in which i am constructive
Feb. 3rd, 2008 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mouse_rants...or at least, am in the presence of constructive activities.
but to start at the beginning: about a year ago, on the advice of my plumber, i resolved to minimize my use of my garbage disposal (since it was shaking apart the elderly joints of the sink plumbing). since i eat a fair amount of lovely fresh (even organic) vegetables, it seemed reasonable to make appropriate use of the scraps, by composting them. when i mentioned this plan, someone advised me, vigorously, to do worm composting instead; this person even found a small worm farm on ebay (for $5).
so, being me, i did both. well, the composting has been rather frustrating (due, i must admit, to my own inadequacies as a compost-manager) - but the worms have been worming busily away, without regard to my attention or lack thereof, and steadily turned out a supply of worm...shall we say, "product"?
the worm farm, however, was rather frustrating. it is essentially a converted styrofoam cooler, with some plastic air-vents let in. the worm tea just sort of leaked out through the bottom air vents, and harvesting castings required turning the whole thing out and attempting to screen the contents through assorted purchased and found objects i pressed into service.
so, on finding myself in possession of a home depot gift card, i decided to make my worms a new and superior home. which i have now done. well, at any rate, they now have a new home -we will see how well it functions.
if anyone else would care to construct a worm house on my design, you will require:
* 1-16 ft length of Trex(R) deck planking (in the arcane terminology of the lumber industry, the piece i used is designated as 5/4 X 6; in the real world, it was slightly less than 1" thick, and a hair over 5" wide)
* 1 scrap piece of pet-proof (plastic-coated) window screen
* 1 cat litter tray (to collect drips, just in case)
* assorted hardware (including hinges, miscellaneous plastic plumbing bits from the lawn-sprinkler section, and a mess of assorted screws, preferably stainless steel or similar rust-proof material)
* 1 handy friend with a garage full of power tools (definite plus if he builds exquisite furniture for a hobby).
with all of this you can make a worm box, approximately 10 X 13 X 11 inches, consisting of two levels. the bottom level is solid, with a hole for drainage; the top is lidded, and floored with screen. the idea is, the worm tea and castings will drop through the screen and into the lower box, where they can be harvested with relative ease. We Shall See.
i arrived at my friend's place with the trex cut into 4-ft lengths (so i could get it into my car), and a set of careful calculations as to how the lengths should be cut to supply the various necessary pieces (figuring i would just nail these together into a box). my friend met me with a request for a plan, which he sketched out on graph paper (1 square per inch), in side, top and cut-away views. he also instructed me on the _correct_ way to build the box, and then pretty much built it for me. as a result, i now have what is probably the world's most beautiful worm box. (like i said - knowing someone who is an expert wood-worker is a definite plus, both for proper design, and really nice construction using all manner of neat tools).
this is their old home:
hey, how could i resist a _magic_ worm farm? (we will hope the magic was not responsible for their success).
and the new one:
now let me walk you through it - starting with the bottom:
inside:
and out:
it seems the proper way to construct such a box is not to simply nail the base onto the sides, but to rout out a groove in the sides, and set the base into these grooves (which also raises the base up off the ground, rather than having to nail on some pieces to act as feet, as i was planning). it's not totally water-tight - hence the litter box it is sitting on, to collect drips. i currently have it lined with a piece of plastic - if things seem to work out, i will probably try caulking the bottom, or using silicon sealant or something, so liquid will only come out via the plastic tubing you see coming out of the hole (which i placed in the corner so i can tilt the box up to facilitate draining - well, that's the hope).
if your handy friend makes furniture, you get nice features like this:
i.e., extra pieces cut as plugs to fill in the router-grooves, glued into place and then filled with wood putty, to provide a smooth surface. note also that all the edges have been routed, so all the corners are nicely rounded.
the top, it seems, should be properly constructed using rabbets to form a more solid structure:
at the bottom, we added some pieces to form a flange (that was _my_ idea), with a cross-bar (his idea) for extra strength. the screen was then stretched across the bottom, and attached with additional pieces to hold it firmly into place:
(this, by the way, was all my own work...which is why the spacing of the screws is a little uneven. i did clean off the shavings (FROM THE GUIDE HOLES I DRILLED BY MYSELF AND STRAIGHT TOO) before i put worms in). (i also attached the brass handles on the top box, to make it easier to lift.)(i even figured out i should drill all the guide-holes for all the handle screws first, before i started attaching the handles, so i wouldn't be trying to balance it on the first handle when i made the holes for the second handle. i'm a _little_ bit handy. sort of.)
looking down into it:
the dark bars you see are actually the seat of the chair this is sitting on. note also the carefully braced lid. you will probably also note the faux wood grain on the inside. this was a deliberate choice. trex is a sort of fake wood, made for decking and fencing of recycled plastic and wood. i have no problem with plastics, as such (especially recycled ones) - but i have a visceral reaction to fake wood. i would rather it be honest plastic rather than pretend it looks like wood - especially when it really doesn't do a particularly good job of it. so i put the wood-grain side on the inside. my wood-working friend recommended the trex, by the way - i was trying to figure out what i could do to make wood reasonably water-resistant without poisoning the worms, and he suggested this. according to their literature, it is non-toxic to the outside world...well, surely it can't be worse than styrofoam? it can be cut, routed and split like wood (actually, it doesn't split, but it can be cut across or lengthwise or whatever way you want). it is rather heavy, but it's not like i'm going to be carrying the thing around all the time. hopefully, the lid is heavy enough to foil the raccoons (they managed to get into the styrofoam container a couple of times, even after i put a flower pot on top to weigh it down). if not, i have a hasp i can attach.
so today (despite the rain), i separated the worms from their old home (and excretia), and settled them into the new one (and treated the garden to the excretia). one should, i understand, provide them with a base of shredded newspaper (black and white print only) - but when i started to tear up my local paper, i realized that every single page has color printing somewhere or other. so i bedded them down on some shredded (used) unbleached coffee filters (with grounds) and lettuce leaves, and then gave them some lovely fresh carrot peelings for a housewarming present. when i checked them later, they were up and exploring, so they seem to be happy. i'm giving up the composting (at least for the moment), so they are getting all the vegetable scraps, and we will see how the whole thing functions.
the whole thing probably came in under $50 - the trex was the big expense, i think the piece i got was $25.75. the screen i had left over from last summer's exercise in window-rescreening, so i don't remember what that would have cost; the hardware wasn't too expensive (even using stainless steel, if you are flexible on the sizes of things). at any rate, i still have money left on my gift card (even after making some non-worm-box related purchases).
but to start at the beginning: about a year ago, on the advice of my plumber, i resolved to minimize my use of my garbage disposal (since it was shaking apart the elderly joints of the sink plumbing). since i eat a fair amount of lovely fresh (even organic) vegetables, it seemed reasonable to make appropriate use of the scraps, by composting them. when i mentioned this plan, someone advised me, vigorously, to do worm composting instead; this person even found a small worm farm on ebay (for $5).
so, being me, i did both. well, the composting has been rather frustrating (due, i must admit, to my own inadequacies as a compost-manager) - but the worms have been worming busily away, without regard to my attention or lack thereof, and steadily turned out a supply of worm...shall we say, "product"?
the worm farm, however, was rather frustrating. it is essentially a converted styrofoam cooler, with some plastic air-vents let in. the worm tea just sort of leaked out through the bottom air vents, and harvesting castings required turning the whole thing out and attempting to screen the contents through assorted purchased and found objects i pressed into service.
so, on finding myself in possession of a home depot gift card, i decided to make my worms a new and superior home. which i have now done. well, at any rate, they now have a new home -we will see how well it functions.
if anyone else would care to construct a worm house on my design, you will require:
* 1-16 ft length of Trex(R) deck planking (in the arcane terminology of the lumber industry, the piece i used is designated as 5/4 X 6; in the real world, it was slightly less than 1" thick, and a hair over 5" wide)
* 1 scrap piece of pet-proof (plastic-coated) window screen
* 1 cat litter tray (to collect drips, just in case)
* assorted hardware (including hinges, miscellaneous plastic plumbing bits from the lawn-sprinkler section, and a mess of assorted screws, preferably stainless steel or similar rust-proof material)
* 1 handy friend with a garage full of power tools (definite plus if he builds exquisite furniture for a hobby).
with all of this you can make a worm box, approximately 10 X 13 X 11 inches, consisting of two levels. the bottom level is solid, with a hole for drainage; the top is lidded, and floored with screen. the idea is, the worm tea and castings will drop through the screen and into the lower box, where they can be harvested with relative ease. We Shall See.
i arrived at my friend's place with the trex cut into 4-ft lengths (so i could get it into my car), and a set of careful calculations as to how the lengths should be cut to supply the various necessary pieces (figuring i would just nail these together into a box). my friend met me with a request for a plan, which he sketched out on graph paper (1 square per inch), in side, top and cut-away views. he also instructed me on the _correct_ way to build the box, and then pretty much built it for me. as a result, i now have what is probably the world's most beautiful worm box. (like i said - knowing someone who is an expert wood-worker is a definite plus, both for proper design, and really nice construction using all manner of neat tools).
this is their old home:
hey, how could i resist a _magic_ worm farm? (we will hope the magic was not responsible for their success).
and the new one:
now let me walk you through it - starting with the bottom:
inside:
and out:
it seems the proper way to construct such a box is not to simply nail the base onto the sides, but to rout out a groove in the sides, and set the base into these grooves (which also raises the base up off the ground, rather than having to nail on some pieces to act as feet, as i was planning). it's not totally water-tight - hence the litter box it is sitting on, to collect drips. i currently have it lined with a piece of plastic - if things seem to work out, i will probably try caulking the bottom, or using silicon sealant or something, so liquid will only come out via the plastic tubing you see coming out of the hole (which i placed in the corner so i can tilt the box up to facilitate draining - well, that's the hope).
if your handy friend makes furniture, you get nice features like this:
i.e., extra pieces cut as plugs to fill in the router-grooves, glued into place and then filled with wood putty, to provide a smooth surface. note also that all the edges have been routed, so all the corners are nicely rounded.
the top, it seems, should be properly constructed using rabbets to form a more solid structure:
at the bottom, we added some pieces to form a flange (that was _my_ idea), with a cross-bar (his idea) for extra strength. the screen was then stretched across the bottom, and attached with additional pieces to hold it firmly into place:
(this, by the way, was all my own work...which is why the spacing of the screws is a little uneven. i did clean off the shavings (FROM THE GUIDE HOLES I DRILLED BY MYSELF AND STRAIGHT TOO) before i put worms in). (i also attached the brass handles on the top box, to make it easier to lift.)(i even figured out i should drill all the guide-holes for all the handle screws first, before i started attaching the handles, so i wouldn't be trying to balance it on the first handle when i made the holes for the second handle. i'm a _little_ bit handy. sort of.)
looking down into it:
the dark bars you see are actually the seat of the chair this is sitting on. note also the carefully braced lid. you will probably also note the faux wood grain on the inside. this was a deliberate choice. trex is a sort of fake wood, made for decking and fencing of recycled plastic and wood. i have no problem with plastics, as such (especially recycled ones) - but i have a visceral reaction to fake wood. i would rather it be honest plastic rather than pretend it looks like wood - especially when it really doesn't do a particularly good job of it. so i put the wood-grain side on the inside. my wood-working friend recommended the trex, by the way - i was trying to figure out what i could do to make wood reasonably water-resistant without poisoning the worms, and he suggested this. according to their literature, it is non-toxic to the outside world...well, surely it can't be worse than styrofoam? it can be cut, routed and split like wood (actually, it doesn't split, but it can be cut across or lengthwise or whatever way you want). it is rather heavy, but it's not like i'm going to be carrying the thing around all the time. hopefully, the lid is heavy enough to foil the raccoons (they managed to get into the styrofoam container a couple of times, even after i put a flower pot on top to weigh it down). if not, i have a hasp i can attach.
so today (despite the rain), i separated the worms from their old home (and excretia), and settled them into the new one (and treated the garden to the excretia). one should, i understand, provide them with a base of shredded newspaper (black and white print only) - but when i started to tear up my local paper, i realized that every single page has color printing somewhere or other. so i bedded them down on some shredded (used) unbleached coffee filters (with grounds) and lettuce leaves, and then gave them some lovely fresh carrot peelings for a housewarming present. when i checked them later, they were up and exploring, so they seem to be happy. i'm giving up the composting (at least for the moment), so they are getting all the vegetable scraps, and we will see how the whole thing functions.
the whole thing probably came in under $50 - the trex was the big expense, i think the piece i got was $25.75. the screen i had left over from last summer's exercise in window-rescreening, so i don't remember what that would have cost; the hardware wasn't too expensive (even using stainless steel, if you are flexible on the sizes of things). at any rate, i still have money left on my gift card (even after making some non-worm-box related purchases).
