Worms

Before I had bees, I had worms. I got them about a year ago and boy, do they assuage the guilt that comes with being an American consumer. Having them devour our banana peels, rotted cukes, and overripe whatevers has significantly reduced the weight and volume of our weekly bag of city-trash. I used their castings in the lettuce bed this spring and no question about it, the bed's productivity quadrupled, with our first great harvest after four relatively pathetic years.

Interestingly, the honeybees seemed VERY interested in the worm castings, too. The bees landed on the castings I'd spread on newspaper before transfer to the garden and sucked up whatever good stuff was there to suck—Minerals? Salts? Wormy mojo? I guess I'll never know.

In any case, it was great to see this homage to wormdom in the Times today. Check out the article and then go out there and get yourself some worms. It's a great stepping-stone to becoming a beek and a fun, low-tech way to give Mother Earth a hand.