Monday, March 16, 2015

Tiny pets and such


How do you have hundreds (maybe thousands or even millions) of pets when you live in a tiny space? Well you have very tiny pets of course. Here's a few of the critters in my house.

 Above are my two SCOBY's (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) that produce gallons of kombucha for me to drink. And there very well may be millions of little critters in those floating layers if I got out a microscope. But they all float nicely in the tops of two gallon jugs.


Then of course there are my pet worms. We've discussed them before. Hopefully they continue to multiply and will soon be in several kinds and stages of compost around here.


Then there's the tiny farming I can do. Like growing chia and alfalfa sprouts to eat. Above are chia sprouts after we ate most of them out of the dish. Below you can see them when they were just starting to sprout.




Below are alfalfa sprouts which grow well in a jar and don't need the open terra cotta dish like chia seeds. I can grow thousands of these little sprouts every week and and them to salads and other dishes. I'd like to get a few more herbs growing and maybe a few other things like ginger as well so I can buy less of my food from the grocery store. We'll see if I get around to starting all those kinds of things... But for now, my tiny house is full of lots of kinds of tiny life. And I like it that way.

3 comments:

  1. Very creative post. :)

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  2. I love sprouts ... especially in wraps! I usually have three jars going at a time: red clover, alfalfa and sunflower. =9 I haven't ventured into making kombucha. Do you have a "recipe" that you can share? I also love Kombucha but usually just buy "Bucha" from the store. =\ You've also inspired me to get worms for kitchen composting. Can you share how you do that, please? I'm assuming that would work with juicing pulp as well? I have a compost tumbler but that's across the yard and my scraps usually mold before I get them out there. =(

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    Replies
    1. There are a lot of good blogs with info on kombucha. I personally like this ladies posts and you can follow her instructions. http://wellnessmama.com/8638/continuous-brew-kombucha/

      Worms are easy. Get a bin, small tub, five gallon bucket, or any plastic container that will fit in the space you have. They need a dark location, so under a shelf or in a cupboard works well. Drill small holes in the sides so they can get air. Shred some newspaper (or paper from a shredder if you have that) into the bottom. Add worms. Add any kitchen scraps that you want them to eat. The smaller the pieces go in, the faster the worms will eat them up. As long as you don't add anything really wet, there should be no odor. Just a damp earthy smell when you pick up the lid. If you don't add anything for a long time and it's warm, they could all dry up and die and if you let it fill up with water, they will drown. If you get it way too hot, they will try to crawl out. But if kept in a dark place at anything from just above freezing to about 80 degrees, they will just sit in there and munch away on your garbage.

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