Worms, Glorious Worms.

People just don’t appreciate worms the way they should. Worms are glorious creatures.  And life as we know it would be very different without them. Darwin called them the “ploughs of the earth”, and some scientists believe that earthworms are responsible for much of the rich topsoil of the U.S. and the world.

On average, there are 23 earthworms per square foot of soil in America.  That’s 1 million an acre.

Earthworms actually eat their way through the soil.  They eat bacteria and leave “castings” (worm poop).  They aerate the soil just by eating their way through it, allowing more water and air to penetrate.

You can even make “worm tea”.  It’s really good — but not for drinking.   It’s a really good fertilizer.

Worms have been around for half a billion years.  Although most are only a few inches long, some species can reach 22′ (that’s FEET).   New Zealand has a worm that glows in the dark.  Oregon has a worm that smells like lilies when it’s handled.

Although most of our soils would be poorer without the earthworm, some places, such as parts of the northern US, haven’t had earthworms since the glaciers pushed them all south.  Now they’re having troubles with worms being introduced into an ecology that evovled to get along without them.

Worms, Glorious Worms.  (Sing along with me!)  They are also a great form of composting, since they break down organic matter.  And that’s where our worm bin comes in.

We’ve had a worm bin for a while. Originally, we were concerned that it would attract critters (food waste stored outdoors tends to do that), that it would smell bad, and that it would take a lot of work.  None of those concerns were founded.  It’s odorless, low maintenance and hasn’t been any problem with unwanted intruders like rats or possums or raccoons.

You can’t just put any sort of food into the bin.  No meat, fish or citrus products, for example.   It’s best to keep out anything with fat (like avacado).   And although we do allow the odd potato peel, we try to keep that to a minimum (we have no basis for that except that Sherry’s grandmother once told her not to put potato in the compost).   And we don’t put plate scrapings in the bin, either (fat, spice, etc).  Just the peelings, hulls, rims, etc that are leftover from food preparation.

As you can see from the top photo, our bin has 4 sections and a top.  It works like this:

The bottom section is for drainage. Whatever liquid is produced seeps into the bottom section, which is tilted toward the side with the faucet.  Think of it as milking earthworms.  Once in a while, you open the faucet and drain out the liquid gold.  It’s great fertilizer.

The other three sections are for the worms and the waste material.  We only do one section at a time, unless we are transferring the worms from a full section to an empty one (they transfer themselves, really – we just encourage them).

Take a section.  Put down a bit of bedding.  The worm stores (no kidding – retail worm stores) sell coconut shavings, but shredded paper works just fine.  We shred our documents anyway, so this is another good way to recycle.  Just a thin layer of shredded paper.  It’s just to keep the “dirt” from falling through the holes.

Then add the vegetable waste you want to be composted.  If  we’re starting from scratch with new worms, we put the waste in a blender and pulverize it.  The finer the texture, the easier it is for the worms to digest.  But you only need to do this the first time, or if you have a lot of vegetable scrap.  There’s just the two of us, so we don’t generate that much scrap (though we are vegetarians), but if you generate a lot of vegetable matter, pulverizing  would speed up the digestion process.  We do cut things into small pieces before we put them in the bin.  Worms eat more slowly in the hottest and coldest weather, by the way, so expect to feed them less during the winter.

Then add the worms (worm stores  — online).  And no, you can’t use just any worm.  The most common variety in online worm stores is Eisenia Foetida, also seen as Eisenia Fetida.

Then cover it with another thin layer of shredded paper.  We’ve found that this helps to keep down gnats and fruit flies and such.  But really… it’s not stinky or messy or anything.  No smell at all really.

When you’re ready to harvest the soil, start another tray just like you did the first one, but without the worms.  Put that tray below the one with the worms in it, and don’t add any more food to the tray with the worms.  They will slowly migrate from the soil tray above to the new tray with vegetable scraps below.  Then you can get the soil.  There may be a few worms left in the soil.  Check it just to be sure.  You can either cull them out (maybe a wire mesh  “shaker”) or just leave them and let them go to wherever you’re using the new soil.  Can’t hurt.  The worm population sort of regulates itself.  You wouldn’t want to lose a bunch of worms that way, but a few won’t make a difference.

That’s it.  Worm Farming 101.  There’s a whole culture built around worm farming.    Worms  make neat pets.  You can leave home for a week or two and not worry about them as long as you feed them before you leave.  They also make good wedding gifts (Hey, it was on their registry list!).

Speaking of worm culture (vermiculture), check these out:  VermiTechnology;  Worm Digest.

Worms, Glorious Worms. (Are you singing?)

Filed under: Our Garden, Soil Amendment