My urban gardening system has been expanded this week. Now it includes an additional pot for growing English Thyme. The worms have multiplied significantly within their condo due to my generous garbage scraps. So to thin out the surplus population a bit, I have transplanted roughly 20 worms into each of the two herb pots. These little herb pots are in a sense like small islands or worlds unto themselves. Each pot has a relatively simple ecology with the herbs(as trees), the worms(as animals), and an assortment of soil borne micro-organisms. Aside from inputs of light and water, these tiny ecosystems are effectively cut off from the rest of the biosphere. The worm colonists themselves were fairly quick to scramble into the loamy potting soil. With such low numbers per pot, there simply isn't enough genetic diversity within the worm population to be self-sustaining. Thus new worms will have to brought in from the worm condo to periodically "freshen up" the gene pools of the Herb islands.
On another front, I have realized that a little known campaign in NYC to reduce the waste of plastic shopping bags have been wildly successful. Basically, a company took disposable plastic bags which were thrown away as garbage and recycled them into durable, re-usable "designer" shopping bags. These bags are then sold for between 1 to 2 dollars to trendy shoppers. I shelled out a dollar in hard currency and bought one of them. The bag was quite trendy-looking to be sure. But more importantly, they were very well made and held-up to heavy loads of groceries without any problems. Each designer tote has the carrying capacity of a large brown paper grocery bag. When in a hurry, an empty tote bag can be folded up into a pack smaller in area than a piece of printer paper folded in half. When shopping and looking around, I have noticed that there has been a recent surge in the usage of these bags. People apparently seem to be switching to trendy and re-usable shopping bags in very large numbers here in NYC. The average U.S consumer throws away about 30lbs of plastic bags per year, plastics, being a derivative product of oil, is a limited resource that should be re-used as much as possible. The trend of plastics conservation, if continued would be a very positive thing for the city and the country. To get your own "designer", re-usable grocery bag, go to
EcoBags.
My urban gardening system has been expanded this week. Now it includes an additional pot for growing English Thyme. The worms have multiplied significantly within their condo due to my generous garbage scraps. So to thin out the surplus population a bit, I have transplanted roughly 20 worms into each of the two herb pots. These little herb pots are in a sense like small islands or worlds unto themselves. Each pot has a relatively simple ecology with the herbs(as trees), the worms(as animals), and an assortment of soil borne micro-organisms. Aside from inputs of light and water, these tiny ecosystems are effectively cut off from the rest of the biosphere. The worm colonists themselves were fairly quick to scramble into the loamy potting soil. With such low numbers per pot, there simply isn't enough genetic diversity within the worm population to be self-sustaining. Thus new worms will have to brought in from the worm condo to periodically "freshen up" the gene pools of the Herb islands.
On another front, I have realized that a little known campaign in NYC to reduce the waste of plastic shopping bags have been wildly successful. Basically, a company took disposable plastic bags which were thrown away as garbage and recycled them into durable, re-usable "designer" shopping bags. These bags are then sold for between 1 to 2 dollars to trendy shoppers. I shelled out a dollar in hard currency and bought one of them. The bag was quite trendy-looking to be sure. But more importantly, they were very well made and held-up to heavy loads of groceries without any problems. Each designer tote has the carrying capacity of a large brown paper grocery bag. When in a hurry, an empty tote bag can be folded up into a pack smaller in area than a piece of printer paper folded in half. When shopping and looking around, I have noticed that there has been a recent surge in the usage of these bags. People apparently seem to be switching to trendy and re-usable shopping bags in very large numbers here in NYC. The average U.S consumer throws away about 30lbs of plastic bags per year, plastics, being a derivative product of oil, is a limited resource that should be re-used as much as possible. The trend of plastics conservation, if continued would be a very positive thing for the city and the country. To get your own "designer", re-usable grocery bag, go to EcoBags.
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