The worms are multiplying - Babies!

We are really enjoying our GardensAlive Worm Composting System. We have only had it a month but the worms have more than doubled already! If you want to see what the worm bin looks like, I showed several pictures of it on my last worm post.

My daughter has had a favorite kids book for years called Diary of a Worm. Now that we have been able to watch worms up close for a month, we understand the book a lot better. Now, it is pretty funny to us. What a great little book. For example, the instructions in setting up the bin had us put several sheets of wet newspaper as the very top layer of the bin.  Diary of a Worm begins with advice from a mother worm to her son. One thing she tells him is "Never bother Daddy when he's eating the newspaper."

As it turns at, that is so true. The worms love to eat newspaper! Look at what those three layers of newspaper look like after one month:

They also like to get up above the newspaper, between it and the plastic lid - so we added more moist newspaper.

Today we discovered the coolest thing of all. The worms not only like to eat newspaper and crawl between it and the lid, but they like to do other things there as well.

Look at all the babies! There are at least six or seven in this picture. They are so small that we would never have seen them without the newspaper as a backdrop.Here's a closeup of the above picture:

These baby worms are small but they are a lot longer than I would have expected. Below is a different picture. Notice that one baby is snuggled up next to an adult and another baby is a little to the right. It almost looks like a mom and her babies, doesn't it?

Did I just hear you say "aw, how cute"? If so, did you ever think you would think worms were cute?

I tell you, we are having much more fun with our worm bin than we expected. It's really easy to keep it going since the bin is right in our living space. We have already expanded to the 2nd tray. If you want to see how the bin is put together, my first worm post shows it in detail. Also in that post, I show some other styles of indoor worm bins like the famous Can-O-Worms.

I'm sure those other worm systems work well too, but we are very satisfied with our Gardens Alive bin. They still have their spring Internet coupon going for the worm bin or any of their products. It is $20 Off Any $40 Purchase, a pretty good deal, don't you think?

We are so new at keeping worms that it still seems odd to call it vermicomposting. That is what I like to call it though, because the whole reason for raising these worms is to be able to use the ultra-rich compost for the garden that they create. I first found out about vermicomposting from a garden blog, but I don't remember which one.

If you are a garden blogger and have ever written about raising worms, please let me know. Include the url to your post, label or category too if you can. We'd also like to hear from you if you've ever kept worms even if you haven't written about them. I want to learn all I can about this and tell as many gardener's as I can too.

Keeping worms is so easy and fun, every serious gardener should consider it! Please comment if you agree with me or even if you have questions.

Thanks,

Marc