garlic beds?

[T]

Hi All,

I was thinking of digging up a spot in my garden, burring a bunch of weeds and melon rinds I have been saving in the freezer, waiting till the first freeze, then replanting garlic.

Good idea?

-T

[songbird]

anytime in the fall is fine.

i've replanted as soon as i've harvested and it's worked. i've also planted the day before the ground froze.

they're bulbs. they put down roots and start growing before winter if you give them a chance.

right now i have a lot of tulips i could go out and dig up, divide and replant, not going to happen, but within a month some of them will already be putting out new roots to start growing again to be ready for next spring.

songbird

[T]

Thank you!

Would it hurt to plant then 6" above where I dump all the melon rinds, etc.? Or do I need to wait awhile?

[songbird]

T wrote: ...

do you have worms in your garden soil?

melon rinds are like worm crack. they love 'em. will eat through them in a few days here when i put them in the buckets. i don't put all of them in one bucket (too much moisture at once).

hmm, i think the cost of keeping stuff in the freezer or fridge is not worth it and would bury them in the gardens asap, spread them out around and bury them deep enough that flies/animals won't be attracted to them. let the worms work their magic on them. :)

i fed some of my worms the strawberry tops that were fermenting. i think some of the worms may have gotten a bit drunk. :)

*hic* since i just restarted most of the buckets not too long ago i was curious to see how the worms were doing. they looked to be doing pretty good.

songbird

[T]

Of all my digging this season, I have found two worms. Well, one and two halves (victim of my ax).

I am tempted to go buy fishing worms, but I don't think they are the right kind.

You mentioned that. That is why I now keep melon rinds. I was thinking of burying them under my new garlic bed

They are in the freeze with my grass fed beef order. Not costing me anything other than the initial cool down.

I froze them because I did not want any decomposing until I buried them. Didn't want to deprive the worms of anything.

I only get to garden seriously about two days a week do to my wife's health issues I won't go into.

That was my goal!

Question: do I have to wait a certain amount of time before planting my garlic above the rinds? I was going to spread the rinds out about 8 to 12" down and plant the garlic cloves about 2" down.

[songbird]

if you get what are often called belgian night crawlers they are excellent composting worms (in a bucket). breed fast. i started with 30 and within a few months i had 26 adults left but over

200 babies. that's the last time i counted because the processes went from one bin to three buckets and the bin and then after that it went to fourteen buckets and the bin and now it is at sixteen buckets and the bin. i have no more room i want to use for this now so that is my limit with my space. the total count varies now from about 50,000 - 200,000 worms depending upon the season. in the spring i max out and put most of them out in the gardens and then restart the buckets using those i hold back for that reason. i need a certain base number to restart and still have the capacity to take care of whatever Ma decides to come up with in her cooking. :)

if you want to add other worms to the mix (earthworms you find in your gardens) to encourage diversity that is possible and what i've done here but earthworms are not the same as composting worms so i may have some in the regular buckets but i also keep a few buckets of just native worms so that they can breed without competition for space or resources from the composting worms. avoid keeping night crawlers (largest worms often sold for fishing) in buckets as they do not do well in captivity. i have had some and eventually put them out in the gardens to live because they need more space than what a small container provides.

some worms need dirt, so i have that in some of the buckets along with layers of partially decayed wood chips which gives the composting worms what they need for bedding too. by the end of a year it is all fairly mixed together and the worms have chewed through the paper scraps and fruits and veggie scraps too. i don't sort the worms out i just take it all out to the gardens and use it for planting the most nutrient demanding veggies. when i am done planting i take some dirt from the gardens back in with me to mix with the rest of the stuff i use to restart the buckets.

squash/pumpkin and melon seeds i try to take out before they get digested because later you will find them sprouting from your plantings if you don't. :) tomato seedlings come up too but those i just trim back.

they ferment/evaporate down to almost nothing and if there are any worms about they'll munch on them. fairly gone within days either way.

yeah, freezing them will make them break down even faster when they thaw. you're lucky to have the freezer space. we usually do not, so that i why i keep a lot of worm buckets so that when i have peak input flow (from Ma making fruit salad for 50) i can spread it all out among the buckets and not have a fermenting smelly mess. :)

ah. ok. they will keep in the fridge for a few days. worms won't mind fermenting or soft rinds.

considering they're mostly gone within a few days to a week you could put them down closer than that. since they turn into almost nothing at all quickly. i would not put them down touching the new cloves, but a few inches deeper is probably ok.

as the results are very slight (other than liquid) you probably won't notice much of any difference. settling of the area is going to happen...

it is over the long haul with veggie scraps, paper scraps, etc. that you will see the change.

i keep the buckets for about a year before they get put into the gardens. what i start with is quite different than when i put them out into the gardens. concentrated by many thousand worms digesting all those scraps. the water evaporates off. each time i put new scraps in a bucket i check the moisture level and add more if it seems to be needed. it can get pretty swampy down deep in a bucket and the worms will be just fine as long as they aren't actually swimming. i find them throughout the entire depth of the bucket too. that is why i layer things. it is much lighter if you don't add much dirt or water but i like having a mix of worm species so the dirt goes in and i keep them well hydrated so the worms don't go dormant.

songbird

[T]

Thank you!