An adult worm, trying to escape the light.

In a previous post, I wrote about my new worm bin and the the fun I had setting it up. Recently, I took another leap of faith and harvested my first castings.

Harvesting requires the following: gloves (preferably several pairs of the thin kind) a receptacle for the castings, a temporary bin for the displaced worms, and a large work space. I brought the worm bin up from the cellar and got to work.

I took off the lid and began gently lifting out the uneaten vegetable scraps and any worms I could find. There were lots, thank goodness, tiny white threadlike babies, rebellious adolescents just acquiring their pink color, (an assumption, but aren’t they all?) and large adults.

As layers of castings and veggies were lifted away, the worms, which avoid the light, burrowed down to escape it. At the end, I was left with the worms at the bottom. These I placed in the temporary bin.

I carefully sifted through the castings and put those in a plastic bag. I kept noticing tiny worm babies in them, and I didn’t want them to end up in the castings bag where they’d eventually die. So I kept sifting through them in a semi hypnotic state, until I realized that my back was in spasm and that if I didn’t stop soon my eyes would be permanently crossed.

Back in their home, with yummy fresh shredded credit card offers!

I carefully put the worm families and their incumbent scraps back into the bin, added some shredded paper because the bin was a bit wet, and brought it back downstairs, along with the bag of castings. Of course I couldn’t resist taking another peek inside the castings bag  just in case, and yes, there was a teeny wormlet crying for its mother. I returned it to its proper home, threw out my gloves, and counted the  procedure a success.