Homeless Worms Seek Purple Refuge

Ahh, the bathtub is blooming.  Is there a finer sight?  Around the holidays, I was trolling the craigslist free section (an unbreakable habit), and came across a beautiful cast iron bathtub, free for the taking.  A handful of seeds, and some recycled water later…

From tub to tub - we keep a watering can in the shower, so every time we turn on the tap to wait for warm water, we collect the stream for use outside.

The bathtub is old news now, though.  My newest craigslist find is this awesome purple dresser.  I have a whole indoor-outdoor vision for our side yard, wherein ordinary household objects are used for less ordinary purposes.  The bathtub is the beginning, Chris is hard at work developing the sod chair (!), and the dresser is my next project. 

I started composting with worms about a year ago.  If you’re thinking of composting, and don’t know where to start, try these buggers.  It’s the easiest, most foolproof way.  You can make your bin out of most anything - we had these plastic bins sitting in the garage, taking up space.  An hour and a few hundred drill holes later…

Okay, not the prettiest thing in the world, but the worms sure are happy.  The idea behind this bin is that, when your worms have worked long and hard processing your food waste, and have created tons of castings (worm poop to you and me), you can harvest the castings easily.  You simply nest an identical bin on top of this one, put food on top, and allow the worms to exit to a higher, more hospitable ground, leaving you with the rich poopy stuff that your garden will adore.  These fine folks have developed a more comprehensive tutorial - check it out!

Now, there’s nothing wrong with these bins - they serve their wonderful purpose just fine.  I’m just a little project-happy these days, and want to take this concept to the next level.  Enter the purple dresser, and a free upcoming Saturday to make a new home for these fellas.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.