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Green House: A Desirable Can of Worms

photo:
Courtesy of Amazon
March 01, 2010

Pretty much everyone knows that composting is a great way to recycle our kitchen scraps, but did you know you can get worms to do the work! Worm or vermicomposting recycles your organic kitchen scraps into fertilizer that’s good for your garden courtesy of hardworking red worms. The worms eat the scraps, remove the toxins and excrete a highly concentrated fertilizer, called castings, which looks like very fine black dirt. In addition, since most vegetable scraps are composed primarily of water, you also get worm “tea,” (available at Fertile Earth), a liquid fertilizer that can be diluted with water and sprayed on your plants as a completely organic fertilizer. 
All you need is a worm bin (shown), available online (I found some on Amazon), or you can make one, and red worms, also available online or you can harvest from our own yard if you are really brave! Red worms live under leaves. If you already have a compost bin, you can harvest the worms from there too.
Once you put them in the compost bin, you never need to interact with the worms, though long-time composters admit to becoming attached to their worms and visiting them frequently to check on their progress. Chris Jung, a worm supplier and expert on worm composting who spoke to my garden club, said the worms don’t require much attention, so there’s no need to get a worm sitter while you go on vacation.
Worm composting is easier and takes up much less space than composting plus you get to enjoy the company of worms hard at work recycling your kitchen scraps into fertilizer for your garden!