I admit, I was pretty anxious about opening up the huge white bag that came in the mail today- filled with 1,000 worms. But, they were not so bad! We got their house all set up and placed them in the tray- they seemed happy to be out of the bag. It's almost their dinner time, so we'll see what happens next! Stay tuned...

Yep, mold. We are not supposed to have mold. There's not much, but a little. After some research, I figured out that I did not bury our scraps properly. Evidently, it's important to bury your scraps not only to avoid mold but also fruit flies and any odor- which I am thankful we don't have any of.

I am also learning that our worm friends don't like a lot of acidic scraps (orange peels, etc.) but really thrive on crushed eggshells and veggie scraps. A tip for those of you considering getting some worm friends of your own: no meat products or dairy and no animals waste should ever be put in your bin. More on that tomorrow!

Sounds gross huh? We'll it's true. We've got worms. Not just a couple. We've got 1,000 worms to be exact. Why? Because my family and I are committed to doing our part to help Mother Earth and be as "green" as we can be. You're probably still a little curious as to how worms can help us do that huh?

Well, we started a small garden at our house last year and I wanted to have some good compost for it this go round. A while back I read about vermicomposting- basically, letting Red Wiggler worms do the work, and my garden gets the reward in the form of black tea and rich compost.  See, vermicomposting uses earthworms (Red Wigglers to exact) to turn organic wastes into very high quality compost. This is probably the best way of composting kitchen wastes. Adding small amounts of wet kitchen scraps to a large compost pile in the garden day by day can disrupt the decomposition process so that the compost is never really done. But it works just fine with vermicomposting.

Kinda crazy getting excited about 1,000 worms and rotting food- but I have to admit- it's pretty cool (my 4 year old thinks so too)!

I'll be talking more about Vermicomposting here (and tons of other "Green" initiatives) and you can see our worms in action at EarthFest 2009- be sure to visit our booth and watch our worms at work!