Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Adventure #1 Vermicomposting

Here starts our journey in composting with worms. I have been interested in this for a couple of years and we are finally getting up the motivation to get it together. I just ordered 2 lbs of red wigglers from the wormwoman after ordering I realized she was the writer of "Worms Eat My Garbage," one of the vermicompositng bibles. I looked for it at the local library and am much surprised that it is not there. I may have to buy it.

It is a bummer I have to send away for worms, but we live so rurally that I have not been able to find a supply. I would think they are bountiful here as there is a lot of fishing. So anyway, the worms are on their way. Later today we are going to go to WalMart to buy our bins and prepare the worms home. Arianna is SO excited. She absolutely adores worms and can't wait to have worms as pets. In a recent "Click" magazine there was a story about a girl who was allergic to most pets and ended up with a pet worm. There is another story that explains worm more scientifically. Arianna has me read these over and over and begs for a worm as a pet.

Besides reading many web sites I watched this video:



And then Arianna watched this one more geared towards her:



Now I need to find one about maintaining it.

I think our biggest challenge will be the winter and keeping the worms alive. My husband is not to keen on bringing them indoors and our garage can still be quite cold. I did notice one web site that sold a warmer...but the idea is to do this without adding in a lot...naturally. I know people even keep worm bins under their sink and they don't smell any worse than plants...that earthy smell. Maybe by the end of summer he will be convinced.

2 comments:

Team Harris said...

Awesome post about worm composting! I've thought about doing this in the past but never actually followed through. Ethan would LOVE doing a project like this! Hmmm... might have to reconsider.

I was going to ask about maintenance, but then you said you have to find more about that. Let me know if you find anything. So what do the worms "in the wild" do in the winter? Where do they go? Do they just burrow deep into the ground where it's warmer? Curious! I think Mike would have a heart attack if I did this... I'd have to do it without his knowledge I think. "Tis easier to ask for forgiveness than permission." Hee hee.

One other thing... so then what? So you make your box... and then what? You let them just break it down? FOr how long? And then do you use the compost in your garden? Inquiring minds wanna know!

LARKtrio said...

From what I have read maintenance is very low. It is perfect for Ethan and you can put so much into it!

Worms go deep in the winter and probably go dormant, but composting worms need about 40 degrees F to work and not die.

Why would Mike have a heart attack? It gets rid of all those great vegetable scraps and recycles cardboard and paper too. And EVERY site I have read says it does not stink if you do it right. They are pretty low maintenance.