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Sunday, June 7, 2009

Smelly? Where got?

I bought a large water bottle and put in 2 large fistfuls of worm castings (worm shit) and 1 tablespoon of evaporated milk. I placed it in the sun for 3 days. On Day 1, the water was cloudy and there were copious gas bubbles as the bacteria from the worm shit digested the lactose from the milk. On Day 2, the water was clear and there was a layer of curdled milk at the bottom of the bottle and layer of worm shit floating on the water surface. On Day 3, I added 10 pellets of chicken shit, which promptly disintegrated into a brown tea coloured layer at the bottom.

Yesterday, I strained the mixture through some wet tissue and diluted with about 10 litres of aged water. It was soooooooooo satisfying to see the white vapour rising from the solution in pungent waves of gaseous discharge. I sprayed all my plants and my whole family protested loudly.

I couldn't understand why.

It didn't smell bad to me. This just goes to show that the human mind is adaptable and quickly associates smells with good and bad according to the consequences that follow. For me, all the bacteria and white gaseous discharge from my solution had good consequences. They protected my plants from whitefly and mealybugs. The mixture was nutritious as the bacteria had broken down the chicken shit into a form easily absorbed by the plants. My xiang gua doubled in size overnight.

The smell was pungent... but to me, not unpleasant... like durian, like cheese, like fermented toufu. But to my family, it smelled like a cesspit. They stared at me in horror as I splashed my shirt and sprayed my hair as I sprayed my plants. And my husband asked if that smell was going to hang about his beloved wife for very long because he could not bear to hug me whilst so perfumed. Happily, it went off from me after a bath, but I did notice that no one went into the garden yesterday.

I am so happy that I am now making 80 litres of worm tea. Heh! Heh! Heh! I'm even thinking that this might be used as a crime deterrent. Ladies going home late at night could carry a dousing can and douse the assailant. Any sort of unholy desire would be quite effectively extinguished and the smell would lead you straight to whomever was about to do an unholy deed. Added to that, the bacteria would probably colonise his face effectively and he would have to cope with some unwelcome pathogens in his mouth, nose and eyes.

Gee... I am a dangerous woman.

9 comments:

Blur Ting said...

Haha, you're so cute! And so resourceful too.

Where did you get the worm casting? I poured out my entire worm bin to check on the worms yesterday. The compost looks soggy and dank, not like 'worm castings' to me.

Petunia Lee said...

I bought 3 bags from this guy on the GCS forum. He feeds his worms sawdust and his castings are very nice. $3/= a bag. Whilst I was there, I also bought his worms. Expensive though... $20/= for 100g, but since it was so convenient, I paid up.

Anonymous said...

Maybe you can patent your worm spray idea. =D

Blur Ting said...

Oh, that's great! In that case, I think those worms would be better than the ones I'm getting. Let me know how they're faring. Maybe it's time I change worms too.

Anonymous said...

Btw, Petunia, I'll like to ask if using evaporated milk with water (two tablespoons to 1.5L of water, right?) acts as a pesticide, fungicide or both? Am thinking of trying it on spider mites.

Petunia Lee said...

Fungicide only... doesn't work on spider mites. Soap rinses work on spider mites. Foam some soap in your palm and use fingers to gently rub each leaf. Rinse with water. Repeat every 3 days for 5 or 6 times. The spider mites don't come back to the same plant.

Anonymous said...

Check. Thank you.

Ivana said...

How strange to hear someone comment that someone's castings were very nice... hee hee....

Petunia Lee said...

Ivana, you shoulda seen The Husband's face when I declared that my worm shit concoction smelled goooood! Hahahahahaha!