A few months ago, I planted some Aloe ferox seeds into germination bags, and two weeks ago, I started bagging out these seedlings into individual bags and small pots that I had available. Since then, the plants and plant roots had established well enough for these little seedlings to go out into the open air where they could get the full sun that they need in order to thrive.
From here on out, the intervals between watering these plants will increase, until they are for the biggest part dependent only on natural water such as moisture in the air as well as rainwater. They will still receive the very occasional watering if the soil in the bags becomes excessively dry - but this is only because they are currently still in bags and as such wont be able to source water from the natural soil. This of course will change once the plants are big enough to be planted directly into the soil.
Although the ones I planted in bags were looking good, the majority of the ones I planted into the little pots were not as fortunate - But this was due to the dogs having a a go at the plants, not sure if they were chasing something that was seeking shelter in-between the plants, or if the dogs were just going out of their way to be complete and utter assholes. Either or, I will just plant whatever seedlings survived into bags as well, along with the remainder of the seedlings still in the germination bags, and move them out with the rest of the aloe ferox as soon as they are ready.
Seeing that the recent rain has caused everything that shouldn't be growing, to hop into overdrive, it was necessary for me to weed as I was going, making space for more plants to be packed for now.
As I pulled out the weeds I simply walked them over to the wormbin that I started clearing out yesterday, and placed them over the surface of the soil inside as a mulching.
This mulching will help serve the bin in many ways. Firstly it will help isolate the soil inside the worm farm against direct sunlight, and aid the soil to maintain a more conducive temperature. secondly, it will help the worm bin retain water, and stop mass evaporation, and lastly, as it decomposes, it will feed back into the worm-bin.
I managed to cover about half of the top surface today, and will carry on weeding and mulching in the morning.
Having a look at the worm-farm a bit more closer, I was very excited to see that the earth inside was thoroughly alive with beneficial organisms and worms, and when you looked closely you could see that what looks like normal topsoil from a distance, was at this point largely worm-castings.
I also noticed that the seepage from the worm bin, had also filled up high enough in the base rock filtration to reach the level of the outlet pipe, this means that I will be able to harvest my very first black fertilizer from this worm-bin soon.
To give you an idea of what the worm bin would look like if you could cross section it, I have made a very rough sketch of the simplistic inner workings.
All liquid from decaying worm-food as well as the liquid in the secretions from the worms, basically flows very slowly through the worm casting rich soil,where it pics up healthy soil bacteria as well as additional nutrients, the liquid then moves through some coarse river sand and then to the base of the bin that is laid out with rocks - here the water collects until it reaches the level of the outlet pipe, and from there it will slowly trickle out.
My next task is obviously to dig a hole underneath the outlet pipe on the outside of the bin so that I can place a collection bucket, in order to harvest this amazing fertilizer.
This then in turn can be used on the various crops on the farm, and any excess of this could very easily be sold or gifted to other small scale farmers that is looking for natural alternatives to improve the soil health of their farm and want to increase plant production while decreasing the time that the crops under less favorable soil conditions would normally take to bare their first produce.
