Quick Compost Update

 After struggling to keep my "keep it outside" composting worm bin healthy and cool during the intense heat wave at the end of June and for much of July, I am pleased to say that the worms are alive and thriving!  Even in spite of the scary white-grey larva that transformed into scary black winged insects that continue to emerge on a daily basis.

one of the scary black insects living in my worm bin (sorry it's blurry!)

My housemate and I think they are some sort of wasp.  Apparently, my compost has become a little biosphere of organisms: worms, fungus, insects, and the occasional germinating seed.

new growth out of food waste!

My first video

I planted three vegetables in April: spinach, zucchini and pumpkin.  The spinach was the first to begin producing edibles, but lasted only two weeks before it bolted and became flowery and inedible.  The zucchini seed I planted straight into the ground did the best, producing a bushel of healthy zucchinis.  The zucchini seeds I coddled in pots before transplanting into the ground did not do as well. By the end of August, however, all the zucchini plants died from a strange fungal infection.  Which, I believe, has spread to the pumpkin.

The pumpkin seed I started in a pot and transplanted is the only remaining survivor.  Although infected in places, it has not given up!  The pumpkin is a vine plant.  Amazingly, the single seed turned into a sixty foot vine.  This one plant stretches from the back yard, around the corner of the house, into the side yard and is continuing to expand exponentially on top of a bush.

The pumpkin vine keeps trying to produce pumpkins, but when the fruit reach the size of a golf ball, a strange fungus begins to grow inside and the would-be pumpkins turn yellow and fall off.  But there is hope!  On top of the bush, away from the damp ground, there is one pumpkin to be that is currently the size of my fist!  If it survives, I will need to find a square of plywood to place underneath it, as the bush will surely not be able to support the weight of a full-grown pumpkin.  Check it out in the video above.