Worms Eat My Garbage

Davina Morgan-Witts, BookBrowse editor

Our household is one of many pets - the dog, the hamster, a dozen or so fish, and an indeterminate number of worms.

The worms moved up the familial totem pole from organic waste disposal unit & free mulch-makers to family pets a couple of years back when husband refused to give up a handful for fishing purposes, claiming that worms were friends not food. With his close affection for our invertebrate friends it was a sad day last week when we lifted the lid of the worm bin to deposit a bowl of potato peelings, to find that the worms were no more - the delicate balance of moisture needed to keep them in health and happiness (wet enough to keep them slithering but not so wet that they drown) had gone awry and the whole bunch had shuffled off their mortal coils.

Reluctant as I am to admit our failure as vermicomposters, this is not the first time that that we've lost our worm colony. Indeed the now famed 'friends not food' comment was a hastily constructed defense to protect the limited population of worms that had been installed only a few weeks earlier to repopulate our wormery after the last great extinction. So, we know what to do - off to www.wormwoman.com we go, credit card in hand to buy ourselves some new worms.

Wormwoman.com was founded by Mary Appelhof, vermicomposting evangelist and champion of conservation and ecological awareness. Sadly, Mary died in 2005 but her legacy lives on through her website; her business (Flowerfield Enterprises); and a number of books including her seminal work on the topic of vermicomposting, "Worms Eat My Garbage" (over 165,000 copies sold, available in English, Japanese, Korean, French and German).

If you've ever considered exploring the wonderful world of vermicomposting, pick up a copy of "Worms Eat My Garbage" through a bookstore, or at WormWoman.com!

"No one in this country has done more for the self-image of worms than Mary Appelhof, the undisputed and nationally recognized, "Worm Woman." - Green Living Magazine.