs or bins, two 4x4 blocks, brown compost material, green compost material, a little water, and red wiggler worms. The update video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwlLUnNN2To Drill Holes The first thing you need to do is drill some holes for the worms. The holes will only be drilled in one of the bins. The other bin will have no holes at all. On my system I put six holes on the bottom of the bin to drain the liquid out of the top bin into the bottom bin. This will prevent the worms from drowning if there is an excess of liquid. In the upper part of the bin, I drilled 16 holes, four on each side, so the worms get some fresh air. I also drilled 12 holes on the lid for the same reason. Put 4x4 Blocks In Now put the two sections of 4x4 blocks (about 6 to 8 inches long) in the bottom of the bin with no holes. Then put the bin with holes into the bin with no holes. The 4x4 blocks will hold it up in the air by almost 4-inches. This allows the air to get into the upper holes and allows any liquid to drain into the bottom bin. Layer Browns and Greens Now layer the browns and greens in the upper bin with the holes in it. Browns are items that are high in carbon like shredded cardboard or paper, brown leaves, or straw. Greens are items that are high in nitrogen and include items like vegetables and fruits, coffee grounds, and green leaves. For mine, I did about four inches of paper, followed by kitchen scraps, then another four inches of shredded paper. I then cut up a watermelon and put the watermelon rinds in for the next layer. Then I put in four inches of shredded paper and went out in the yard and pulled some green leaves off of various plants. Then I put one final layer of shredded paper on top. You will need to wet the very top layer of brown. Using a spray bottle is the best way, but I did not have one at the time. So I just dipped the shredded paper in a bowl of water and then rung it out and put it in the bin. The last step of the layers is to put a little compost or good soil from under leaves on top of the layers. Just a couple of handfuls or so. This is just to kick start the microbial action to help the compost get started. The Worms I ordered 1000 red wiggler worms from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm. They arrived about a week after I initially layered the compost material in the bins. The worms came in priority mail and were shipped in dry Pete moss. They instructions said to pour ½ cup of water on the Pete moss and let the sit for just a bit before adding them to the garden or compost bin. I used bottled water that was at room temperature. I didn’t w ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsbA5y0XyNg

This video, titled Backyard Nursery Propagation Bed Winterization, talks about what needs to be done to prepare a propagation bed with softwood cuttings for winter. We also go over what we need to do with last year’s cuttings that are now potted. Propagation Bed Basics The propagation bed consists of sharp sand and an intermittent mist system set up. The mist system sprays water on the leaves of the plants for ten seconds and comes on every five minutes. This mist keeps the leaves wet, which keeps the plants from drying out and gives the little cuttings time to put roots down. The sharp sand is something that they call concrete sand. The sand allows the water to pass easily through. Since the cuttings don’t have roots yet or at least have small roots after a few weeks, we don’t want water sitting around. I water did saturate soil around the root area, the cuttings would rot before they put down roots. Change The Timer Before the system is totally winterized, I need to do some things now. First, because the days are getting shorter, the days are cooler, and the sun is not so intense, I’m going to change the timer. I’m going to set it to come on for ten seconds, but only to come on every 10 minutes vs. the 5 minutes that I had the system set for during the heat of the summer. Remove Dead Plants Next, I’m going to go through each plant and get rid of the ones that didn’t take root. I want to do this now because the plants still have leaves on them. This will be harder to do once all of the leaves have fallen, because I can’t tell what is alive and what is not. I will also give a slight tug on the cuttings to weed out the ones that don’t have a good root system. If they don’t have a good root system at this point, they won’t make it through the winter. Later in the Year Later in the winter I will dig up all of the rooted cuttings and put them in the refrigerator. This will keep them dormant and give me extra time to ship them in the spring. I will ship these plants as first year rooted cuttings. Last Year’s Plants I will go through all of last year’s plants the I still have, which are all in pots now. I will remove any pots that have plants that didn’t make it. The items that will stay in pots until next summer will need to be protected from temperatures below 20-degrees Fahrenheit. If I just left the pots out and we went down into the teens, the root system would get too cold and die. So plants left in pots need to be moved into the garage once the leaves fall off. Most of the plants will not stay in pots. As soon as they are fully dormant, but before we get too cold, they will be dug up and moved to a refrigerator for shipment. They will be sold as and shipped as second year rooted cuttings. Future Win ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-SnqU1TWew