worms

The Untimely Death of a Worm

By Catherine Hallisey

Connecticut FoodCorps

holding a wormAs I was kneeling by a raised garden bed, planting snap peas with a couple of students, I heard a third grader scream “NOOOOOO!” from the other side of the garden.  An array of thoughts immediately sped through my mind in the split second it took me to get over to her section of the garden—

“Is she hurt?”

“Did someone pull a kale plant thinking it was a weed?”

“Did she accidentally pour the watering can on herself instead of our radishes?”

It turned out none of the above scenarios were what caused a quiet eight year old to yell out in fright.  When I reached her side, she had a small trowel in one hand, and a half of an earthworm in the other.  The rest of the earthworm, I presume, was somewhere left in the soil of the garden bed she had been weeding in.

This girl was absolutely heart broken that she had killed a worm.  Obviously, I too was a little upset- here I had a distraught girl in the garden, and, a dead worm.  However, I was also proud. I was proud because this student had taken to heart our number one garden rule “respect all living things” — fellow classmates, beautiful sunflowers, tasty strawberries, slimy worms, scary beetles, buzzing bees, and much, much more.    She knew that worms were good for our soil, and therefore our plants, and was disappointed that she had killed a beneficial creature.  I consoled her by explaining there were a lot of worms in our garden, and it wasn’t that big of a deal.  She decided to be more careful in the future, and then gathered the rest of the group to give the worm a proper burial in the compost bin.

Supplies Needed for a Worm Bin

1) One 14 by 20 inch or so dark plastic (not clear plastic) storage bin with lid

2)  Another storage container that this first plastic storage bin will fit into or a foil turkey cooking pan that your bin can be set in.

3)  Newspapers to shred for bedding (no glossy sections but the comics are okay!)

The first storage bin, which will contain the worms and their bedding, needs to have drainage holes drilled into it. We will have a couple of drills on hand if you are not able to make about 15 to 20 one-quarter inch holes on the bottom of the container for drainage (worm tea) and about the same on the sides for air.

worm bin