Well, it’s official. I killed my worms. Well, they weren’t dead, and there’s something to be said for that, I guess. I tried – I really did – to keep them alive, happy, and full – but to no avail.
All motherly instinct jokes aside, I really do feel like a failure. I mean, come on! Worms + soil + food scraps = amazing organic compost in a few short weeks. Any idiot could do it, right? Not this idiot. Twice I got mites and things sneaking in. I chopped my pieces of kitchen waste too big, I almost drowned the box. Really, I did everything short of declare myself an unhappy god, a cruel despot, and the worms still took it.
I tried to fix things. I added honeydew melon pieces once to attract the mites, and then threw out the mite-swarmed pieces. Then I let the box dry in the sun for a few days, though Montreal kept insisting on rain and cloud coverage. When it finally dried into a crust I added pineapple pieces to again suck out the mites.
But today I gave up. I went to feed my worms for the first time in a week or so and they they were – still alive! But so were more mites and a small legion of (maybe 5…) earwigs. I can’t stand earwigs, and these were overly-healthy earwigs. I started feeding the worms anyway by laying down a layer of kitchen scraps and topping it with crusty bedding. And then I stopped; I just thought, “Nope, this isn’t going to work.” So I took the box out back to the compost heap and tossed it, worms and all. Hopefully the worms can help that pile of decaying matter out before they die. Maybe they won’t die right away? Maybe they’ll make it to winter? Who knows what they’ll do then?
Kind of like throwing the baby out with the bath water, isn’t it?
I feel as though I’m covered in mites – up my pant legs and into my hair – they’re fast and tiny and even with gloves on the feeding-tossing out-cleaning process took long enough for them to jump to my clothes. Unfortunately, I can’t toss my clothes into the compost heap. Too many chemicals.
So what did I learn from this? Well, it reassured me that I should never, ever, ever care for another living being. Stick to cooking, Amie. Let other people raise children and worms. Then buy their compost, and make Grandmotherly cookies for the little squirmy things…
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