The Intestines of the World

The title for this post comes from the fact that Aristotle once called worms the intestines of the world. This will become relevant later when I talk about worms. But first! I want to let everyone know that I'm excited about and thankful for several belated birthday presents I received. I got a bunch of nail polish for my Fierce Fridays from Bone and her family and Bruno mailed me two bags of homemade chocolate chip cookies! I feel very loved.

Nailpolish from L-R: orange, black, royal blue, teal, white.

Two bags of cookies: Butterscotch chocolate on the right and Andes mint chocolate on the right. 

Ok. Now. On to worms. Today I also got a bag of red wriggler worms from a woman I met on a gardening listserv that I just joined. Apparently her husband is a teacher and these worms (or their wormy ancestors) were originally used as a school science project. If you know about worms you know that red wriggler worms are the ones you use for vermicomposting! I'm super excited about this! I've set them up in the unused vermicomposting bin we had hanging out in our basement. Woohoo!

The worms in the cool whip container I used to bring them home.

The worm bin sitting in the basement next to the chest freezer.

What is vermicomposting, you say? Vermicomposting (vermi = worm, composting = composting) is letting particular types of worms eat organic waste - in this case our kitchen scraps and junk mail - and then poop out compost that can be used as fertilizer. So I will be fertilizing the garden with regular compost from the bins outside and also worm poop, which sounds gross but is actually really cool. I promise to describe the process of vermicomposting more fully in a later post.

Triptych of cartoons: a puzzled looking chef with a pile of food scrap waste; a vermicompost bin with happy worms and food being tossed into it; a happy gardener using vermicompost to grow flowers.