It’s amazing to see how quickly the leaves you initially put in Gilligan sunk down. Your worms are happy! I cringed when you mentioned seeing birds in your bin. They likely thought they’d found an all you can eat buffet. I don’t want anything eating my worms either! Thanks to both of you for continuing to provide us with educational and just plain interesting videos! 💕🪱💕🪱
Thanks Mary, Gilligan doesn't have any drainage, so opening the lid every day is part of my water management routine. I hope the birds haven't put it on their list of favourite restaurants! ~ Sandra
I am going for a big leaf collection this fall, not sure they would fit in your gilligan container Sandra.......🍁🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂 🍂🍁Happy gardening, Terry King.
I think it's about a 30:1 volume compression ratio by the time you get to finish castings, Terry. Gilligan could take quite a few wheelbarrows of leaves! ~ Sandra
Yes,Cher, I put out a casual notice on my neighbourhood Facebook group and we got over 30 donated. We are still trying to sell our house, so I didn't want to go all out and collect 200 like I did last year! 🎃🎃😉 ~ Sandra
Sandra and Landon kudos on the great videos. Your passion is infectious. Love being part of this community. I'm 5 months in and constantly scouring for knowledge. Love Gilligan! So clever. Thanks for sharing all your adventures. Where you live is so beautiful. If you do move I hope you can still enjoy your area. Take care🎉
Thanks so much for the kind comment, Kari. We love our home and area, but we are trying to move closer to our children and grandchildren. Whatever happens, Gilligan is coming with us! ~ Sandra
Wow it sure is amazing how quickly Gilligan's worm bin has composted down. Haha, I always put egg cartons out when I'm doing new garden bed areas. I call it worm food and apparently I'm not wrong 😁
Hey Krista, the speed of decomposition is one of the advantages of a worm bin over conventional composting. Once I get Gilligan up and running properly, I will pull out three harvests a year of almost 200 L of worm castings! ~ Sandra
Yes, it would freeze. I'm not sure if the cocoons would survive [my friend tested it and they don't survive in Alberta). I put a seed heating mat under Gilligan and put them in a sunny spot so he not only has living worms all winter, but ones that are warm enough to keep composting. In the summer I move him to a shady location. ~ Sandra
When we move, I will probably size down eventually to Gilligan plus Cinderella, AJ. I may live to regret thinking this way, but that's my plan! ~ Sandra
I love pulling back the bubble wrap and get that whiff of damp leaves. I have around a dozen pumpkins stashed in a shady part of the yard, it is amazing how quickly the worms go through it, think I will stick a pumpkin in the center of my leaf mold bin this fall, along with a handful of red wigglers. Do you have Gilligan outside with a heat matt? Will you keep it outside? Looking good Sandra, Stay Well!!!!
This smell of leaves always reminds me how they are kickstarting the fungal decomposition. We put one of our neighbourhood pumpkins on the top of each of our leaf bins, plus bury them in any soil bins sitting inactive through the winter. Gilligan is back right outside our back door with a 10" x 20" seed heating mat underneath him. I set the thermostat control to 16°C. His dimensions are about 34" x 46", so the bedding edges will be cooler. I keep a compost thermometer in him, which consistently shows the bedding centre in the >20°C range (low 70s F). As I said to AJ, once we move, I may consolidate my worm bins to just Gilligan and my kitchen bin, Cinderella. I think Gilligan could handle over 10,000 worms easily and produce three harvest a year. ~ Sandra
@@NanasWorms The guy from the Urban worm Co in his last video put a heat mat without a thermostat under a bin in his barn. I think that is rather irresponsible, he has a lot of new worm farmers that could lose their bin in that scenario. For sure Gilligan could handle all those worms. Just pulled the bait cup from my last outside 50 gal worm bag, it was one huge worm ball, with plenty of worms left in the bag. I am sure the volume in Gilligan is higher than my 50 gal grow bags. Stay Well Sandra!!!
He's done a few things recently that I cringe thinking new worm farmers are going to follow his example. I know plenty of people who can only afford to start out with just a few hundred worms, so losing all of them would boot them out of worm farming altogether. ~ Sandra
Hi Sandra! I'm kicking myself for not making a more persuasive case for stopping when a turtle sat by the side of the road for several weeks. (I have a top from many years ago.) Of course, mine would have to live in my basement. Which leads me to a question. If your bins were indoors, would you do anything to the leaves to prevent excessive hitchhiking of pests?
I feed leaves to Cinderella, Gus, Eat My Shorts and Peekaboo quite regularly, Juanita. Those bins live indoors most of the time. Sometimes the leaves are fresh off the tree (but not ever in touch with soil or grass) and sometimes they are partly decomposed. The only unwelcome pests I've had over the years are centipedes, slugs and the occasional spider. None of those leave the bin unless I remove them, so they aren't a problem to the home. The centipedes will eat baby worms, so I don't like it when I see those. Luckily, they are territorial, so you rarely find more than one. With slugs, I've had a few cases where i've had ul dozen baby slugs in a bin, but most of the time it was just one at a time. I think the key is to get leaves that don't sit on the ground for any length of time, so those lovely crisp fall leaves are perfect! By the way, the sandboxes are given away quite frequently on Facebook marketplace.😉🐢 ~ Sandra
Previously frozen pumpkin definitely releases water faster, Rick, but the moisture is the same in both fresh and frozen. Your big chunk that you put in your natural bedding bin will eventually add the same moisture that my frozen chunks did! If you want to pumpkin party, I think you either have to cut it into really small pieces or freeze it first. ~ Sandra
It’s amazing to see how quickly the leaves you initially put in Gilligan sunk down. Your worms are happy! I cringed when you mentioned seeing birds in your bin. They likely thought they’d found an all you can eat buffet. I don’t want anything eating my worms either! Thanks to both of you for continuing to provide us with educational and just plain interesting videos! 💕🪱💕🪱
Thanks Mary, Gilligan doesn't have any drainage, so opening the lid every day is part of my water management routine. I hope the birds haven't put it on their list of favourite restaurants!
~ Sandra
I am going for a big leaf collection this fall, not sure they would fit in your gilligan container Sandra.......🍁🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂🍁🍂
🍂🍁Happy gardening, Terry King.
I think it's about a 30:1 volume compression ratio by the time you get to finish castings, Terry. Gilligan could take quite a few wheelbarrows of leaves!
~ Sandra
@NanasWorms I now have 11 one ton bags, I personally know that 25 bags gives me 1 bag of leaf mould in two years. Well worth having Sandra.
Hi Sandra Gillian looks like a beautiful forest floor, 👍😁👌
Hey Nick, thanks. The leaves finally absorbed all that water!
~ Sandra
Greetings from Windermere, Florida zone 9b USA 🇺🇸
Great video, Sandra and Landon ❤
Gilligan is a Champ 🏆
❤Peggy❤
Hello Peggy, thanks so much. Gilligan's worms are on a roll this year! 🐢
~ Sandra
Boy this pumpkin is really going to cause a feeding frenzy 😃
Their sugar and moisture content make them candy to microbes and worms!
~ Sandra
Another supply of pumpkin again this year Sandra? The worms will definitely enjoy them 🎃🎃
Yes,Cher, I put out a casual notice on my neighbourhood Facebook group and we got over 30 donated. We are still trying to sell our house, so I didn't want to go all out and collect 200 like I did last year! 🎃🎃😉
~ Sandra
@@NanasWorms haha that is a wise decision Sandra. We are you going to move to?
We are moving off Vancouver Island to the mainland. Ideally, we'll end up somewhere in between our two sons and their families.
~ Sandra
Always love watching and learning from you Sandra. Thanks for sharing and hope you have a blessed week my friend.
Thanks so much, Tony. You too!
~ Sandra
Sandra and Landon kudos on the great videos. Your passion is infectious. Love being part of this community. I'm 5 months in and constantly scouring for knowledge. Love Gilligan! So clever. Thanks for sharing all your adventures. Where you live is so beautiful. If you do move I hope you can still enjoy your area. Take care🎉
Thanks so much for the kind comment, Kari. We love our home and area, but we are trying to move closer to our children and grandchildren. Whatever happens, Gilligan is coming with us!
~ Sandra
Wow it sure is amazing how quickly Gilligan's worm bin has composted down. Haha, I always put egg cartons out when I'm doing new garden bed areas. I call it worm food and apparently I'm not wrong 😁
Hey Krista, the speed of decomposition is one of the advantages of a worm bin over conventional composting. Once I get Gilligan up and running properly, I will pull out three harvests a year of almost 200 L of worm castings!
~ Sandra
@@NanasWorms That is amazing and something I should look into more; an outside bin. It would freeze here in my winters so would that matter?
Yes, it would freeze. I'm not sure if the cocoons would survive [my friend tested it and they don't survive in Alberta). I put a seed heating mat under Gilligan and put them in a sunny spot so he not only has living worms all winter, but ones that are warm enough to keep composting. In the summer I move him to a shady location.
~ Sandra
@@NanasWorms Thanks Sandra 🙂
Gillian is my favorite because of the large size. 🤫
When we move, I will probably size down eventually to Gilligan plus Cinderella, AJ. I may live to regret thinking this way, but that's my plan!
~ Sandra
I love pulling back the bubble wrap and get that whiff of damp leaves. I have around a dozen pumpkins stashed in a shady part of the yard, it is amazing how quickly the worms go through it, think I will stick a pumpkin in the center of my leaf mold bin this fall, along with a handful of red wigglers.
Do you have Gilligan outside with a heat matt? Will you keep it outside?
Looking good Sandra, Stay Well!!!!
This smell of leaves always reminds me how they are kickstarting the fungal decomposition. We put one of our neighbourhood pumpkins on the top of each of our leaf bins, plus bury them in any soil bins sitting inactive through the winter. Gilligan is back right outside our back door with a 10" x 20" seed heating mat underneath him. I set the thermostat control to 16°C. His dimensions are about 34" x 46", so the bedding edges will be cooler. I keep a compost thermometer in him, which consistently shows the bedding centre in the >20°C range (low 70s F). As I said to AJ, once we move, I may consolidate my worm bins to just Gilligan and my kitchen bin, Cinderella. I think Gilligan could handle over 10,000 worms easily and produce three harvest a year.
~ Sandra
@@NanasWorms The guy from the Urban worm Co in his last video put a heat mat without a thermostat under a bin in his barn. I think that is rather irresponsible, he has a lot of new worm farmers that could lose their bin in that scenario.
For sure Gilligan could handle all those worms. Just pulled the bait cup from my last outside 50 gal worm bag, it was one huge worm ball, with plenty of worms left in the bag. I am sure the volume in Gilligan is higher than my 50 gal grow bags.
Stay Well Sandra!!!
He's done a few things recently that I cringe thinking new worm farmers are going to follow his example. I know plenty of people who can only afford to start out with just a few hundred worms, so losing all of them would boot them out of worm farming altogether.
~ Sandra
Hi Sandra! I'm kicking myself for not making a more persuasive case for stopping when a turtle sat by the side of the road for several weeks. (I have a top from many years ago.) Of course, mine would have to live in my basement. Which leads me to a question. If your bins were indoors, would you do anything to the leaves to prevent excessive hitchhiking of pests?
I feed leaves to Cinderella, Gus, Eat My Shorts and Peekaboo quite regularly, Juanita. Those bins live indoors most of the time. Sometimes the leaves are fresh off the tree (but not ever in touch with soil or grass) and sometimes they are partly decomposed. The only unwelcome pests I've had over the years are centipedes, slugs and the occasional spider. None of those leave the bin unless I remove them, so they aren't a problem to the home. The centipedes will eat baby worms, so I don't like it when I see those. Luckily, they are territorial, so you rarely find more than one. With slugs, I've had a few cases where i've had ul dozen baby slugs in a bin, but most of the time it was just one at a time. I think the key is to get leaves that don't sit on the ground for any length of time, so those lovely crisp fall leaves are perfect! By the way, the sandboxes are given away quite frequently on Facebook marketplace.😉🐢
~ Sandra
@NanasWorms great news! I'm going to have a go. Small amounts at a time. ;)
Funny to hear you say about the frozen pumpkin releasing more moisture. Good idea to use the slope to help distribute the moisture in Gilligan. 😁🪱
Previously frozen pumpkin definitely releases water faster, Rick, but the moisture is the same in both fresh and frozen. Your big chunk that you put in your natural bedding bin will eventually add the same moisture that my frozen chunks did! If you want to pumpkin party, I think you either have to cut it into really small pieces or freeze it first.
~ Sandra
@ next time I think I will wait to allow the pumpkin to completely freeze.