Hiway16 Magazine... about people and places in north-central British Columbia, Canada

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Worms Make Brown Gold

by Jim Easterday

Some call it Brown Gold.

Gardeners are always on the lookout for good soil. It has to be weed-free, rich in nutrients and able to hold a lot of moisture without clumping.

You can buy ready-made soil at the store or make a compost heap in the summer for all the garden and kitchen scraps. But... composting is so slow to work in our cool climate. And what about during the winter?

And you may wonder where that commercial potting soil comes from and what is in it.

Pure worm castings make the best soil

At the same time, all of us buy fruits and vegetables at the store, or bring them in from our garden. A lot of the stems and wilted leaves go into the garbage and end up at the dump.

What if we could use all our kitchen vegetable scraps to make perfect soil all year round? Introducing the Red Wriggler, a special species of worm that can turn your vegetable and green waste into the best soil imaginable.

Red Wriggler - the ideal species to do the work of composting

This is no earthworm. These are high-energy worms that quickly eat paper, coffee grounds, leaves, stale bread, grass clippings and more. They are such heavy eaters that if you put them in your garden, they would likely starve.

With a bit of work and simple materials, you can keep a bin of Red Wrigglers in your basement all winter. Feed them your kitchen vegetable waste and shredded paper and watch them convert it all to worm castings, an ideal soil for potting or greenhouse.

(Caution - never feed grass clippings that have been sprayed with herbicide or pesticide, it will kill every last worm)






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