It's raining and the worms are here!

On the sidewalk you wonder?  No, in my basement!  Our vermicomposting adventures have begun!  What better way to celebrate the rainy season in Calgary!  I was exploring the best way of getting worms when I was talking with a friend and it turned out that her mother-in-law has been vermicomposting for years and has some extra worms.  We were very excited. Once I knew we were getting the worms I began to prepare the vermicomposter.  I had already read the book "Worms eat my Garbage" by Mary Appelhof and it had tons of useful information.  We started by getting a large, generic rubber bin.  Then I tore up a whole bunch of flyers into think strips and cut up some cardboard, enough to fill up the whole bin.

Then I added some water, enough to moisten the paper and even added a shovel-full of dirt from the garden (to get the bacteria going).  Now I had soggy, dirty strips of paper.

Then we got the worms - they look cold!  My garden-assistant helped me extract them from the compost that I received them in and put them into their new home.

So far so good.  They are still alive and they seem to be eating the food I've been giving them.  Also we haven't had too much of a problem with flies or anything which seems to be the biggest complaint.  So far so good!  The kids love or new pets!