14. VOLUNTEERS AND WORMS

David and the biggest Sweet Potato I have ever seen

There are two types of people that normally visit an Eco community.  There are volunteers (they normally stay for free, but bring their own food) and in exchange, they help and learn about the community and the things we do.  Volunteers often visit a community with the intent of joining the/a community as some stage. 


We currently have two young American volunteers, Melissa and David. They have been helping me a great deal with the garden. We are planting seedling and seeds, making cutting and generally just planting plants all over the garden, soon we will have enough food to cater for the other group of visitor, namely wwoofers. 

Melissa (right) and David helping me make new mulch beds

Wwoofers (World wide opportunities on Organic farms) stay and eat for free, both groups come from all around the world (including South Africa, we would actually love to see more local people take an interest). They either have experience in alternative lifestyles or they want to learn more about it. The wwoofers obviously do more of the physical work, because they stay and eat for free. Wwoofer does not often join a community, their aim is more to work their way around the world. What a wonderful and affordable way to travel, see the world and learn new skills. If you want to know more about wwoofer or are interested in becoming one, here is a link to their website -  http://www.wwoof.org  


The worm farm, is actually not a whole farm full or worms (earth worms), just something the size of a bathtub, full of them. The reason for a worm farm is two fold. Firstly your catch the worm "tea", which is like a concentrated liquid compost. Secondly you can also use some of the compost from inside the bath, but first you have to separate the worms from the compost. The process goes like this, you scoop out little heaps of the compost, the worms do not like the sun, so the automatically crawl to the bottom and you scoop the compost from the top of these heaps, go back later and do the same until you only have worm left, which you put back in the bath.  The worm farm is also a great form of waste disposal, you can feed all your left over food (accept for citrus and onions) to the worms, they love it! Our worm farm is up and running and already producing tea for the new plants. 

Riaan "havesting" from the worm farm

Melissa got all creative and cooked lunch, time to go and eat..