Minding My Worms

My worms seem to have their own seasons. In winter they get slow and lazy. Then one day in spring I lift the cover off their "worm hotel" and they've eaten all their newspaper bedding.

We started these worms about three years ago. They did so well, I took some to my daughter's charter school and built a colony there. Good thing, too, because one summer we went away on vacation and left the worms outside. When we returned, the worms were nowhere to be found--fried, apparently, with a few carcasses around the edges of the lid giving witness to how they apparently had tried to flee.

In winter when the outdoor compost pile is frozen solid we devote our kitchen scraps to the worms. A good-size worm colony will eat all our food scraps and turn them into a terrific fertilizer. When they eat through the newspaper bedding, I pull up a chair and start shredding more newspaper.

In fact, the newspaper is not so much bedding as a cover to the wormscape below where we place the food scraps. We use a small garden tool to lift the newspaper and find a fresh spot for scraps. Replacing the newspaper is a purely meditative act. I enjoy a few minutes thinking of nothing, just tearing strips of paper. I've found that the paper tears only in one direction--from the top of the page down. Trying to tear the paper from side to side just makes a mess. I suppose this has to do with the warp and weave of how newsprint in made. I now have a fairly efficient system for cutting whole pages of the newspaper in half, then tearing the paper into thin strips.

Normally I would not take the "worm hotel" outside as you see in this photo. The worms don't like bright light. As I lay the paper strips down, I give them a spritz of water to moisten. I build the paper about and inch high. A thick layer helps keep fruit flies away.

Then its back inside for the worms to munch on their little piles of potato skins and apple cored and melon rinds. They really like melon rinds. Maybe that's what they're waiting for all winter long.

Taking Care of My Worms

You may be wondering why a man has a bowl full of shredded newspaper and is spritzing it with water.

Very well, I'll tell you.

This is the bedding for my worms. I have hundreds of them squirming around in a three-story "worm hotel" where the worms turn my kitchen scraps into some of the world's richest compost.

Every few days I take a handfull of potato peels and apple cores and carrot ends--all the various stuff that piles up in a busy kitchen--and drop it into my writhing colony of worms. Within a few days, they will have gobbled it up and left behind their "castings"--another way of saying worm poop--which I can then feed to my plants.

This being February, there's not a lot of plant feeding going on. But I continue to feed the worms and they continue to make castings. More and more casting till things warm up outside. You could, of course, also use them to feed your house plants.

The worms are shy and don't care for light, so it's important to keep them covered with shredded newspaper. Shredding the newspaper is a fine activity for a rainy afternoon. Use a spray bottle to get the paper damp before laying a nice thick layer over the worms. Soon enough, they will have eaten the newspaper as well and it will be time to shred some more.

It's wonderful how the worms recycle everything this way. And since I am hearing from more and more urbanites who want to compost their food wastes rather than sending them to the landfill, this is one of the things I recommend. It's especially useful for people who live in apartments or don't have space for even a small compost bin. The worms will live very happily--and quietly--in a coat closet.

Do they smell? Not at all. Odors in composting come from anaerobic bacteria that survive in moist places without oxygen. As long as there is air for the worms to breath, you won't have a probelm with smelly bacteria. Sometimes there is an issue with fruit flies. But I find you can really keep the fruit flies at bay if you maintain a thick layer of shredded newspaper on top of the worms and kitchen scraps.

People sometimes ask where I dig for my worms and I hasten to tell them that these are not ordinary earthworms but a variety commonly called "red wigglers," the kind you would find at a bait shop. In fact, you can make your initial purchase of worms at a bait shop, or order them on-line. I bought a home from them that works by staging one plastic bin on top of another. As one bin fills with castings, you add an empty bin and the worms pick up and move. But you can also make your own worm bin with a large plastic container. Be sure to drill some air holes, and a place for liquid to drain out is a nice feature.

A book called "Worms Eat My Garbage," by Mary Appelhof, will tell you everything you need to know about keeping worms for composting. Or you can consult some of the on-line resources listed on the lower right-hand side of this page.

It's one small way to help save the planet and grow food as well.