Apartment Composting and vermiculture

*Phew* Super busy Memorial Day weekend has come and gone. I'm a little sunburned and been all over the state to parties, campgrounds, and orchards. I played a part in a scavenger hunt that ended in two wonderful friends get engaged (Congrats Mel and Jill!). All in all, a very good weekend.

This morning out running some errands I picked up some organic liquid fertilizers. Truth be told I have not really fertilized the soil in all the years I've been here. Well, I take that back. I have in my own way. The dirty water from my fish tanks has been used as planting grey water ever since we first moved to the apartment. The poor plants have done admirably with this very watered down organic fertilizer, but let's face it, they were in need of some love. But I digress, this year I had told myself my plants would get all the love they need.

It began with a worm and a plant rescue.
My mother, bless her brown thumb, believes in a feast or famine watering method. The plants await their end in the shadiest part of the house with either no water or a plunk into a bowl of water until the roots rot. When my father had his surgery last winter he received some get-well plants. Every time I went to the house I would inspect them and water them, and sadly lament another beautiful stalk dying a terrible death. Having had enough I decided to liberate the pots and what was left of the plants. Mom, of course was all too happy to see them go. Cut back to my apartment where I scrapped the dead and watered the rest of the little tropical house plants. I dug around in the pots to even out the plants, and interestingly enough a tiny earth worm was surviving in the soil. How? Not a clue. It was amazing that the plants were even alive, let alone the worm.

Knowing that Jay would consider it grounds for divorce if I kept worms and composting bins in the apartment I put the little guy out in the big orange tree pot on the balcony... "Who knows?" I thought, "Maybe he'll survive out there." Then I started to wonder about the little guy, the lamentable lack of growth on the little orange tree, and the idea of still wanting to compost. While I figured it might be a bad idea, I threw a bunch of vegetable and fruit scraps in the pot and covered it with dirt, gave it a little water and forgot about it... until today.

Hefting my fertilizer and dirt back up to the balcony I remembered the celery stalks and old rotten strawberries. I scraped away the dirt and they weren't there. Not a bit of roughage. I am proud to say the soil is black and made the new potting soil look pale in comparison.

I'm going to try it again. Maybe the little worm has survived and is fat and happy eating my scraps, or maybe some other insects have helped it to decompose, either way, I'm very happy with the results - I have never seen so many new shoots and leaves on that tree in it's entire life. Here's hoping the next few years will yield flowers and fruit!