Monday, March 13, 2006

Promote Global Worming

Stop worrying and learn to love the worm.

Not joking about that. I support global worming. I’m very excited about it. The wormer it gets the better I like it….

Composting that is.

I’ve been composting for a number of years now. Beats the heck out of paying scads of money for fertilizer.

I remember my first pile. It was nothing more than a bunch of grass and kitchen veggie scraps from cooking, held in a big blue tarp in the garden over a Winter. I’d occasionally stir it up, when it wasn’t frozen solid. I didn’t expect much of it. However, when Spring came and it was time to plant the garden, THAT was the richest, darkest soil I’d ever seen in my life. And the aroma….was like the garden of Eden after a shower, less the flowers at that point.

So, as part of last weekend’s Home and Garden Show, Master Gardeners had a booth. And, as the topic was soil, there was a section dedicated to composting. Someone brought in their worms used for composting and some of the compost they had generated. It was as dark and rich as my effort described above. I was impressed, as I had not known about technique before. They’ll process it a lot faster than mere microbes. So I grabbed myself a handful of the little critters, with the lady’s permission, of course.

If you’re interested in this technique there are some things you need to know.

[1] Not all worms are created equal. The best for this sort of activity are called ‘red wigglers’ and ‘European nightcrawlers’. I’m not sure how effective American nightcrawlers are.
[2] They’ll double in numbers every two months, given proper food sources, warmth and moisture.
[3] They’ll eat just about any raw veggie kitchen scraps and even newspapers, cotton balls, anything organic. Please hold the salt.
[4] They don’t like cold weather. A freeze will kill them.
[5] Their egg cases will winter-over, so that come warm weather, they’ll come back.

I plan on turning them loose in my composter this Spring. Come Fall, I’ll get a bunch of them and keep them going in a small, comfy canister with scraps, as a back-up.

So, that’s what I mean when I say I support global worming.

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