We once again had the opportunity to present about worms and composting at Wilson Middle School's SHAC club after school program, and we were honored to present with other environment and community minded folks,  The students had a great time learning about how much waste we can keep out of landfills by composting, and they especially enjoyed meeting some of the creatures that do the work of turning our organic matter into rich, dark soil!

The possibilities for using the amazing castings worms produce are endless!!  This year, I put them to work for some hand-made Holiday presents: Seed bombs!  They make thoughtful, beautiful, eco-friendly gifts that people of all ages enjoy making and receiving!  Take it a step further and package them up nicely in envelopes or boxes made from recycled magazine paper!!

Seed ball/bomb recipe
--Mix equal parts together until it forms a dough-like consistency--
*Worm castings
*Soil
*Natural Clay (you can sometimes find 'discards' at pottery studios, or get natural air dry clay in the arts and crafts section of many stores)
*Water
--Mix seeds into the mixture until they're evenly dispersed; I wild harvested native seeds from natural areas around town; you can do the same or buy seed packets--
--Form into balls and let dry for a couple of days--
--Gift; Throw; Grow!!--

Spring has sprung!  And in true cliché form, today while harvesting worms I came across several baby worms hatching from their cocoons (eggs).  Though I spend quite a bit of hands-on time vermicomposting, it's a fairly rare occurrence that I get to witness a worm as it comes out of its cocoon.  Watching these lovelies enter the world for the first time made my day!  I'm sorry I don't have a better camera.  Happy spring everyone!!

Thanks so much to all my amazing customers!!  It's been a pleasure getting to know all of you and sending worms off to all corners of the city to turn garbage into gold!  I'm taking a temporary hiatus from selling worms to do other things for now, but keep an eye on the website from time to time to see when I'm back.  In the meantime, feel free to continue to contact me if you have any questions about vermicomposting.  Happy composting!

My zucchini seedlings are getting bigger and stronger by the day thanks to the vermicastings I used in the potting soil!  For the world's best seedlings, mix 1 part vermicast to 3-5 parts soil.

Ever tried to get an avocado pit to sprout by using the toothpicks-to-suspend-it-in-a-glass-of-water method and failed?  Well, avocado pits love vermicompost and sticking the pits in with your worms is a surefire way to get them to sprout.  Just throw your pits into the vermicompost, leave them in with the castings, and come back in a couple of months to find most of them sprouting.  This is a picture of just a few of the many sprouted avocados I pulled out of my compost today.  Unfortunately you won't be able to look forward to an avocado harvest, but little avocado trees make excellent house plants and are an easy way to bring some green inside your home.

Today I finally got some seedlings started, and what better to add to the soil mix for planting them but top quality worm castings.  I was overwhelmed by how much and what excellent quality castings my wormies have produced :)  There is tons of the stuff: dark, moist, crumbly, and of course chock full of lots of nutrients!!  These are going to make some plants very happy.

Babies are on their way!!!  Check out all the eggs/ cocoons I found in a batch of today's compost.  The darker the egg, the sooner it will  hatch.  They start out yellowy-green, then turn a darker burnt orange, and finally a deep red before hatching.  How many eggs can you count in these pics?