My soil less potting and seed starting mix recipe - Plants love it!

Here is how I made my own soil less mix recipe. It's very easy to make and it seems that seeds love to germinate in this mix. It is said you should avoid starting seeds, (or certain seeds anyway), in native dirt/soil because of bacteria etc that can kill the seed - damping off it's called.

You only need a few things to get started:

1.) (4) 5 gallon buckets with lids

2.) Bag of vermiculite

3.) Bag of perlite

4.) Bag of sphagnum moss

5.) 1/2 to 2 pounds worm castings (optional)

Pour each ingredient into it's own 5 gallon bucket.

Use a measuring cup to take equal  parts of each product and pour into the last bucket. (If you choose to add the worm castings do not need a bucketand shoud be stored somewhere else.) This is your completed soil-less mix for starting seeds or using as house plant medium. You can even use this as hydroponic medium if you has a netting to hold it together.

Cauliflower picture as promised - Fresh from the garden cauliflower

So here it is, the picture of our first cauliflower!

Looks pretty decent as far as I can tell. The plant was not the least bit affected by the mid 20 degree temps we have been having. In fact, the leaves of the cauliflower plants are looking better than ever since we've had this cold weather.

Worm composting, vermiculture - Let's build a worm composting bin!

Now that the summer heat is slowly making way for Fall, we're going to build ourselves a worm composting bin for worm tea and worm castings for our garden.

From everything I've read and been told, they seem really easy to build and are very rewarding. I've made  my worm composting bin already and will buy some red wiggler worms later today. I'll post the images in a little while to show you how I designed my worm composting bin to help you when you build your very own.

The basics I've learned so far are as follows:(I will explain this in more detail when I post the images later today.)

- Worms for composting are called RED WIGGLERS. (You don't need to buy a lot of these red wiggler worms because they will reproduce!)
- Add about 2"-3" of shredded newspaper that needs to stay damp at all times to allow the red wiggler worms to breathe and change the shredded newspaper about every two months.
- The red wigglers need a dark container to live in.
- Feed your red wigglers kitchen scraps such as banana peels, lettuce, apple cores, etc. (I've been told not to use yams or sweet potatoes since they give off a gas when decomposing).
That's pretty much all there is to do! I'll be keeping my worm composter inside the house since our Arizona summers are to extreme as well as our winters will have temps that are too cold for the red wiggler worms to survive. The red wiggler worms need a fairly consistent temperature to thrive. I can't wait for some worm casting tea!