Yep, and I always have a ziploc bag with me when I go out for lunch/dinner.
I once p/u a good looking banana peel from the side walk next to my parked car.

I once p/u a good looking banana peel from the side walk next to my parked car.

Laughed out loud!

Paul

On Hallowe'en I post on Freecycle asking for their pumpkins. I had a number of people offer me theirs and I had a great time driving around picking up their pumpkins.

I have picked up banana peels off the road, gathered goose droppings in the park and had a neighbor leave his kitchen waste at my doorstep. I used to carry ziplocks in my car just in case.

Excellent !

Next time I eat out I'll be prepared for worm takeaway.
Collecting pumpkins seems like an especially good idea.

I'd like to create an outdoor not-worm bin to precompost excess food for worms. There will still have to be bins for composting that the worms don't want -- such as tomatoes ! Anyone else do that ?

Hey Paul: I'm on topic.

Barbara R

My worms DO like tomatoes. I usually remove the seeds using a tea strainer. No volunteer tomatoes for me.

Worms love tomatoes.

Now I walk the dogs with a big bag to gather stuff in the wild : Fallen bitter apples (very heavy unfortunately which ruins my walk back), wild mushrooms (for once I can collect them without being afraid of dying), wild clovers, rotting pieces of wood.

None of my friends wanted to make the effort of bringing me their kitchen waste. Now I have tomatoes so I made a deal : free organic heirloom toms from my garden against one year of kitchen waste. Works great !

Bad side is that I only get to eat the very bad looking tomatoes now ;-( It would be such a shame not to try and get the most out of the deal !

Oh well never mind, I'm loosing friends by the thousand now that I've the obsessive worm disorder ;-(

Bad side is that I only get to eat the very bad looking tomatoes now
What you don't do for your worms, eh? We have to "suffer" for our worms one way or another, if worming is a hobby.

I put fallen crab apples in my bin. They would not break down until I pulled them out and put them through a grinder. But another park near me has pear trees. Oh, the things we do when we don't produce enough kitchen scraps.

At one time our grocery store would give away large boxes of old produce for people with pets. I got 2 boxes one time, and chopped and froze like crazy. They've since stopped doing that. :(

I also gather pumpkins from around the neighborhood after Halloween, and once scored veggies from the supermarket (they also quit doing it).

When it became harder to get all those fruits & veggies, I started...out of necessity...composting lots more yard wastes for worm food.

Generally, the wormies seem to like that compost just as much. Reason: because it's decomposing (being eaten by biology that the wormies love to eat).

I still use fruits and veggies, but don't go searching for them. The wormies consider them desert, I think.

cb2

Quote "I'd like to create an outdoor not-worm bin to precompost excess food for worms. There will still have to be bins for composting that the worms don't want -- such as tomatoes ! Anyone else do that ? "

barb-r, I have been doing exactly that for a couple of years. I have one bin that only get's shredded news print,tp rollers,brown paper and cardboard mixed with food scraps for primarily transferring to worm bin. I can't attest to any added benifits to the worms but it does well for stockpileing and managing food scraps. The Admiral told me to remove scraps from her freezer before she fed it to me. I have a full size refrigerator/freezer in my work shop but there isn't much room left after stowing freezer pops and ice cream bars for grandkids plus frosted mugs for root beer and barley pop. I wouldn't put goose droppings and sidewalk fruit peels in there even if there was room.

re precompost, Klem, do you monitor, control , carbon/nitrogen balance ? Casually or carefully ?

Talk about overdoing it: I have 3 worm systems and 4 not-worm (yet) composters. I'd like to put a little " Intelligence" ( in the sense of military intelligence) into how the 4 not-worm composters contribute (or not) to the worms.

One of the worm bins will emphasize fungi. Rubbermaid type.
The other bacteria: Worm Inn.
The third no emphasis: (the hypothetically neglectable outdoor bin in Design an outdoor bin)

Thanks to you who report worms like tomatoes. I got the notion that they didn't from reading, not so much from experience. But "my" worms don't squirm for tomatoes and raspberries as much as they do for melons .

Both the Inn and the Bin could be split and some worms put to work (and at risk) in the other composters which are outside and bottomless. Might be better to do that next spring.

I enjoy the company of all your opinions. Thanks !

My worms eat tomatoes with a vigor just shy of that for melons. Tomatoes are the only other worm food besides melons that, in my limited experience, doesn't have to be "pre-digested". The worms leave the tomato skin.

Fun thread.

Paul

If the skins are intact, tomatoes are ignored. If the skins are broken, worms will flock to them. I think some people shy away from tomatoes because of the notion that acid foods in the bin are harmful. I don't think they are a problem.

"re precompost, Klem, do you monitor, control , carbon/nitrogen balance ? Casually or carefully ?"
Not really. I don't work at this near as hard as most people here. It might be fair to say I go at it neither slow nor fast,just half fast.
I have two worm bins plus one precompost/storage bin for worm food and bedding material. I have from three to a half dozen not for worms compost piles/bins depending on what day you count them. I give more attention to airation and moisture than N to C balance. One example of where i sometimes veer from tradition is if I have an abundance of grass clippings and/or other green plant material. I don't hesitate in useing it and turning often if time permits. If the pile happens to go anarobic the odor is similar to cow manure which I grew up around and have eat lunch sitting on a corral fence. Everything will rot regardless of N&C balance. I am building a plie of logs,limbs,thigs,leaves,grass and scrap lumber for my first hugelkultur planting. Some of you may recall me talking about buying a super-sak full of unidentified material at auction of bankrupt landscape company a few months ago. The fine folks at Coventon's Nursury in Rowlett Tx. identified the material as processed poltury waste. Since I have plenty,anything that looks to need N get's a hand full or two,including compost and soon to be hugelkultur mound.

Yes, but I would only admit to it here!

When I buy the 1/2 bushels of Romas and skin them, the skins go in the bins. The worms go crazy for them.

Right now I have the top portion slice in a bin to see how they like it.

Since I dont create enough worm food on my own I have asked my sister if she would save her scraps in a bag for me. Her , her boyfriend and his daughter have what they call the "steve bag" which is me in place of "worm bag" lol. Anyway currently it seems to be enough to keep worms supplied. Besides saving for me fruit and veggie , they save egg shells , melon rinds and about anything else that goes rotten in the fridge.

wow, I put the slice of tomato top in the bin yesterday and today there's just a teeny piece of skin. They devoured it, and it wasn't even rotting.

Steve, it took Mom quite a while to get used to the thoughts of me having worms in my apt. Once she got a few buckets of compost, she then thought it was pretty neat. Mind you, she'd never tell anyone, or spoke of it, or definitely did not want to see them, no matter how many times I'd tease her to have a look.

But we'd be over for a visit, and she'd ask me if my "worms were hungry" and offer the green kitchen bin goodies.