Finally, finally got the ole worm box into the ground.
Pretty much everything I know about vermicomposting comes from reading Mary Apelhof’s book, Worms Eat My Garbage three or four times. In my previous incarnation as wife of a crazy artist, we had a very healthy population of worms, but it was not an easy road getting there. Because of the extreme temperatures in the desert, we lost several batches of worms, including ones we had purchased, because it simply got too hot or too dry. And not just because of the outside temperatures, but I discovered that the compost itself created too much heat. Nothing sadder or grosser than a box full of limp, dead worms.
In the end we put a large metal box into the ground. It’s better if it’s holey and rotted out. The box was probably four feet long and two feet wide. Now it was just the two of us at the time, so you may wonder why we needed such a massive worm space. Well, I found that the spaciousness of the box allowed for several different temperature zones and that the worms congregated to the zone of their choice. In sum, the large size was simply a cushion for my vermi-trial-and-error. I believe that people living in a milder, damper climate and who are more attentive than I, can make a go of it with a regular-sized Rubbermaid roughneck. Apparently it can even be done indoors (hidden in the counter under the cutting board) – but I have never been able to deal with the fruit flies to my satisfaction (= extermination) – so I keep my worm box at the far end of the yard.
And as for the worms themselves: the initial batch of purchased red wrigglers from Ventura really suffered in the heat. We ended up supplementing the population with several shovelfuls of local worms from underneath the watering barrel at a friend’s goat farm. Those worms or their mixed descendents worked out great – although I think my ex-husband has gone on to experiment with toilet composting – so I can’t say if they are still doing well or not.
Then, the last couple years I have simply walked my compost over to my next-door neighbor’s compost heap.
Now it’s time for more worms.