Worms in Dirt
My Short Sweet Life as a Worm Farmer
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It’s difficult to explain why I did not promptly set up the top item on my Christmas list, a worm farm. I wanted to make a token effort to reduce our sprawling carbon footprint by recycling our leftovers and all the newsprint that passes through our suburban home. In addition, the previous summer I had read the book The Earth Moved describing Charles Darwin’s interest in earthworms. I became transfixed with the breadth of Darwin’s curiosity, which included not only his drab finches in the Galapagos, the basis of his theory of evolution, but also beetles, barnacles, orchids and pigeons. I wanted to tiptoe in Darwin’s footsteps and thought stewarding a vibrant worm farm would be the best approach.
My starter kit consisted of a big black tub with holes on the sides for ventilation, a primer on vermiculture, and a coupon for a batch of red-wrigglers. Despite my initial enthusiasm, my tub sat idle for several years while I came up with a litany of excuses for delaying the project – it was too hot, too cold, we were about to go on vacation, we had just come back from vacation. Yes, I wanted my worm farm to be a composting success and yes, I looked forward to sharing Darwin’s interest, but my underlying fear was that my worms might die, that I was a poor steward. My track record with other living things was a cautionary tale. Ten years ago, an attempt at an ant farm was a disaster. My ants from Uncle Milty’s never made a tunnel. In fact, they quickly rolled over and died with their delicate feet waving above them. Within three days our goldfish, named Tim and Jill after my brother and sister-in-law, died. Five years ago, the school guinea pig we were taking care of made a mad dash and hid under our porch, staring at me with disdain as I tried to coax him out. Houseplants routinely go limp and turn brown.
These experiences have made me hesitant to be responsible for the care and feeding of anything other than my immediate family, no matter how low maintenance. However, when my family started pestering me about the black bin clogging up our mudroom, I knew it was time. I had put the worm bin on my Christmas list, my family complied and I had run out of excuses. I sent off the coupon and a little box of “red wigglers” arrived two weeks later.
Darwin was a great “noticer,” and his simple observations on the everyday habits of worms led to many charming experiments. He noticed worms dragging leaves and twigs into their holes at night and wondered how intelligent they were. He set out paper triangles to see if worms would “decide” to drag triangles by their apex so they could be efficiently pulled into their holes. They did. He wanted to know if worms could hear so he serenaded them with various instruments to see if they reacted. They did not. I have an image of the elderly, bearded Darwin pottering around his garden on his hands and knees, bringing out one instrument after another to regale his worms.1
As soon as I opened my box I realized I could never be a junior Darwin. His earthworms were large and plump, the kind that come to the surface after a heavy rain, the kind that seem cruel to use as fish bait. His worms had personality and charm. My red wrigglers were tiny, moving in one seething mass in their white container, which looked like a Chinese take-out box. I couldn’t even see the characteristic individual segments interrupted by that odd smooth part (called the citellum), which reminded me so much of a similar smoothness on my grandmother’s furrowed lower lip.
I set aside my Darwin pursuits and refocused on my higher purpose of organic recycling. The recipe for starting the worm farm involved ripping up several pounds of newsprint, and then adding water and dirt, stirring until there was a big sodden mess. I dumped my worms in and spread them out with a fork. The directions said to leave the top of the bin open, since the worms’ aversion to light would encourage them to dive into the comfy nest I had so lovingly made for them.
The next day I was eager to deposit the first wad of vegetable leftovers. However, I was appalled to see my worms had not descended into the depths of the bin. All of them had migrated to the top and were escaping, en masse, into my coat closet. My fears of inadequacy blossomed. Here I was, a woman who had managed to make it through four years of medical school and five years of residency. I was now a medical consultant whose clients sometimes said, “Could you please repeat that. And talk slowly, because I want to write down exactly what you’re saying.” Now my ego had been shattered by the lowly worm, a sightless, spineless, and yes heartless creature. I had been disrespected by a box of worms. I snapped the lid closed, probably crushing a few of the wrigglers in the process. I didn’t care, I felt no obligation to be an ennobled steward of all of God’s precious children. I pressed ahead, fueled only by grim determination.
Some friends of ours were experienced worm farmers and wanted to know about my set up. Viv asked me, “what type of bin do you have, will it be easy to clean out the ‘juice’ at the bottom?” JUICE JUICE!! I could tell juice was a euphemism for some sort of effluent swill and that Viv was trying to prepare me for the nitty gritty of a worm farmer. Apparently worm bins range in sophistication from a basic box to elaborate contraptions that separate the “juice” so it can simply be poured off.
My family had skimped and gotten me the cheapest bin, figuring I could graduate to something more upscale if my initial efforts were a success. While this was a reasonable strategy, I would have to spend quality time with worm effluent. Years ago I had made a vow that our household would have no pets that pooped inside, no birds, cats or rodents. But now I had inadvertently broken my vow. I feared the swill.
The end came swiftly one evening as I stood in front of our kitchen sink filled with unwashed dishes. This neglected chore has always irked me since this shared responsibility was so simple, far easier than inserting a new roll of toilet paper on the holder or finding and putting in a new light bulb. Rinsing a dish only requires a quick splish splash of water and then with a slight pivot to the right and bend of the waist, the plate could be deposited into that all-time great kitchen appliance, the dishwasher. I had subtly dropped hints that leaving unwashed dishes was disrespectful to the next person using the sink. When that strategy failed, I pinned a note on the splashboard above the sink that could not be ignored (but it was).
A plate with a thick smear of coalesced egg yolk sat in the sink. The simple splish splash rinse might have worked at breakfast, but not now, some 10 hours later. I segued to a scrub brush, and then manually picked off the last yellow fleck, which embedded under my fingernail. When I opened the dishwasher, I saw it was full of clean dishes. So the egg eater had 1) not rinsed and 2) had not emptied the dishwasher, leaving these chores to the sucker now standing at the sink. I burst into tears. I needed to regain power and take decisive action somewhere. I could have convened a hasty family tribunal, assign blame along with a punishment, but everyone was already in bed.
I had to vent my frustration. I wandered around the house fuming and then my eyes lit upon the worm bin. Here was something I could control and perhaps exact some revenge for my worms’ prior disrespect. Grabbing a flashlight, I carried the bin outside. With one big heave ho and a sigh of satisfaction, I dumped the contents into the weeds alongside the driveway and then shook any juice out. The red wrigglers had never liked my bin anyway. I was happy to set them free; this was what they wanted after all. Too bad it was winter.
As I walked back to the garage I thought of other ways of honoring Darwin. Perhaps a trip to the Galapagos.
Bonus Word Game Poem:
The missing words in the following poem are a set of anagrams (i.e. share the same letters like spot, stop, post) The number of asterisk indicate the number of letters. One of the missing words will rhyme with the previous or following line, giving you a big hint. Scroll to bottom of post for answers:
As Darwin * * * * * * along the Galapogos coast,
He discovered evolution be was fearful to boast.
He knew his Godless theories would leave the clergy inflamed,
And for the ensuing chaos and schisms he would surely be * * * * * *
To avoid heretical * * * * * * he work a book about worms instead
His bestseller Formation of Vegetable Mould became a best seller that was widely read.
answers: ambled, blamed, bedlam
Darwin’s fascination with earthworms culminated in the unlikely 1881 bestseller titled, “The Formation of Vegetable Mould, Through the Action of Worms, With Observations of Their Habits.”