[Community_garden] Sunny Day with My Worms

[James Godsil]

Dear All,

I was like an anxious parent adopting a child leading up to the moment I
squirreled up the courage to ask Will Allen for some Growing Power red
wriggler worms around January 2007. I had been witnessing the Will Allen and
Growing Power miracle for a couple of years, had heard and seen Will explain
the story of vermiculture and fertile soil development, did some volunteer
work moving compost, attended some workshops, and had been collecting
buckets of coffee grounds, brewers mash, wood chips, and veggie wastes in
the several weeks leading up to the moment I was given the sacred worms.

I was worried that I might prove an unworthy parent for these glorious,
exotic creatures.  True, I had played a very active part in raising 4 of my
own children.  I had sufficient success in other life realms to suggest I
could keep Will's worms alive.  But, only one other person I knew, Bob Graf,
had become foster parent in a city home to thousands of red wriggler worms.
 So the evening I brough my worms home, I invited Bob Graf, Andor Horvath,
Charlie Benke, and Sky Schultz, all very wise in the ways of soil, worms,
and plants, to share knowledge and food at my Euclid House micro-farm
experiment.  And they did!

I am thrilled to announce, today, about a year later, that my worms survived
and thrived in the basement and in outdoor compost piles during the winter
of 2007/2008.  Here are some folk photos of this welcome development, with a
question I hope you'll answer at the end.

http://www.milwaukeerenaissance.com/Main/RedWrigglerWormPhotoEssays

**Outside Compost Pile, March 29, 2008

*Worms From Warm Enough Center of Compost Pile*

*Survived Winter 2007/08
*

*Dozens Of Tiny Newly Hatched Basement Worms*

*Stored in  Five Gallon Pails in This Micro-Greenhouse*

*How cold at night before I must worry about the worms?
*


What say?

Apprentice Urban Farmer
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