Little Storping-in-the-Swuff: Worms

Bit of a break out bid today, on the minus side.  Three casualties.

Inside, the worms are abandoning the compost and climbing up the lid. I think they’re finding it too damp. They get two sports supplements from the Guardian, plus a special internet pullout.

Two pluses:

• They’re giagantsomely fat and there’s approximately a bgzillion of them.  Despite being over rich in lemon rind and onion peel, my diet suits them.
• There are some teeny tiny ones, which can only be taken as evidence of procreation.  Implies a happy and expanding colony.

Something of a triumph: two weeks in and they’re not dead. There are some flies in there though; apparently that’s avoidable by putting a layer of paper or soil over the food.

Sealed inside their little bin, there’s no way of knowing whether the worms are thriving or shriveling without popping it open and having a look. To alleviate the anxiety I had to take a little peek. All the worms have climbed up the sides and are hanging onto the lid or trying to escape. Is it too wet? Too hot? Or too acid? Don’t they like the pink fur apple potatoes I gave them? Are they offended I gave them an out of date copy of the Guardian?

Fortunately, it’s apparently just as stressful being a worm in a new environment and other wormers have had this problem with far worse consequences (“They should have stayed in the wormery for crying out loud! It was built for them. It’s a worm nirvana. A wormana.”) At least none of mine have got out. Yet.

My “junior” wormery arrived. So called because it’s the compact version, and very neat it is too.

 

 

The stresses of being a wormer are considerable, however. “Start them with a few handfuls of kitchen waste then don’t feed again for a week” the booklet says, but the binmen came yesterday and I don’t want them to starve. In the end I gave them a few scraps and they’ll get more when it comes – I’ll just have to hope I don’t over feed them, but I don’t want to risk them starving either!

 

 

“Avoid extremes of temperatures, especially when starting out” the booklet says. There goes my plan to stick them in the garden – they’ll have to stay indoors for a bit if they want 18oC… At least until they’re established. Nor will they be able to stay out when there’s a frost, or remain in the sunny spot I’d picked over the summer. They don’t like it too acid, either, so easy on the lemon peel. I gave them some pages from the Guardian. Apparently they like to read, but they don’t like it to be too right wing.