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Worms are disgusting. I've known that since a preschool playmate smeared one into a paste inches from my eyes. But worms are spectacular in some ways too. I've gently pulled them from my garden, fascinated by their shape and grace, knowing that they signal the health of the soil. So when a flyer from our county waste-management office listed a class on worm composting, I signed up. I was bored with cold, finicky computers. I wanted dirt on my hands.

The $30 class fee included a pound of worms, shredded paper and a 3 x 2-foot Rubbermaid container with holes drilled along the sides and bottom for aeration and drainage. One pound of worms, about a thousand, can consume approximately one-half pound of food scraps per day, producing enough castings (a polite term for worm poo) to harvest in 3 - 6 months or when the castings have become fairly uniform and dark. Stephanie, our instructor, suggested that the best places to keep a bin are outside out of direct sunlight in the summer and in a garage or basement during the winter. Red worms, Eisenia fetida and Eisenia andrei, the most commonly used species for composting, are fine in temperatures between 39 and 90 degrees, 65 degrees being optimal.

The Dirt on Worms
Stephanie outlined the ideal worm diet: no dairy, fats or meat; lots of vegetables and fruit — oddly similar to the one my doctor had recommended for me. Coffee shops give away grounds, a favorite worm food, if you don't have enough scraps to sustain your bin. (I'm hoping the caffeine will speed up productivity.) When Stephanie plopped an ample bag of worms into my palms, my knees buckled — thank God I couldn't feel them squirming through the bag.

Several handouts described the variety of worm bins: wood (which doesn't collect excess moisture, but can dry out); stacking (which optimizes the upward movement of red worms toward food and allows for easy cultivation of the castings but costs more) and the do-it-yourself Rubbermaid digs. Bins and plans for building them are available in your local garden shop or library or online.

Worm Bins 101
Home from class, I set aside tap water for an hour to leach out the fluoride, then wet the paper shavings and lined the bin to a depth of eight inches with them. I gently spread the bag of worms across the bin, then scattered overripe banana and apple chunks in one corner. Daily feedings in different parts of the bin encourage worms to migrate and reproduce. I covered the worms with a couple inches of wet paper and an hour later, when they'd burrowed away from the light, snapped on the lid. This was going to be easy!

The next morning, however, I found a Worm Exodus on the garage floor. They had slunk across the garage or balled up under the bin's lid. I cringed, then found rubber gloves and scooped them back up, including a couple of strings that may have been worms: Leave no worm behind. Bits of worm poo resembling coffee grounds peppered the walls of the container.

I emailed Stephanie about this problem. She suggested that their environment was too wet. I left the lid off to promote evaporation and settled the bin away from my husband's drum set. If vibrations from rain alert worms to surface, the prior night's jam session must have signaled The Great Flood; little wonder they were crawling up the walls of the bin!

Harvesting the Gold
A few months later, it was time to cultivate the castings. I couldn't wait to scoop out the rich compost I knew was waiting. How disgusting could it be? I'd raised children. I'd cleaned up my son's green puke, a scene reminiscent of The Exorcist. I forgot that rotting food, crawling with worms, would be in there too.

I dumped the bin upside down under a bright light to entice the worms to migrate downward and began scooping. Small, pebble-like purses, each holding 3 - 4 worm eggs, appeared in every handful. And then there were the worms - fist-sized masses of fleshy pink surrounding the scraps they were ingesting. I sneezed and snuffled at the mold (a regular feature of these bins), finally opening the garage door for some fresh air. When I gripped a wriggling chunk of moldy mashed banana and white bread, I decided it was time for a break — and gloves. But an hour later, I had cultivated approximately 2 - 3 pounds of riches for my - I mean the worms' — efforts, enough to spread near my plants or brew a small bucket of compost tea (see sidebar) for my roses.

If you want more castings, start an additional bin by splitting your worm colony in half. The worms will eventually overpopulate their living space, slowing their reproduction cycle. I divided the worms between two bins, adding four inches of fresh cow manure as an alternative to shredded paper, promising myself that this bin was not going into my home office like its predecessor, no matter how cold it got in the garage. If you're not going to offer the excess population to a friend, these worms are worth at least $20 a pound; not bad for a mess of worms.

A year into composting, I inhaled a mouthful of fruit flies when I fed the worms. Stephanie's advice on this was to bury the food deeper or not feed the worms for a week or two, the theory being that the worms will survive and the flies should die off. I put the bins out in cool weather for a couple days, and that killed off the fruit flies, but covering your bin with a fine mesh can discourage fruit flies also. If they persist, surrender and start your bin over. Or keep your mouth closed when you feed the worms. And maybe wear goggles. I'll admit that I've slacked off daily feedings, the thrill of cultivating compost waning over the months. They've managed fine.

Worms on a Large Scale
Vermicomposting, as composting with worms is known, and the use of compost teas are garnering the attention of big government: Waste-management agencies are promoting the use of vermicomposting to reduce the amount of food scraps that comprise an estimated 25 percent of local landfills. California is encouraging its employees to keep worm bins at work to utilize scraps from lunches and cafeteria waste, and quite a few colleges use vermicomposting to cut their garbage bills.

Despite the high ick factor, would I recommend worm composting? Absolutely. The kitchen scraps I used to throw away are sustaining life. And since I can't keep a cow in my back yard (the neighborhood association frowns on it), this is my best option for producing rich, pesticide-free fertilizer. The bins are unobtrusive enough to keep under the kitchen sink (or table, as one friend did). Worm composting is easy, offers a beneficial alternative to wasting food and is definitely a conversation starter if your dining table is topped with glass.

Longtime Puyallup, Washington resident Cynthia Washington is a freelance writer and poet living with her husband, two cats, a dog and two bins o' worms. She is grateful that her English Lit degree is paying off, even if it means writing about worm poo.

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