I laughed so hard about the part of your podcast where you were talking about each of you - including your children - having their OWN garden areas .... and no one better get near their garden with a garden tool in their hand!

I laughed and laughed because I KNOW how true that is!

Sometimes I wished someone else in my family was into gardening. But then I think about it and am glad they aren't. We have a small yard and I would have to fight with them over garden property on our small residential lot.

Oh poor Jon! He has gotten bitten BAD by the daylily bug. I tried to warn him about the LA (Lily Auction). I have had to try to avoid going there. And when I do .... oh my! it is dangerous! No kidding!!! I can't wait to see photos of some of Jon's daylilies this Spring/Summer. I can just imagine how much he is growing now.

I just bought my onions about a week ago and will be planting them up this week. I love growing onions. I heard that if they are grown with tomatoes it helps the tomatoes.

about Abigail picking all the chickweed. What a hysterically funny podcast!

I hope your next week's "composting during the Winter" topic... will talk about worm bins too! I just started my first two. 2000 red wigglers. I need to know more information about them. How long before I have worm castings to harvest. Most of my new worms seem to be happy and are staying in the bins. (18 gallon containers filled about 1/3 full) I am encouraged about this new way to make organic plant fertilizer!!!

I couldn't stop laughing. Thanks for the belly laughs!!!!

Thanks for the feedback! I'm always glad to know when anyone likes our podcast.

If you haven't seen it, check out my article on worm composting:

http://garden.org/ideas/view/d...

Dave - I actually read your article several times and started my worm bins pretty much per your instructions. Plus per more research online. I have an idea of what the worm castings and eggs look like and my husband is going to build some wooden screens to sift the bin materials using 1/4" and 1/8" screen to save the worms and eggs, but how long will it take to compost all that cardboard and paper? I use a juicer to liquify the food scraps, so the worms can process it faster. Does it take a few months? Or sooner or longer for them to produce about 8 gallons of castings? I think that is what I will have once they process about 1/3 a bin full.

It takes a few months. Once you have a good strong colony full of worms they tend to start burning through the stuff faster. It kind of gets to the point where they are going full speed and you're constantly making new bins for them. But expect 6 months before you can think of having 8 gallons of castings.

Thanks! I had no idea about the timeline to get castings and couldn't find anything about it online. I have about 1000 worms in each of the two bins. Hopefully they are happy and will thrive. I had about 20 escapees the first night. Only 1 or 2 now. So I think they have settled in. (I hope!) I have them outside on my screened porch. If it gets too cold they will go inside my garage. How low of temps can they handle before they die? We are looking at 40's at night this coming week.

Oops more like 6 gallons of castings, not 8. The bin is 18 gallons. I know not to fill it because it crushes the castings if there is too much which becomes too heavy.

beckygardener said:How low of temps can they handle before they die? We are looking at 40's at night this coming week.

They can handle temps into the lower twenties with no problems. Katie and Jon keep their worms outside year round and the worms never seem troubled by the cold weather.

Perfect! It rarely ever gets THAT cold here. Mine are on the porch which is probably a bit warmer in Winter and cooler in Summer. I am really getting a kick out of worm farming! I plan to bring a small amount to class (in a small clear plastic jar covered with dark construction paper that we can remove to see the worms) so the students can view how hard the worms work eating food scraps. Might be doing that when we study the lifecycle of butterflies, ladybugs, and ants. We also grow plants from seeds as well. Love Spring themes in my class! I am in my favorite element at that time of year!

Thanks for the additional information (which I couldn't find elsewhere).