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Archive for December, 2009

Does Santa Need Red Composting Worms?

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

09xmasparade03Santa, along with many other things, has been on my mind lately. It seems that wherever I go, I have seen him…..in airports, shopping malls and downtown at the Christmas parade. That guy sure does get around.

reindeer_enjoy_their_work_3I figured that with nine reindeer and all those elves, he could probably use a bunch of red wigglers and/or European nightcrawlers to turn all that reindeer poop, straw from their stalls, and leftover household food scraps into nutrient-rich castings.

Since the North Pole is cold though, he would need to keep his red worms inside so that they wouldn’t freeze. He could start off with several Gusanito worm farm bins and keep them in his work shop. What do you think?

Santa Photo:  Sherry LaVars/BayAreaNewsGroup

Reindeer Photo:  weblogs.cltv.com/news/local/chicago/regina/

Mixing Red Worm Species in Vermicomposting Bins

Sunday, December 6th, 2009

Black5TraySeveral months ago, we decided to put three different species of red worms together in our Gusanito worm farm bin and in a recycled plastic tote just to see what would happen. Would the worms get along? Would one species overtake the other? Would one group force another to move out and find a new home?

3wormsNO! None of that happened. The worms got along beautifully together and continue to do so. They are happily making castings and cocoons. The worms that we put in there are the red wigglers (Eisenia fetida or foetida), the European Nightcrawlers (Eisenia hortensis) and the African Nightcrawlers (Eudrilus eugeniae).  The red worms in the photo from top to bottom are the African, European and Red Wiggler.

dave.garin.2We also did this experiment for two other reasons:
1.) Because we wanted to see if the larger Euros or Africans would be able to migrate through the holes in the trays. I am happy to report that they had no problem at all. We have found all three red worm species traversing the trays.
2.) The plastic tote is the one that Dave takes to his demonstrations at schools and garden clubs. We wanted to show the kids and adults the different types of composting worms available.