In the Garden with Pat Rubin

Bee garden writer Pat Rubin writes about everything that grows, from flowers and trees to vegetables and lawns. Pat volunteered for several years as a Placer County Master Gardener and has written about gardening for many national and regional publications. In addition to gardening, she spends time raising and showing miniature horses and miniature donkeys.

In the Garden will include news, events, advice and other gardening tidbits. Pat will also answer reader questions.

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February 13, 2008

Worms making compost in the kitchen

I unpacked the Can-O-Worms composter a few days ago, then sat on the kitchen floor reading the directions. Actually, my husband and I alternated reading the directions because I was too excited to read them. I wanted the silly thing set up and working. My pound and a half of worms had arrived in the mail earlier that day, and I wanted to get them out of their box as soon as possible and let them start eating kitchen scraps. I’d already carried the box of worms carefully into the house, not wanting to disturb them or bump them. It was like getting 1,000 new pets.

First step, however, was to assemble the Can-O-Worms, which was pretty easy and straightforward. It has three trays, and the worms start in the bottom tray, and as they eat their way through decomposing kitchen waste, and leave behind trays of compost, you put food in the next tray, and so on. When they reach the third tray, you take the bottom tray off, empty it into the garden, and it then becomes the top tray.

The circular piece of cardboard packaging went in the tray first. According to the manufactuer, it makes good sense to let the worms eat it rather than risk it ending up in the trash or landfill. The contraption also came with a block of compressed coconut fiber that, when soaked in a pail of water for 15 minutes, expanded to gigantic proportions. That was the bedding for the worms, and it went in next. Then the worms, which came in damp peat, went on top.

That took me to the top of tray one, so, the directions said, I should palce tray 2 on top, and add kitchen waste. I added salad scraps along with some decomposing pumpkin from the giant pumpkin I’d harvested the previous fall. I covered it all with damp newspaper, and closed the lid.

The directions said NOT to look at the worms for a few days, and I have to admit that it takes all the will-power I can muster not to peek. Finally, last evening I took a look. The worms are already coming into tray number 2, and a few had insinuated themselves in the lid, so I carefully put them back in the bedding and admonished them not to do that again.

The directions said it could take a few months for the worms to get fully into the next tray, not to feed them too much, and to keep damp newspaper, which they’ll eventually eat, over their food.

It’s a lot of pressure keeping a thousand or so worms alive.

My husband is slightly amused by the whole process, and by having a worm bin in the kitchen, though I swear it will go into the garage as soon as the weather gets milder (I don’t want the worms to get cold!!!). After all he says, how many families put in a new floor, granite countertops, a new range and wall oven and then a worm compost bin in their kitchens?

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