Thursday, April 26, 2007

Red Worms For Composting

I read a story about these guys on the web and how they can eat an enormous amount of vegetable waste in your composting bin. With a septic system we don't use our garbage disposal and I can't stand to send vegetable matter to the dump where they make compost and sell it back to me.

The worms are a much faster way to get good compost. So I went on line and bought a pound of them. That equals about 1,000 worms. The place where I bought them said they do them by weight rather than count. Counting out 1,000 worms would be really tough

They arrived by priority mail today. I used my pitchfork to mix up the compost bin stuff, added a bit of water and then introduced the worms to their new home. Not a whole lot of movement; probably just a little nervous about the trip and then being dumped into a new neighborhood. I do hope they are happy.
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

now that is a serious gardener!
worms by the hundreds!
oooooooeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaakk!
I bet you'll have the yummiest veggies in the State!!!

dykewife said...

you shall have the rockinest compost ever. not only will you have organic material, but worm casts (poop) are extremely fertile material.

we had a friend who would do worm composting year round by brining in some in fall in a roughtote. he'd put in strips of black and white newspaper (no colour, the ink is toxic) and then whiz up some of the composting materials and dump all, whizzed up and not, into the bin. when the newspaper material was mostly castings he'd separate worms out and start all over again with fresh paper. that way he'd have fresh composting materials for planting in the spring.

we'd call him "the worm king"...he was also known as "dances with ferrets" because he was the one who had 2 ferrets to try and herd.