Natural Born Tillers

Or as the worms churns... I finally had the chance to build some earthworm habitats right in my garden. The project required about six months of stale bread (or any basic non-oily carb), newspaper, and mulch.

Now the reasons to do this project are multitude. One, the worms act as a natural tiller, burrowing through the ground and leaving the soil naturally aerated. Plus, their castings are a nutrient rich and great for plants. Two, by making these habitats now, I can have a source of Ohio worms for vermi-posting through the winter months, as traditional composting doesn't work too well when it's freezing. Three, I can physically remove these worms from my property to the land bank property (grant permitting), as I would like to do this earthworm project on a much larger scale with corporate stale bread sponsors (Hint, Great Harvest) with leaf humus composted on site.

Building the earthworm habitat was easy enough. Basically, it's a layered sandwich of newspaper/carb/mulch/newspaper/carb/thick mulch with a little mist of watering in between. The second photo shows the layers fairly clearly: Newspaper/ Brownberry/Wood Mulch/Newspaper/Ak-Mak/Leaf Humus.

The newspaper provides a sort of shelter for the worms, as even worms like their security. However with all that bread just above, the worms just can't help but dug on in. The multiple layers serve the dual purpose of providing more habitat, while keeping that habitat cool.