T's Worms!

Hi, I'm T. I have worms! As you can see, my hand is full of worms (yes, it is really my hand in the picture.) I really like the worms. It was hard to take the picture because the squirmy worms made me giggle, and the giggling made my hand shake.

I bet you're wondering why we have worms. We have worms because their castings (which means poop) is compost, and compost helps our garden grow. Our worms eat orange peels, lettuce scraps and such. They also eat kind of rotten things, like the rotten spots on apples. We're starting an avocado tree in the worm bin! We read that a worm bin is a good place to start an avocado pit.

By the way, my hermit crabs need worm castings to eat, but the crabs are another story; I'm going to talk about worms right now.

We made our worm bin last year. C got to use a power drill to drill the holes in the worm bin, but that's because I wasn't there. After the holes were drilled, Mom and C filled the bin with shredded paper, and then added the worms.

[Mom's note--the bin & the worms came from a vermicomposting workshop subsidized by the county. It was a good program.]

There are some other creatures that live in our worm bin. I took a pill bug out the other day.

We keep our worm bin in the basement. It's cool and damp down there. Our worms like that.

We are going to do some experiments with our worms. One of the experiments is worm racing. Each contestant chooses a racing worm. The best worm racer worms are the longest ones. How worm racing works is you put two worms in a mound of dirt (you need some way to tell your worm from your opponent's worm.) The first worm to get out of the mound of dirt, wins.

If you want to learn more about vermicomposting, read this book Worms Eat My Garbage.