A couple weeks ago I went to Common Ground and picked up a worm composting thing. Can o' Worms. I also ordered one pound of worms to be delivered to my door. Can you guess how many worms are in one pound? Let me tell you. - 1000! It's awesome. I put the coir in the bottom of the 3 layers and put the worms on top. They immediately dove down into the dirt and I couldn't see them at all after about 10 minutes. Then I put some food scraps on the next layer up. They have been climbing up and eating it regularly. In a few months they will have filled layer two and I will put food on layer three. After a while they will all have migrated away from layer one and I can use it in the garden as fertilizer. Then that empty layer will become layer three and the cycle will continue. In a few years, I will have about 15,000 worms eating my scraps. Awesome!
Here are some pics:
This is the box and bag the worms came in. There was a little bit of dirt in there too. I held it in my hand and although I couldn't feel any distinct movement, I could feel the bag pulsing as they squirmed around - it was like I could feel their energy. Very weird.
This is the worms just after putting them in the can. They dove out of sight immediately.
I was wondering to myself - is having a worm composting bin going against the morals and ethics of being a vegan? I'm not abusing them, but I am using them to my own ends. I'm not eating or selling their byproduct, but I am using it in my garden. I assume they're pretty happy to have food to eat all the time, but they are trapped in my can. I'm thinking it's not going against my personal beliefs or way of life, but I could see how people might argue against it.
6 comments:
worms, worms, worms! look at all of them! what an interesting project! thanks for posting, love seeing what the contraption looks like....
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg12416884.700-forum-animal-rights-for-all--the-insect-liberation-front.html
http://tinyurl.com/33js6k
might work better
Yeah, I think that there must be some human gene that identifies with other mammals. We don't as readily identify with crustaceans, insects or invertibrates, things with no eyes...
But I think my invertibrates are happy...
Hi spaceJASE,
Good luck with your Can-o-Worms. They are really good and produce great compost. Remember not to overfeed them to start off with - they will eat up to half of their own body weight in food a day.
I don't want to open up another can of worms (puns intended), but... the gene(s) for compassion is always there. But most choose to ignore/suppress it for the sake of convenience. And oh, it also depends on which religious teachings you follow -- some are more forgiving to other beings than others...
Nice project, btw. If we end up staying, it might be a fun project for the kids as a learning tool.
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