Mar 04 2010
Worms: Gardeners’ Black Gold
Worms are nature’s most perfect recycling bin. The little eating machines can devour half their weight in organic waste every day, cleaning up the leavings of plants and animals. As they munch and wiggle they create a tiny subway system below the ground making the earth friable and aerated. What a boon to organic gardens! The end product of all this goodie gobbling contains rich nutrients called worm castings or black gold. Think of it as steroids for your garden. That little beast is pumping your garden up!
You can restore worms to your garden by providing worm comforts. Begin by burying vegetation from your yard and garden just under the soil. Leaves, dead plants, grass clippings, kitchen scraps such as carrot or potato peels, crushed egg shells, strawberry hulls, leftover fruits and vegetables that stayed in the ‘fridge too long entice worms to come for a nibble. Cover the garbage with a light layer of soil and then water. You may even want to buy worm castings from a garden shop or greenhouse to initially build up the soil.
Red worms, considered the best worm to use for composting and adding black gold to the garden are surface worms that seldom delve down more than eighteen inches below ground level. Their basic needs are simple: food, moisture, oxygen, and a dark place to call home. Every week worms create about three cocoons, each holds between three to ten baby worms quickly increasing their population. It’s important to harvest the worms every three months, separating them from their castings. This would be a good time to introduce more worms to your garden as well as sprinkle the black gold over the soil.
Building a home for the producers of black gold ensures that you’ll have plenty of worms and loads of the rich black humus that benefits the garden. Try to make a worm bin out of wood, if at all possible. However, almost anything can be used. A wooden crate or box works well, but a plastic container works, too. The container needs to be at the very least, twelve inches deep with a preference for eighteen and two to three square feet of space should do the trick. This area can comfortably house one pound of worms adding up to between 800 and 1200 of the lowly creatures. A lid that fits tight and holes drilled into the bottom of the container completes the home for your adopted worms.
Before welcoming the worms to their new home, you’ll need to provide them with life basics. Begin by tearing newspapers into one-inch strips. Now soak the newspaper strips and wring them out. Toss them in the bottom of the container, fluffing them up so they fill about three quarters of the bin. Wait and add your worms on a sunny day. Why? Worms don’t care for sunlight and in fact, will dry out, so they’re going to scurry their way down as quickly as possible on a sunny day. Once they’ve made their way downward, sprinkle soil over worms and newspapers. Keep the worm home moist, but not wet, and never soaked. We’ve all seen worms come to the surface after a down pour; you don’t want that to happen in their home. After a week, you can begin feeding your worm inhabitants. Feed them scraps of vegetables and fruit and garbage of all kinds, but no dairy and no meat and that includes egg whites. They’re not overly fond of citrus, so dry your citrus rinds for potpourri instead of feeding to the worms. You can also toss in leaves, straw, hay, grass clippings, cow and horse manure, rabbit droppings, but no cat or dog doo-doo. Cats and dogs are carnivorous and remember meat is a no-no. Feed your worms well and they will contentedly produce black gold for the health of your garden.
A healthy organic garden will have multitudes of worms eating their way through organic matter of all kinds. As they munch and meander just below the earth’s surface, they create tunnels that aerate the garden as well as allow water to flow freely. Black gold or worm castings fertilize the soil leaving behind nutrient rich earth that gives plants a powerful boost. Although, creepy, crawly worms may give us a quick shiver, they benefit not just the garden but the earth as a whole. So go ahead…hug a worm today!
Get more information here.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
