I ventured into the worm bins this morning to add some vegetable peels from last night’s meal preparations. There certainly are a lot of worms in them — red crawly wiggly worms. I was a bit taken aback to find a dozen or so clinging to the inside of the lid of one of the boxes, so that when I removed the lid a few of them fell on the floor. Ewwww. I picked them up and threw them back in, took a deep breath and reminded myself that they are my pets, that worm composting is good for the environment, that worm compost will make my flowers grow like crazy. Still, it was a bit more than I was ready to handle first thing in the morning. I was far more tentative about removing the lid of the second box.
Once I regained my composure, I realized what the problem is. The material at the bottom of the bin was too soggy, and anaerobic. Most of the bedding has been transformed in to dark rich compost. I tore up strips of newspaper and threw them in; they’ll soak up some of the liquid, and add much needed carbon to the mix. I stirred things around a bit with a trowel, hoping that I wasn’t squishing too many worms in the process. There’s still quite a bit of plant material in them that still needs to decompose, but I can see that the time is nearly at hand to separate worms from worm poo. Now THAT will be an adventure.
If my boundless enthusiasm has inspired you to try it for yourself, you can buy worms & supplies at Cathy’s Crawly Composters in Bradford (she does travel to Toronto frequently), or Vermitech Systems at the far end of the Beach.
POLLENATRIX 