Frugal Living Tips

Vermicompost reused as seedling mix

by Natalie E. Rowles
(Pinetown KZN S.A.)

Yesterday my gardener Eric, and I dug out half of the shelter's 17 year old vermicompost (topsoil) for use as a very good and friable seedling compost to plant my new Livingseeds seeds in. This new source of seedling compost-soil is still viable for giving life to these heirloom seeds for a long time. Hundreds of very big and long composting earthworms (Eisenia Fetida) were also collected for re-use in my other wormeries, which came out of this long bed in the shelter which previously was a sweet potato bed.

We emptied the wormeries' year old vermi-compost into this long emptied shelter bed, and replaced the seedling compost into these empty wormeries, making it so much easier for me to start sowing seeds now for Spring from this seedling soil. We also replanted the sweet potato vines into this new vermi-compost soil, giving new life to the sweet potato bed for years to come, as we left the existing worms inside this soil. Every week we will mulch this bed with fresh grass cuttings to keep the moisture in, saving water, but also to feed the worms inside this bed.

I expect to harvest fresh and big sweet potatoes in about four months' time from this bed, which will give me food crops for years again.

We will continue doing this to the whole old sweet potato bed, the same way as above. Then we will tackle the other two long beds inside the shelter as well, which have strawberry plants growing in them for two years now, which need replanting into new vermi-compost soil as well.

My old shelter also needs a complete replacement with new poles and shade-net too, which we will do after finishing off all the beds.

Creating topsoil like this, is an on-going process in my garden, which I use for filling beds as above, as well as filling holes with this vermi-soil,which were previously washed out from heavy rainfall during the year. By using my bio-waste I created this topsoil, which is worth it's weight in gold, for planting food crops in, and then years later for filler soil as mentioned above, saving money in the long run too.