Happy Worms

So far so good! This time I just used a lot more dirt at the bottom, and moved my tub out of the sunny corner.

I'm not sure what my objective is... the compost only stays in the balcony tub for a few days before it ends up in the garden pile. I guess I thought maybe the worms could get the compost party started.

We'll see! At this point I'm just happy that they're still alive ;-)

Oops I killed My Worms

I didn't mean to. I thought I was setting them up in worm paradise - you know, in the tub where all the food scraps are. This was yesterday, and when I checked them today they were no longer, um, wiggly.

I put them in my plastic tub on the balcony, which is the "second stop" for my scraps. The last time I emptied this tub, just for fun I thought I'd put a scoop of soil at the bottom and fish out some worms from the garden heap and add them to this soil at the bottom of the balcony tub.

My guess, now that I've done some reading (should have done that first - sorry little guys!!) is that the tub was too wet and hot. It's plastic, with a lid, and sits in a sunny corner of the balcony. Mind you, as we're discovering this season, sun does not necessarily mean heat!!! (sigh) It's also usually quite wet as well, since one of the things that I routinely dump in there is the last dregs of cold coffee leftover in my pot.

I think I'm going to try again (the worms are shaking in their boots!), only this time with some kind of bedding. I'll update you on how it turns out.

Compost

Wow - I'm impressed with those busy little worms (OK, big fat wiggly worms with attitude). I was not expecting my kitchen scraps to be ready for the garden so soon, because I'm doing what's sometimes referred to as "cold composting" - in other words, here's a pile, worms, dig in!!

Today I thought I'd start setting up the garden for planting next month, so I got the shovel and started re-arranging the worms' hang-out. I was happy to find that the compost was ready for use on the garden beds. I'm really interested to see the difference in this year's crop from last year, when I wasn't composting. I'll keep you posted!