Worms are awesome

[andygates]

I have a confession: after I moved into my current flat, I set the wormery up in the yard underneath my big Dexian bench.  And left it there.  And with the bench in the way, I just couldn't be bothered to use the thing or check on the wrigglers.  Every week's to-do list included (along with "fit carpet in van!" and other nonsense) "check on worms!" - the number of exclamation marks and depth of underlining was an indicator of how much guilt I was feeling.  But until the clocks rolled forward, the guilt didn't quite trump the basic slack of being a lazy git. 

At the weekend I moved the wormery to a new location - with staging nearby so it's convenient to use, and no squat rack in the way.  I fully expected to open the thing up and find a soup of dead worm gack.  But no!  Despite almost ten months of pure neglect and no input whatsoever, the little buggers were still in there, still wiggling.  And for the first time ever, the whole thing was lovely compost (apart from a chorizo wrapper, those things get everywhere).

There were fewer worms than there were back at the height of worm glory, in the Golden Age of Worms, true.  The Holy Annelidian Empire has fallen, but the Dark Ages are coming to an end and the Renaissance of the Worms looks to be in full swing, helped along by lots of shredded brown paper, teabags and leek trimmings.  I look forward to seeing the Wriggly Leonardo in there painting masterpieces and constructing machines to turn eggshells into gold, and the Spineless Medicis terrorising the Venice of the Worms - the worm-tea collection level - from just up the coast.

Ten months.  Those buggers are almost unkillable.

Comments

[flitljm.livejournal.com]

The only thing that seems to upset them is getting too hot. Then they all clamber out of the wormery and die, in your wellies if they can manage it.

Mine seem to be producing compost more and more rapidly, very good beasties. Maybe its all the caffeine in their diet.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Good point, must make up a cooling blankie for later in the season, as I have a strong enough "it'll be a scorcher" hunch to be doing lemons and chillis this year...