I Just Paid a Stranger To Mail Me $29 Worth of Worms
Filed under: Adventures in Frugality, Vermicomposting
Yes, you read that correctly: I paid a stranger $29 to send me a pound of worms via Priority Mail. But, you see, these aren’t just any ordinary worms. These are Eisenia fetida, otherwise known as Red Wigglers.
Last week, I stumbled upon a post on DIY Life titled, “Start your own worm composting bin” and I was enthralled. The idea that one can wrangle a bunch of worms into eating your food scraps and waste paper and turn it into super-charged dirt for your plants or garden quickly caught my attention. I immediately showed it to my wife and she surprised me by becoming just as excited about the concept as I was. (I had no idea my wife could be such a tom-boy!)
I am always looking for ways to reduce the trash our house sends to the landfill, but solutions are hard to come across that are both economical and subdivision-compatible. For example, I would love to have a compost pile, but there is no way it would fly in my subdivision. And I would also love to be able to recycle more, but our area provides no curbside pickup and storing the recyclables until we have enough for a trip to the recycling center quickly becomes unmanageable due to space and bugs. That is where my wonderful worms come in…
I made an inconspicuous home for my worms to do their work that can stay in or outside and won’t smell or make any noise or look too out-of-the-ordinary. My starter system was easy to make and relatively cheap. We were able to purchase a new 10-gallon plastic storage bin for $5 and I already mentioned the $29 for the worms, for a final total expense of $34 - and the great part is, I never have to spend another dime if I don’t want to as long as we take good care of our worms. Although, I probably will upgrade to a larger wooden box if the experiment succeeds and our worms dramatically increase their population. (Here is a resource covering one way to build your own worm bin.)
Once the worm home is set up, you have to put together a bedding of a 6 inches of soggy paper shreds and a handful of compost. After that, all you have to do is feed your worms a regular diet of common household biodegradable trash (except for meat, oils, and dairy). That means, if I manage my bin well and I grow a lot more worms, I might never have to throw away any spoiled or scrap food and I could keep my shredded credit card applications out of the trash. Just think, my worms could help save me from the risk of identity theft!
If you want to order some worms for yourself, I recommend Acme Worm Farm (yes, I realize how “Wile E. Coyote” that sounds) since their prices were among the best I found and they had good reviews. My worms should arrive sometime early next week and I guarantee I will be writing more about this experiment after they arrive and when they start showing results.
If you would like to learn more about vermicomposting and building your own worm bin, you can check out these resources:
May 14th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
This is great.
I have been reading up on vermiculture for some time now. My wife and I have started a goat farm and plan to maybe use these hardworking worms to process the goat waste.
I’ll be looking our for your updates on this.
May 15th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Excellent post!!! I have been wanting to do this for a while now but never got the motivation to do it until now. I also live in a subdivision that would frown on an outdoor compost bin and who does not have curbside recycling. We have been filling up the car every month with all of our recyclables as I just can’t throw them away. I look forward to your updates on this topic.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I cannot wait to see how this goes - we plan on doing something similar when we move into our house in July!
May 16th, 2008 at 7:35 am
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May 18th, 2008 at 9:02 am
[...] Caveman’s Financial Journey just paid a stranger to mail him $29 worth of worms. We plan on doing this as well, the minute we move into our house in New [...]
May 18th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
been there, done that. even found a home school science curriculum based on it! you can feed them dryer lint, old socks, paper, veggies & fruit, etc. and while they are composting, you pour water over them & use the tea that drains off for your plants!
May 19th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
[...] is up at Money and Values. I loved the post from One Caveman’s Financial Journey about buying worms for the composter. I remember a few years ago when my husband set up our compost bins, and we were just getting [...]
May 21st, 2008 at 2:42 pm
[...] I also enjoyed I Just Paid a Stranger to Send Me $29 Worth of Worms at One Caveman’s Financial Journey. [...]
June 16th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
last year I transferred some plain old garden or earth worms from the soil in my garden to my composter and was pleasantly surprised to watch it go down in volume very quickly. This year I will have to separate out the worms (many more) from the compost and apply it to the garden, not a bad task I suppose, but I am searching the net for the best method, as I want to keep my worms!