Day 10 - Vermiculture

Last summer my husband began a square foot garden as a hobby. Many of my local friends have the most wonderful gardens (and chickens - I am very jealous of this). Several of them also do worm composting. So, in my effort to support P's new hobby, I took up one of my won - vermiculture. A dear friend gave me some worms, and I constructed our homemade worm paradise. Sadly, it is hotter than hell in south Texas in the summer, and my little worms all either died or ran away. So, got another batch from my friend, and tried round two but this time in the garage. Still too hot, and I thought all the little wormies died again. Too sad to try again, I put the worm box outside when the weather cooled and decided to use it as a regular composter. Surprisingly, the worms were not dead, and in fact, have proliforated in the cool weather. So, although I cannot take all the credit for this, todays subject is 1) homemade worm composters and 2) homemade compost.


Our worm box is made out of two plastic bins. They both have air holes so that air can circulate. The main one is in the bottom and when that fills up, the worms will travel to the top bucket, and I will will use the compost from below. I cover the top box with a plastic cover with lots of air holes in it.

We compost all veggie and fruit matter, all egg shells, and all coffe grounds. We do not put anything with meat or dairy in it in the compost, and I do not put citrus peels or lots of onions in there. Actually, the compost is so rich I have lots of seeds sprouting in it - may have alot of spaghetti and acron sqaush this summer because that is what is sprouting.

Hopefully you can see one of my little wormies - they are not earth worms, but red worms. I think they adorable and love them to bits!!!!