Worm Tea

Worm tea is gross. And it's brewing in my backyard.

Today I went to a workshop sponsored by the City of Santa Monica's Recycling Department on composting and vermiculture. Held at the super approachable and family friendly Virginia Ave. Park, it was led by two guys from an LA County garden learning center. Apparently they do a couple of these every weekend, and were very organized, with a laminated poster presentation, answers to all of our wormy questions, and soil samples, literature, and worms on hand. I took it all.

A word about Virginia Ave. Park. This is possibly my current favorite among the many awesome Santa Monica public parks. Besides the fields, playground, and free parking, Virginia Ave. comes complete with a Saturday Farmer's Market, a water play area with 20' jets and water cannons, outdoor free art classes for the 5-8 year old set, a basketball court that seems to be in constant use, and picnic areas that have been booked for birthday parties every time I've been there.

I left the workshop encouraged that worms were recommended as a good match for apartment dwellers as they do well on just kitchen scraps, unlike a regular compost bin which benefits from a mix of kitchen and garden waste. I left the workshop knowing a few new things about worms: healthy, well watered, warm but not too warm, happy worms can eat about their weight in food scraps every day, double in numbers in three months, and, when everything is going right, decompose food into soil without making odors. I'll believe it when I smell it. I left the workshop $50 poorer but with a pound of worms and a three level worm hotel, which is now sitting under the avocado tree next to the laundry shed.

The top level: contains nothing. It's empty until the worms have reproduced quite a bit and outgrown

The middle level: which is the new home of a pound of worms, the half eaten dirt they came in, some damp newspapers to get them munching, and a brick of compressed coconut husk, which was recommended to help their digestion. Eggshells too: good for digestion, good for the worm bin's pH. The middle level has a mesh bottom, letting the "good stuff" fall into

The bottom level: where worm tea brews.

Worm casings, or worm poop for the more childlike among us, collect in piles like dripping mud through your fingers in the bottom level. This is wet, smooth, thick stuff, and liquid oozes out of and pools around the bottom of the bin. This brown liquid is worm tea, and it is apparently jam packed with nitrogen, phosphorus, protein, bacteria, protozoa, and other stuff that makes it excellent fertilizer. Such good fertilizer that you need to dilute it 10:1 before giving it to your plants. The bottom level comes with a handy spigot to drain off the worm tea for fertilizing purposes. Yum.

Yesterday's run destination: Santa Monica Library

Yesterday's menu:
Breakfast: cereal
Lunch: cheesy potato
Dinner: shabbat at Tony's: chicken marbella, kugel, salad, challah