Apartment homesteading?

[Alphaville]

I'm sure I read somewhere that people tend to keep them under their beds because they can generate a reasonable amount of heat.

and they eat their own poops too!

[Alphaville]

sssssssso... i think i'll raise my worms in polypro bags for starters. they're somewhat breathable, can be easily opened or closed, can be placed on a plant saucer or tray to catch excess effluent... no sweat.

i'll see about "bins" later.



lmao

[white belt]

My only concern with using those bags would be the worm bedding drying out. It may not be as as much of an issue if you have a lot of moisture retaining material (dirt, cardboard, etc) in combination with relatively wet food scraps.

The worms will let you know if conditions are amiss because they will en masse attempt to escape. Ideally you can set up your system in such a way where you make it harder for the worms to escape so you will catch the first few trailblazers in time to correct conditions to save the rest of the herd.

[Alphaville]

they are deep in the bag right now, where it's mucky, with a bunch of straw and stuff. it's not an ikea bag at the moment, it's more like something to carry 25lb potatoes or something, narrower but taller. it seeps at the bottom, im sure it breathes, but it's not ultrapermeable.

i mean, purchased worms come in a similar type of bag: https://unclejimswormfarm.com/product/c ... ing-worms/

and if you look at some commercial worm farms it's basically a gunny sack /cloth bag with a frame to bamboozle the unwary: https://unclejimswormfarm.com/product/i ... -worm-bag/
i mean, seems very well stitched, but it's basically canvas? actually no, it says "nylon oxford". so synthetic as well.

the ikea bag at 19 gal is same size as a plastic bin but can be folded away etc.plus i have extras. i'll play by ear...

and yeah i feed them wet stuff. my main veg waste is coffee and tea.

added bedding (eg paper towels) also goes in damp,p (foret soaked then reasonably squeezed)

how are your worms doing? my wife just started talking to ours

[white belt]

how are your worms doing? my wife just started talking to ours

My worms are doing fine. The only time they have issues is if I go a week without feeding them or the bedding gets too dry, so I pretty much feed them once a week and sometimes mist them in between feedings. I’m feeding them primarily banana peels and egg shells, with the occasional expired spinach. I suspect the moisture content of all of those are relatively low. I also add some damp carbon material like egg cartons or paper every feeding or 2.

My projects are on a bit of a hiatus but I plan on picking things back up this summer when I’m established in my new area. I’d like to get microgreens going on a constant rotation and establish a proof of concept for mushrooms.

I also have the Asian watermeal (Wolffia arrhiza) growing in a container on my windowsill, but I haven’t figured out how it quite fits into the system yet. I’d need to scale it up a lot to get any useful yield.

[Alphaville]

@wb

nice! i think i have the opposite problem--too wet! so started to add used paper towels, that sort of thing, in dry form (we buy the brown hippy kind, no bleach etc).

so you planning to move the worms with you? or start from scratch after moving?

i've put microgreens on hold for a bit. instead focusing on bicycles right now, since post-vaccine we'll circulate again: lots of repairs, part swaps, a new build in the works, etc., takes up all of my workbench

(also i'm getting cheap arugula at trader joe's, which reduces the incentive to grow salad. but i'll get to it eventually.)

the water lentil, yeah, needs a pond or something,

yeast i think holds more promise at kitchen scale. and not exactly for nutrition, but i'm doing a gallon of hard apple cider with champagne yeast: looks promising. but of course i plan to eat the lees, not just drink the booze.

[white belt]

@Alphaville

The plan right now is to move the worms. The easiest way might be to just stick the bin on the passenger seat of my Uhaul while I drive it. They should be fine with food and moisture, but they apparently don't like vibrations.

Another rabbithole I've gone down today is that of goats on the apartment/urban homestead scale. I know this violates your rule of a solution that can fit inside an apartment with no outdoor space, however I think there are still options since I've seen multiple instances of people raising goats in tiny backyards on urban lots.

First, 2 video examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCPKRc2Dpqk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yYO4L2vegE

I'm mostly interested in dairy goats due to favorable FCR and it seems a highly recommended breed is the nigerian dwarf goat. These produce a lot of milk efficiently and are comparable in size to large dogs. Since they are herd animals you need to keep at least 2 does and will have to coordinate to mate them with stud once a year.

Here is a breakdown of cost data from one source (not permaculture/systems thinking): https://littleavalonfarm.com/how-much-d ... k-at-home/

Basically, the idea is that the goats can serve to consume all of the organic waste from a vegetable garden, in other words they are consuming stuff that would go to the compost pile. Eventually you are still going to end up with compost in the form of goat manure.

Inputs
-organic garden waste
-wild forage
-supplemental minerals/vitamins
-grain? (mixed info regarding if necessary with sufficient forage)

Outputs
-goat milk
-fertilizer
-companionship/entertainment

Novella Carpenter complains that it is difficult to source enough forage for the goats, however I think this is where a systems approach and some social capital might help. It should be relatively easy to partner with neighbors or a local landscaping/tree business as sources of forage. Additionally, since goats are dog sized and can be walked on leashes, it's also easy to walk them down to a local park/abandoned lot/overgrown area to forage.

Goats are quite labor intensive compared to plants and other forms of livestock previously mentioned like quail, however I see the tradeoff being that they are a lot closer to companion animals. I think of it as a much more productive alternative to owning a dog with a lot of the same cuddly/companionship benefits. Like a dog, I wouldn't go in on keeping goats unless I had at least one other person (partner, roommate, etc) to help care for the goats.

Even in my current small apartment with container garden, I've already found that I'm generating way more organic waste than I can even efficiently utilize. Compost worms just can't handle a ton of volume, and I'm regularly trimming invasive vines/weeds around my container garden. Traditional compost piles are slow and require a lot of outdoor space which might not always be feasible in an urban environment. I like the idea of adding another "decomposer" to the mix. This isn't feasible for me in the immediate future, but I'm adding it to my list of possibilities for my ERE urban homestead project once I leave salaryman employment.

Edit: Legality is an issue in some jurisdictions, though goats have become quite popular over the past few years as pets. Even if livestock are forbidden, I suspect in some areas you might able to argue they are pets since you are walking them on a leash like dogs.

[Alphaville]

@Alphaville

The plan right now is to move the worms. The easiest way might be to just stick the bin on the passenger seat of my Uhaul while I drive it. They should be fine with food and moisture, but they apparently don't like vibrations.

Another rabbithole I've gone down today is that of goats on the apartment/urban homestead scale. I know this violates your rule of a solution that can fit inside an apartment with no outdoor space, however I think there are still options since I've seen multiple instances of people raising goats in tiny backyards on urban lots.

well! that's my rule not your rule. if you have a yard--tiny goats might be awesome! i did look into nigerian goats for my cabin but could not find a nearby supplier. a warning though, goats will eat anything with fiber on it hahahaha. they will jump on your car to get to a tree. my truck hood used to have the scars to prove it (not from nigerians). also if you have a nearby tractor supply or feed store you can always supplement their diet should garbage not suffice.

eta: and to repost:



also it's encouraging to hear you'll move the worms. im keeping mine in the gunny sack and am wary on developing further. but if you find them movable, i think i can find a way too. it's good to have examples of people doing things to consider how one might do that as well.

keep diggin that rabbithole man! discovery requires experimentation... hail hydra!

[Qazwer]

@wb - curious about social capital in the system - what would you do with the goats if you deploy?
I can see somebody else taking in a dog but it might be a harder sell to convince someone to watch your dog sized goat

[Alphaville]

I can see somebody else taking in a dog but it might be a harder sell to convince someone to watch your dog sized goat

i know this was not for me but tiny goats are cuties. they might need to be walked with a little diaper cuz they excrete as they go-- they're herbivores not predators. llamas do poop in defined piles though lol, for some reason.

the main purpose of a goat is milk so you need to find someone to milk her daily. mmmm goat milk! goat cheese!!

[white belt]

@Qazwher

Haven’t you heard? We are finally accepting our 2nd place trophy for the War in Afghanistan

Like I said, animal husbandry requires a lot more commitment than growing plants or mushrooms. I could see a goat scenario working out if I am living with other eco-minded people (roommate, girlfriend, etc) who contribute to chores on the homestead in exchange for sharing in the yields. Even so, it falls under the category of advanced homestead technique that I likely won’t implement until after I leave full-time employment.*


*= I will note that I’m designing my homestead solutions so they are maintainable even if someone is working full time. In the case of dairy goats, it probably involves 30 min of milking every morning and maybe a 30 min walk in the evening, so very doable even for someone working an office job (cleaning pen and prolonged tasks would be saved for weekends). Of course, it doesn’t leave room for vacations or other life events, which is why I would want a second person contributing as well. This is fine because 2 goats would yield slightly over 2 gallons of milk a week, which is about 8x the dairy I currently consume (right now I only eat a quart of yogurt a week, but I’d likely increase my consumption of yogurt/cheese/milk if it was produced on site).

[Alphaville]

i think i create too many discards for a worm bin. between the daily coffee and tea alone, plus the end bits of zucchini, eggs shells, bell pepper stems/cores, cilantro stems, etc, it's less than a pint a day... maybe half a gallon per week?

not sure anymore i should be insourcing worm castings in my limited space, but the experiment continues for the sake of learning, i.e., "educational hobby".

[white belt]

@Alphaville

How many worms did you start out with? The figure I’ve seen online is worms can handle .5 lbs of waste per pound (1000 worms) daily.

But yes, the worms don’t work all that quickly. If you have a lot of organic waste you might not be able to process it all unless you create multiple bins and grow your worm population.

[Alphaville]

The figure I’ve seen online is worms can handle .5 lbs of waste per pound (1000 worms) daily.

i hadn't found a ton of figures, so thanks for that number.

mostly i saw/remembered advice like "feed them less than you think..." umm... lol

so, yeah, started with 1k. originally gave them a ton of eggshells i had stashed. will have to regulate. might have to pretreat scraps through food processor to help them.... i just dont like to dirty up the food processor, haha.

but good rule of thumb, and will start weighing. wet weight i assume? eg coffee grounds and tea leaves and such.

[white belt]

I was referencing this page: https://unclejimswormfarm.com/how-much- ... ing-worms/

The thing I’ve noticed with eggshells is that the worms do take longer to work through them. I crush the shells into smaller pieces before adding them to the bin. I’ve also heard that some people blend up all of their scraps for faster worm processing, but that is more work.

I feed them once a week usually, so I have a small food waste container with charcoal filter to keep scraps in during the week. You can also put scraps in the fridge or freezer to store them in between feedings.

[Alphaville]

I feed them once a week usually,

so 3.5lb/week then?

im trying to develop a minimal maintenance approach where i have to do mostly zilch...

eta: because my most limited/valuable resource is focus/attention.

in other words those uncle jim instructions seem for dedicated people. e.g. go check if the worms found the food? they're worms! if they can't find their food for themselves then i'm at loss.

this a long way to say maybe i need to design something to automate parts of this, because i want the worms but with less care... would like them to work a bit like a septic tank maybe... wherein as long as you don't kill them with chemicals, the microbes just do their thing.

eta2: you seem to have develop a good/easy flow though, yes?

[white belt]

Yeah my easy flow is I feed them once a week by adding the scraps and some damp cardboard or paper (usually Sunday). If it’s particularly dry then I might spray the bin midweek. If something is going wrong then the worms will let me know by attempting to escape. Usually I don’t have any issues if I follow the previous 2 steps though.

The food weights are just a ballpark estimate, I don’t actually weigh my scraps. I think that article is more aimed towards new people who are still trying to establish their bins. Once the bin is established it’s pretty self-regulating.

Edit: At some point I will have to sift out the castings, but my bin has been going for 6+ months and the worms seem fine, so I’m thinking that is a once or twice a year thing.

[Alphaville]

Edit: At some point I will have to sift out the castings, but my bin has been going for 6+ months and the worms seem fine, so I’m thinking that is a once or twice a year thing.

yeah... the... i was reading the manual for one of the bins (the one invented by the veteran, it's a nylon canvas funnel in a frame) and it says you get castings after 4-6 months.

my issue with this is that i can buy black gold (great potting soil with worm castings) for $16 a big bag, and how much should i invest in this process... maybe it's not essential for me at my scale.

i know some people who grow their worms in a little pit next to their house at the end of one of their rain gutters. it's a worm fiesta there, but easier in a house than in a tiny apartment. in an apartment one has to calibrate for size and look carefully at returns per cubic foot of space, basically. there isn't a "big other" outside of 4 walls and maybe a small balcony...

im getting better results/payoff with microbes/fermentation (both yogurt and apple cider. need to resume cabbage soon).

jury still out on worm-keeping for me... will try low-cost solutions, and definitely a big no on pricey worm towers.

my city doesn't collect compost from civilians (unlike more advanced places), but some operations gather green waste from businesses.

mulling all of this over...

[white belt]

As indicated earlier, I think there is some value in just turning your waste streams into something productive from a systems perspective. The worm bin is a small scale, but I forces one to account for inputs and outputs, which might lead to some “eureka” moments in other areas of life.

I think microgreens pair very well with a worm bin. Basically you can use the worm castings as fertilizer for the microgreens, then you can feed the microgreens roots back to the worms after harvesting. Herbs or leafy vegetables should be easy to grow in containers with the help of the castings as well. You have a balcony so the possibilities are endless.

Being able to go to a store and buy fertilizer is different in kind than having a constant supply of fertilizer, as discussed in all the WL threads. I think of it like I have my own little produce market if I have a supply of seeds, containers, fertilizer, and the skill to grow things.

I really don’t think the worms take up much space considering you can place your bin pretty much anywhere (see my earlier pics that show my large bin and 3 microgreens trays with grow lights taking up 2 shelves). I’m in a 300 sqft studio and found a spot for them.

A bigger issue I found is that I actually output way more than I can put back into my system. That’s why I put the pause on the pee bucket, because I just didn’t have enough green stuff around to add the fertilizer to unless I just want to dump it on random grass or trees (still probably better than using all that water to flush and killing fish with all the nitrogen). I think that’s a sign that my current system isn’t producing enough.

Edit: I’m kinda curious what the rest of your system looks like if you don’t think you can manage ~10 min once a week of maintenance and a few square feet of space for the worms.

[Alphaville]

As indicated earlier, I think there is some value in just turning your waste streams into something productive from a systems perspective. The worm bin is a small scale, but I forces one to account for inputs and outputs, which might lead to some “eureka” moments in other areas of life.

yes of course, hence "educational hobby" as mentioned above. food supply? different story

but i was trained in biology, studied rainforest ecosystems in person, and lived in an actual ranch, so maybe not a big educational payoff for me at this point.

nevertheless i do value small experiments, so i'll continue this and see for experimentation's sake.

(also eureka moment might be "i don't really need this.")

I think microgreens pair very well with a worm bin. Basically you can use the worm castings as fertilizer for the microgreens, then you can feed the microgreens roots back to the worms after harvesting. Herbs or leafy vegetables should be easy to grow in containers with the help of the castings as well. You have a balcony so the possibilities are endless.

my balcony is not endless, due to pollution and birds, i.e. not a clean environment for microgreens. anything from traffic to seasonal forest fires will deposit soot. and zoonosis is real--sprouts can harbor stuff.

(eta: but im trying to sort out the space for indoor microgreens, actually)

for potted plants, im buying cheap good dirt (not fertilizer). just a seasonal bicycle ride away and it's done.

but yes, decomposing and reusing discards is what nature does. the question is if the decomposition phase has to happen inside my 4 walls. i am not sure about that.

also, maybe bokashi could work better than worms at my scale, since i'm good with microbes. but don't know yet. too many options/variables.

Being able to go to a store and buy fertilizer is different in kind than having a constant supply of fertilizer, as discussed in all the WL threads. I think of it like I have my own little produce market if I have a supply of seeds, containers, fertilizer, and the skill to grow things.

threads im trying to avoid like the plague for a number of reasons

i get the little produce market idea, more like a produce farm actually, but here it's only at toy level with very limited outputs, hence i'm wondering if worth it (for me) to do the entire carbon/nitrogen/phosphorus cycle here, or if it's more worth it for me to just purchase inputs (dirt) and just perform the anabolic phase so to speak.

of course it's different to buy, but again the question is if the difference counts for me. not trying to solve this apriori/by theory/someone's rules, but by practical observation.

i'm still getting compost and worm castings, just not made by my own private compost pile. eta: maybe i can look for something more local than black gold

I really don’t think the worms take up much space considering you can place your bin pretty much anywhere (see my earlier pics that show my large bin and 3 microgreens trays with grow lights taking up 2 shelves). I’m in a 300 sqft studio and found a spot for them.

i tried when i brought in to keep the worms indoors. and they have a musty smell-- as they should. but i couldn't sleep with the musty smell, it messes with my sensory input, and i value good sleep above most things. plus if something is going wrong i gotta be able to smell it, not have it masked by worms. my nose is my sentry--i'm this household's guard dog, and that takes priority over other concerns.

A bigger issue I found is that I actually output way more than I can put back into my system. That’s why I put the pause on the pee bucket, because I just didn’t have enough green stuff around to add the fertilizer to unless I just want to dump it on random grass or trees (still probably better than using all that water to flush and killing fish with all the nitrogen). I think that’s a sign that my current system isn’t producing enough.

your system has a capacity limit due to size. you have no cesspool/wetlands. hence in space, where similar constraints exist, advanced filtering and catalytic systems (specially engineered chemical plants) are utilized to purify water.

i also might not be able to achieve a balanced system with my worms, except as, well, educational toys i don't really need in the sense that i already know how ecosystems operate.

but for the sake of tinkering,and small experiments, i'll continue this one for now, and find out what i may, which is yet undetermined (as true experiments are).

i really appreciate the discussion, as it helps me hash out these thoughts.

--

eta, further: i'm thinking if it's later proven unworkable to decompose organic matter within my 4 walls, i might be able to find a local composter that could welcome my materials towards their pile. e.g. neighborhood gardens. which would point to the importance of neighborhood for apartment dwellers. i.e., apartments are not space stations.