A Bag of Worms

We have a compost bin at the California house and we want to try to compost in Arizona as well. In California, when you set up a compost heap, the worms find it since they’re already in the soil there. Not so much in Arizona, though, so you need to supply the worms to the new bin.

Last week we set up a compost bin that we purchased at Lowe’s. We assembled the bin and put it on the west side of the house next to where we keep our trash bin. On further review, however, putting the bin where it can get direct sunlight is a bad idea since the worms can’t take extreme heat.

Image: 250 worms just after they were introduced to the compost bin (inset). Click to enlarge.

This morning, we moved the bin to the north side of the garage where sunlight is seldom seen. We put three bags of topsoil and added some kitchen scraps in the bin and wet it down. That’s where the worms come in – today we received our shipment of 250 red worms from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm. I ordered them last week on-line, and today the post office delivered them. Literally, a bag of worms.

The worms were in a cotton bag packed in dry peat which keeps them protected from heat and cold. The instructions said to introduce the worms to the bin as soon as possible and cover with some wet newspaper. They will dig their way into the earth within 24-48 hours and start doing their thing consuming decomposed scraps and such.

By next spring, we will hopefully have a nice compost heap from which we can extract nitrogen rich soil for Damsel’s desert garden.