[Downthestretch55]

So, you want to start a worm farm?

I must confess that I did want to have a worm farm. It was when I was first getting started in organic gardening, and in all honesty, I had no clue as to what was going on.
So I bought a subscription to Organic Gardening (Rodale Press), signed up for their book club, and read everything I could get my hands on.
It really didn't matter that I wasn't playing in the dirt and getting my hands all messy. At that point in time, I was looking to stay clean. Reading would do.
The second book that the book club sent me was "The Complete Book of Composting". I still have it after all these years. It's a huge book with many formulas.
Anyway, one of the first things I found in it was that to make good compost, I needed help. Only worms could do it. Red wigglers...to be specific.
So with dreams of free fertilizer for my garden, and plenty of bait to go fishing with...I embarked on my quest to find those wiggly things that would reduce all the garbage and make it into something useful.
In the "classifieds" at the back of Organic Gardening were a lot of ads, all competing to sell me the critters I desired. "Red wigglers", $7.50 a hundred, s+h extra. How could I resist? I was sold!
Since my hands weren't yet dirty, I wrote a check and mailed it out.
A few weeks later, they arrived by UPS.
I read the instructions, built a box for the "farm", and saved every carrot peel, broccoli scrap, banana skin, and coffee ground that came my way.
Visions of a beautiful garden danced through my head before I dozed off each night.
The plan was that they'd double in number each month. Heck, at that rate, there was no use even coming up with names for the wiggly guys, cause I knew I'd run out after the third month.
Happy to say, they did better than I thought they would.
Yes, I sacrificed Ol' Red, Squirmy, and a few more of their brothers and sisters on some trout fishing trips that spring. Hey, what's a few lives expended if you have higher hopes, right?
The trout they bought with their little lives were certainly appreciated.
Now, many years later, their great grandchildren live outside in my garden, and some in a box in my basement.
Deep under the soil. I still give them a big dose of manure (rotted) each spring, right before I bring out the roto-tiller. Sad if it chops a few up, but, they're expendable if it's for a good cause.
The lettuce will grow, maybe thank them for it. Green, green!
Today, as I tore up the morning newspaper and soaked some water on it to place on top of their box where they live in the corner of my basement, I noticed the headline, "Eleven More Dead".
For sure the worms will appreciate it, along with all the other garbage and manure.