Wild Things Farm

Back in July a "flock" of worms was added to the Wild Things' menagerie.  I'm not sure what you call a bunch of worms, "flock", "wad", "glob".....they do make wonderful poop to add to the seed starting mix AND it's getting really close to seed-starting time.  As a matter of fact, there are teeny tiny tomato plants that were started on the 16th in the little greenhouse at this very moment.

When I got the worms I wrapped the white joint compound buckets with black nursery plastic to keep the light out.  A couple of weeks later I spied the quart of blackboard paint that I only needed a 1/2 cup to paint farmer's market signs.  I painted the exterior of the buckets with the paint--it wouldn't be durable enough for a bucket that was going to be used a lot, but for a worm house, it's perfect.  I can take chalk and write directly on the bucket what date I harvested the poop and eggs.

In case you're wondering what a wormlette is, it's a teeny-tiny just hatched baby worm.  This bucket has the stuff that wouldn't sift through the sifter I use to harvest poop.  Poop is about the size of coffee grounds, and the eggs are just a little bigger.  Technically they need an 80 degree environment to hatch in like 3 weeks or so, but they will still hatch at lower temps, it just takes longer.  I just check in on them occasionally and pick out the hatchlings.

I added some rotten onions and delicata squash scraps to the worm buckets this morning....they said "thank you" :-)