Worms Eat My Garbage, Mary Appelhof (365 Books, Day 130)

[rushthatspeaks]

As it says on the label. This is a manual about how to set up a system to have worms produce Really Nutritious Compost. It covers things like how to build a bin to hold the worms, what kind of bedding you should use, what species of worm to use, what you can feed them, how many worms to buy for what amount of garbage, and so on. Basically, if you can think of a logistical detail that might be relevant about keeping a worm-compost bin, it's in here, including a note that you must not let your cats use the bin as a litterbox and the author's personal tips for getting rid of possible fruit flies. (She says that if you put beer in your fruit fly traps, they will be attracted to it but it will kill them, as opposed to, say, cider vinegar water or fruit juices, which have the potential to let them breed. The difficulty I see is that this requires having beer around, and not only that but beer you do not intend to consume.)

And she goes into the science behind worms and their ecosystems and the mineral content of the worm castings and so on. And there are cute illustrations.

The whole thing is written at a level which doesn't talk down to an adult, but which could, I think, be comprehended by a bright third-grader, which is nice.

The main conclusion I drew, mind you, is that even though a worm system requires substantial maintenance only every three to four months, it slots neatly into the area of my mind labeled Too Much Work For How Serious We Are About Gardening Right Now. We have a compost heap already, which seems to be thriving, and even has things living in it-- granted, those things are fire ants, and we want them evicted stat, but they certainly seem happy. If we ever need really high-grade compost for some reason this might be worth thinking about, but honestly it isn't something my household would find terribly useful. If we get around to that vegetable garden, perhaps.

Comments

[cyphomandra]

I know you start your review right away with "as it says on the label", but after reading the title I did have a moment of horrified fascination as to whether you were still working through cookbooks. I blame this on having read How to Eat Fried Worms at an impressionable age...

[rushthatspeaks]

Heh. I also read that one fairly young.

If they were considered edible, I don't think I'd have any problem eating worms (prepared properly), but insects are Right Out. Insects are about the only thing I don't eat. Well, and that Sardinian maggot cheese, but that's basically for insect-related reasons.

[vehemently]

A finger of wine or even cooking sherry in a wine glass do the trick just as well as beer. Alcohol lets them drown in the liquid, rather than partake of it and soberly hold onto their perch, but I've never seen that it matters what kind of potable alcohol.

[rushthatspeaks]

I will keep that in mind as we always have cooking sherry. I'd tried cider vinegar before-- not helpful.

[thomasyan]

I wonder if soapy water would do the trick, too. Maybe the lower surface tension means it clogs up their holes and they can't breathe.

Can small animals (like birds?) get into fruit fly traps? If so, I guess something that won't harm them too much is the way to go. Otherwise, if anti-freeze would attract and kill the flies, maybe that would work, too.

[dorothean]

Hello--I've been coming over here and reading periodically and with great enjoyment ever since you started your book-every-day project and I found out about it, and it's just occurred to me that I could add you and have everything just show up on my friends list!

[rushthatspeaks]

Thank you, I am glad you're enjoying this, and I like your icon.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

After my grandfather had had a stroke and was paralysed down one side, and was out of hospital having benefitted as much as he could from therapy, he became obsessed with the idea of having a wormery. It was one of those... he often got obsessed with weird things like that, but before he could build them, or half-build them and then lose interest. The wormery he couldn't build, or have, and he didn't know because he couldn't get down the steps to it, but the garden had gone to hell while he was in hospital and we had given up and mowed the mint, and there was no need for compost for it but rather jungle animals. So even now, anybody mentioning worms and compost and anything sends shudders through my aunt and me, because he wanted us to do it, and he couldn't believe we weren't getting on with it, and we couldn't either humour him or outright tell him. And I was in university and my aunt had a full time job teaching and was caring for him, and a wormery wasn't even slightly sensible.

I don't think it was this book he had, because he'd have turned his nose up at the American term "garbage" and I'd remember that. But worms will always carry guilt for me.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. I can see that. That sounds a very tough situation.

Huh. I didn't know 'garbage' was an American term.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Agreed on both counts. Maybe he'd be more used to "rubbish"?

[butsuri.livejournal.com]

She says that if you put beer in your fruit fly traps, they will be attracted to it but it will kill them, as opposed to, say, cider vinegar water or fruit juices, which have the potential to let them breed.

What I've used is cider vinegar with a little detergent to break the surface tension, which always seems to result in a satisfying number of drowned fruit flies. I didn't even use an actual trap, just a small bowl.