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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

My Worms... Oh! My Worms!

If you had met me in my teens, I wouldn't touch a worm with a 10 foot pole. Ewwwww! Yuck! Bleah! But lately, I have begun to look upon other people's composting worms with envy and I couldn't wait to get my hands on my own!! My new pets!

Blur Ting gave me fat pink composting worms. They were beautiful... I buried them in a styrofoam box with dead leaves and damp newspaper and covered the box with 2 cardboard egg crates to create a dark and well ventilated environment. Every day, twice a day, I poured all our vegetable scraps in there. Since we eat quite a lot of fruits and vegetables, there were a lot of scraps.

2 days ago, I went to inspect. I saw a steaming mass of black rotted vegetables with a furry layer of white fungus on the top, like icing on a monstrous cake. There was a swarm of black flying insects all over the icing, like a sprinking of living chocolate rice. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! And my worms were all dead!!

What a catastrophe!

I have since learnt that too many vegetables and too few worms create a composting heap that generates heat... as much as 40 degrees Celsius. And my poor worms got cooked to death. But I shan't give up. I'm going to fashion a new and improved vermi-composting bin from 2 plastic boxes, and I will make a mansion for my worms again. A well ventilated double storey home where the bottom storey will catch worm tea that flows out of the top storey. This time, I will not only feed them what they can eat, I will blend papaya peel mush and tomato peel mush for them to eat. This way, they'll digest faster, make worm tea faster, make more babies and eat more scraps and make more worm tea.

It's the worm tea I'm after, after all.

7 comments:

Blur Ting said...

I don't know whether to smile or to cry but your post sounds so cute and earnest, I can't help grinning at the fortune of your future worms :-)

Petunia Lee said...

Oh... I was quite upset when I saw the unmentionable. But now I feel better 'cos new wormies are on the way!

Unknown said...

I had an accident with my wormies as well recently.. Gotta restart the colony from just less than 50 worms... :(

Petunia Lee said...

Gee, what happened? But at least you looked after them successfully for a while.

Ivana said...

Er... EWWWW~!!!! I'm not a worm kind of gal, or even a garden gal (much to the dismay of my garden loving parents). I read your blog cuz you make me smile... and laugh sometimes. Better luck next time dear = )

Petunia Lee said...

Ivana, you still read my blog? I thought you'd given up on me, heh heh heh!

Why haven't you been posting food pics huh? Miss your food pics. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Ivana said...

No, still reading, and giggling... = )

No time to put up photos... rushing around like a headless chick getting things done before no. 2 makes his appearance

= )