“Before I purchased them at the first Master Gardener plant sale, I would never touch a worm if you paid me. Now look at me,” said Mrs. Harris as she calmly displayed a handful of squirming eisenia fetida, or red wigglers, “somebody who is petrified of many, many things. I have even taught my granddaughter to hold them.”
Mrs. Dixon and Mrs. Harris, members of Milam County’s Little River Basin Master Gardener Association, presented a program last week on the science of vermicomposting, or cultivating worm farms, with each picking up and handling with great care their crawly barnyard stock.
Red wigglers - the worm of choice for vermicomposting - is considered by Mrs. Dixon to be pets rather than farm workers, but she is the first to acknowledge that a worm farm is a Master Gardener basic.
“When we moved here in 1999, I decided I wanted to have something that you don’t have to feed, don’t have to gather their eggs, don’t have to milk them, and they don’t keep you awake at night barking,” Mrs. Dixon said. “This is a very good way to get rid of your kitchen garbage, fruit and vegetable peelings, coffee grounds and tea grounds.”
Vermicomposting begins with a worm bin, normally a 10- to 15-gallon common plastic storage box with a good-fitting lid. Holes must be drilled in the sides for ventilation. Take shredded black and white newspaper pages, wet the paper until it is moist, not dripping, and place it in the bin.
Worms have no teeth, so a small amount of sand and a few washed and well crushed egg shells will provide grit and calcium to the bin. Mrs. Dixon bought about 1,000 worms from an Internet supplier, while Mrs. Harris purchased her first worm farm from a Master Gardener plant sale, with hopes they would be fruitful and multiply. Today, she is a worm farming enthusiast.
Once the newspaper bed is prepared, place worms in the middle of the bedding, add vegetable and fruit scraps, and the compost production line is now in service.
Worms prefer to live in a quiet dark place, and thrive in temperatures between 72 and 75 degrees, while they can survive between 55 degrees and 90 degrees. The bin should be odor free, and castings should smell like fresh garden soil. If the bin smells, the worms are being overfed.
Red wigglers are intolerant of neglect. Their box must be supplied regularly with damp shredded newspaper, and garbage. Mrs. Harris keeps her worm box in the dining room next to the buffet where it is easy to remember to drop off lettuce leaves, potato peelings and other kitchen castoffs to feed her red wiggler population, and keep their home supplied with damp shredded newspapers.
After the worms eat kitchen garbage and damp newspapers, in four to six months the plastic box will be filled with worm castings, or in plain English, worm manure - a very beneficial plant compost.
The larger the box, and higher population of worms, the faster the operation. Do not feed worms meat, bones, dairy products, citrus fruit or peelings, oil, salt, vinegar or greasy foods. To speed up decomposition, finely chop the food before adding it to the bins. Don’t run peelings and leaves through a blender or food processor, Mrs. Dixon said.
To harvest the worm castings, carefully remove the compost to one half of the bin, and add new bedding and food to the other half. Worms will slowly migrate to the new bedding, and castings can be taken out. Then, refurnish the bin with new stock of moist shredded newspaper and kitchen scraps for the composting cycle to continue.
“They call the castings ‘black gold’ because it’s the best thing in the world for plants,” Mrs. Dixon said.
