The Worms Crawl In, the Worms Crawl Out . . .

I’ve discovered another composting tactic: worms! With a worm bin, I can enlist hundreds of worms to do my composting for me! I found several ideas for make-it-yourself worm bins on the internet, but I decided to go with the more attractive, expensive model with the spigot for worm tea (hey, I had a coupon for money off!) Rather glad I did. I had read that worm bins can be set up inside or out, but come to find out that outside means out of direct sun, out of wind, out of rain, and ideally between 40 and 80 degrees. If I had a garage, that might have worked, but we have a carport, so the worm bin is in my kitchen and now part of my decor.

Word of advice: don’t order your worms and worm bin on the same day from different catalogs just so you can use two different coupons. Wait until your worm bin arrives or you may have worms and nowhere to put them. Voice of experience. Also, be prepared with newspaper. If, like me, you get your news on the internet to save trees and money, you may have to rely on your, uh, less environmentally conscious neighbors. Or do what I did and help yourself to a big stack of the freebies at the grocery store. The instructions also called for adding some finished compost to the bedding. Thanks to my tumbler, I had the compost. Other people might not have such easy access.

It all worked out, though. I now have worms living happily in a corner of my kitchen. If there is any smell, I haven’t noticed. They are hard at work eating my garbage, but not all of it. I still have garbage left over that is going into the tumbling composter (dang! I was planning on letting that compost finish its thing and now I have it working again!) The one problem I have with my worms is that they’re too picky. They like their food cut into small pieces (have you ever tried convincing your significant other that he should cut his banana peel into little pieces for the sake of worms?) Second option is to cook the garbage in the microwave to soften it up. But I’m trying to avoid using any extra energy, so that doesn’t seem to be such a good option, either. Third option is to freeze the garbage and then let it thaw. I may try that. So far, the worms have been getting their banana peels fresh and whole, but they haven’t been making great headway, either. Guess I do need to give them a helping hand.

[More information on vermicomposting. With a hat tip to Sharon Astyx for the link]

So far, so good. . . I rather like lifting the lid to the worm bin and seeing all those little red bodies hard at work. Rather like having an army of slaves!