The Lazy Girl's Guide to Vermiculture
- Find out who has worms.
- Ask if you can have some for free. Be willing to accept this gift encased in composting cow manure. Offer some homemade jam or jelly in exchange.
- Receive your worms and transport them home, careful not to leave them in a hot car.
- Dig down into your compost pile and dump out the worms (and cow poop).
- Leave them alone. They will have plenty to eat in your compost pile. Do not be pokin' around in there with a sharp-edged shovel. They will be happy eating all the goodies in the compost and reproduce like crazy.
- When you transfer your compost into a new bin to age, save some worms for the new compost pile. You will see them as you use a pitchfork to move the compost.
- Keep feeding the new compost pile so the worms in there will be happy and want to reproduce.
- When your old compost is done and ready to sift, carefully remove the worms to return to working compost bins. If planting in garden beds, add a few worms to keep the soil in good shape.
Yep, that was basically my method... except I didn't actually deliberately move the worms in. It's a closed system so I obviously moved them in there somehow but I know for sure I wasn't being organised or smart when I did.
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Belinda
Sounds like it would work to me! When my city girl granddaughter first started helping us in the garden, (read playing in the dirt at my side), she's scream SNAKE! and run when she saw a worm. Now she carefully lifts them up wherever she finds them and takes them "home" to the garden beds.
ReplyDeleteNice when you can grow a future gardener and nature lover along with the veggies!
I was even lazier! Just went to the local farmer and bought a few containers of fishing worms for $3.00 and turned them loose in my gardens. Most important thing to remember is that worms CAN die if soil is compacted over them. Just cover them loosely with your compost so they can create their own trails and, if you're putting them in garden soil, make sure you water it first to make it easier for them to get into the soil. (Learned that the hard way. Birds thought it was a buffet and I spent months feeling guilty after I had promised them a happy home!)
ReplyDeleteI did this just to have worms for fishing. I would save what I didn't use fishing. Then I cut them loose to roam the wild!
ReplyDeleteWorm Liberation Rules!
nova
Belinda - I kept hoping worms would magically appear but eventually had to give up and get them from somewhere else. :)
ReplyDeleteTrailshome - I had to laugh when I read your comment because there is a snake here that looks like an oversize earthworm. It's small, skinny, and pink. The only ones (rarely) I've seen are dead on the road as they are a 'night snake'.
Glad she's getting into gardening!
Sharlene - Maybe you were lazier but I was cheaper. We had purchased some worms from a bait shop but did not have them in ideal circumstances. I believe most perished. Rather than wait until we could do a proper vermiculture set-up, I went the compost route and have been very pleased at the reproduction that resulted. I'm not sure I'd bother now with "real" vermiculture...
nova - you know, when I saw these big guys wriggling about, I thought about fishing. Not a lot of choices here in the desert but who knows? We're always thinking about options for ways to feed our dogs. Fish in a tank produce great "fertilizer" so one option is aquaculture at home - good for the garden and food for the dogs. Those fish could eat the excess worms.
Your blog is very nice. I love the dog in the foto.
ReplyDeleteIf you want you can visit my blog and see some of my school works.
Happy new year :)
*laughing about the "find out who has worms" statement*
ReplyDeleteIsn't that easy - just look for the child who is wriggling on his/her bottom in class???!!!
;-)
Seriously, good post. But I'm still laughing. I guess its my demented brain, caused by having young kids!
Actually, I thought about that, too. We're both demented! :)
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