Tag Archive for 'green experience'

Escape! The Next Chapter in “The Green Experience”

Published on June 3, 2010 in HAYNEEDLE. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Wow! Well, now I have a worm composter. Great, but what to do next? I found out the answer the first time I went down to the basement to check on my little worms to discover… I have ESCAPEES! I retreated upstairs until I felt brave enough (I may have had a glass of wine) to go back down to the basement and clean the worms.

I called the vendor first thing the next day to explain the situation. It’s not that unusual he told me, especially if you’re starting out with as many as 5,000 worms. He then asked if I’d turned a light on for them. I had not left a light on for the little worms. (Instructions are important ;-) ) Easy fix. I will turn the light on. But what to do with these fugitive worms?

Luckily I knew Bruce, one of my coworkers at Hayneedle, liked to fish. I asked him if he was interested in about 2,500 worms, and lucky for me (and him?), he was. So I made a temporary bed for his worms and brought them in for him.

Now I was starting to feel extremely confident that this is going to work well. I did not overfeed the worms, they were starting to eat the lettuce, and things were really looking up. We had about 3 weeks of smooth sailing, until one night I went down to check if my worms were ready for more food, and I bet you can guess what I found: more ESCAPEES!

Again, I call the vendor first thing in the morning, and at this point he is just laughing. “You still have worms jumping out?” he asked.

Yes. Yes, I do.

Basically ,when worms keep jumping out of a compost bin, it means there’s something they don’t like about their new home. The vendor advised me to make a fruit cocktail for the worms. “They will love it,” he assured me.

So last night I prepared a fruit cocktail for the worms: a blended apple…yum. Let’s see how it goes. I’m really starting to get used to these worms.

About “The Green Experience”

Think of “The Green Experience” as a little slice of reality Internet, where anyone can follow one of Hayneedle’s own, Cayden, as she chronicles her transition to a greener lifetstyle on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. Her endeavor began with a compost bin and 5,000 worms in her formerly worm-free living space. Follow the “HayneedleGreen” handle on Twitter and check back here for her blog posts.  It’s bound to be messy for her, but ultimately a planet that’s a little cleaner for the rest of us.

Setting Up a Worm Composter – A Green Experience Blog Post

Published on May 20, 2010 in HAYNEEDLE. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

As familiar as I was with the expression “a can of worms,” it did nothing to prepare me for the parcel I received for my worm composter. Our supplier thought it would be really nice to send me extra worms. You REALLY only need to start out with 1,000 to 2,500, so when I opened a box filled with 5,000 squigglers, I don’t know if grateful is the best word to describe how I felt.

I was a little excited and quite a bit nervous to set up my worm composter. I knew the worms could would be okay in the box for up to 10 days, but I wanted to get the composter set up so I could move them into their new home; I would have felt guilty leaving those poor little worms in the box any longer than necessary.

My daughter Chloe helped me with the set-up process. We watched the instruction video a couple times to make sure we knew what we were doing. We laid the bottom tray on the kitchen counter placed a piece of newspaper on the tray before preparing the bed. Next we added water to the coco coir, making it wet but not too wet (when you squeeze the coco coir after adding water only a small drop of water should come out). Then we added a couple handfuls of newspaper to the coco coir.

Here’s Chloe intently watching the instruction video:

Pretty easy, right? Next you grab a couple handfuls of food so the worms can get chomping. I started with lettuce. We put a handful of food in each corner. Now-or-never time to add the worms… this was the most exciting and nerve-racking part! Luckily for me and Chloe, James, a generous and strong-stomached Hayneedle employee, came to my house to help add the worms to the composter.

Welcome home, worms!

The last step was to add a wet newspaper to the top to keep the worms moist. Phew, that was it! Now the question was where to put it. I decided our basement was the best place to put the worm composter, since ideal temperature for the worms is 40 to 80 degrees. I can tell you that putting 5,000 worms in the basement was a great idea. Check back later to find out why!

So It Begins: The Green Experience

Published on May 5, 2010 in HAYNEEDLE, HOMEACCESSORIES and PETS & ANIMALS. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

Hi. I’m Cayden, a buyer with Hayneedle. I started buying for two of our eco-friendly specialty stores, CompostBins.com and RainBarrelSource.com almost 2 years ago. Before I started buying compost bins I was not the greenest person in the world. I did not compost, have a rain barrel, or even recycle. But as soon as I started buying compost bins, I felt compelled to at least start recycling, and now I’ve finally made the leap to owning a compost bin, too- pretty exciting stuff!

Yet, I still feel pretty green-challenged and would like to take more steps toward a greener lifestyle. That’s the concept behind the Green Experience- through blogging, Twitter, and YouTube, I’m going to put my going-green experience out there. Follow me as I make a few changes!

Just a few weeks ago, I received my Worm Factory Worm Composter. I got the bin before I got my worms, so (lucky me) I did not have to make a temporary worm bed. I’m not going to lie, I’m not necessarily the type of person to go out into a field and start digging for worms. So it’s a good thing they just showed up at my door!

It was Friday, April 9th and I had been out for drinks to see off a colleague on her last day. I got home around 8, and that is when my boyfriend, Jason broke the news. “I think your worms are here,” he said before even saying hello. I can say that this is the moment when I started to understand what I was getting myself into. Or at least the moment when I wondered if I was getting in over my head…

Cayden's worms get familiar with their new digs.