Adventures in vermicomposting

I decided to set up our worm bin again, to compost all the things that chickens/dog/cats/etc. won't or shouldn't eat. Moldy bread or produce, etc. I kept a compost bin in the kitchen when we lived in the subdivision in Durham, NC with great success. No smell, no flies as long as I went behind the boys and covered the food with shredded paper. And more worms than we knew what to do with. I ended up putting two 30 gallon trash cans by the back fence and seeding them with worms and shredded paper and they took off as well. Lots and lots of lovely worm castings and worm tea for happy veggies and houseplants.

Unfortunately the worm bin was neglected over the past year here, and all the worms died. Just for the heck of it, I looked on amazon.com to see if I could order more worms. Well, not too surprisingly, I could. The seller had 50 or so 5 star reviews and only a couple of bad ones at the time I placed my order, on July 20th. July 22nd I was supposed to get 1000 live red wigglers, via FedEx. The 22nd came and went, and no worms. Finally, at 6:30pm on the 26th, the box showed up. I wasn't very optimistic about it, as 6 days in a box in this heat didn't bode well for the little wormies. Sadly, I was right. All were dead, the dirt was bone dry and so were all the worms.

Amazon offered to re-ship them, if I sent back the "damaged product." Really? You want to make the poor UPS guys pick up a putrid box of dead worms and bring them back to you? Okay, if that's how it is, I'll do it. So, the re-ship was supposed to arrive on the 28th, this time with 1-day shipping instead of 2-day shipping at no charge.

It's now noon on the 29th. Guess what. Yup, you guessed it. No worm sign yet. (Sorry, had to throw in the geek reference there.) If they show up dead this time, I just want a refund.

Someone on the local Craigslist has been offering worm tea. If this second shipment is dead, I'm going to email them and ask if they have any extra worms they can sell me as a starter culture. I know from experience that it only takes a small handful of worms to get you thousands of worms pretty quickly when managed right.

Maybe I'll find their ad and ask them to buy some now, even before the second shipment shows up. That way I'll have at least one starter, if not two....