What's happening now

Ashlie has gotten bigger. ,lllllllllllllllmmmmmmmk (sorry that's what my cat Charlote has to say apparently) Rover looks like he got smaller but I don't think he did. I think Sweety has gotten bigger too.

Because Ashlie is a black widow spider I can't put more kitchen-waste in side the worms habitat so my mom has to do it. Ashlie's web is attached to the lid so she is a little-bit scared.

I haven't seen any worms lately, but I think they're still there.

Mosquito-hawk

I figured out that the mosquito-hawk is actually called the crane-fly.
(Just in case you we're wondering.)

A month later...

I added Maynard, the pitcher plant. It's a bug eating plant, but you can't really see it eat the bugs because they just get stuck in there. The gnats are starting to die down, but we still have gnats all over the house. I could sit there all day smashing gnats.





The kitchen waste layer is completely gone now. I did add more kitchen waste but it's all buried in the back in a pile rather than a long layer.

The sweet potato plant has grown so much bigger. The leaves are all the way across the terrarium now and roots are growing out of the stems. The leaves are coming up through the lid that my dad made and pushing up the plastic wrap that we put there to keep the moisture there. The sweet potato's roots are all over the place -- out of the stems, in the gravel, halfway across the terrarium at the bottom -- they're everywhere.

But we haven't been seeing very many worms, only one or two.

Yuck! I just saw a huge mosquito hawk in the habitat. And I noticed a couple of days ago that a black widow spider lives in there too. I don't know what to do about it. Oh well, it's also bug-eating, like Maynard. I'll call it Ashlie. I named the mosquito hawk Rover.

What's happening

I saw another fat juicy worm this morning.

There are way too many gnats in there.

Me and my Mom are considering splitting the cost of a bug eating plant to plant in there. We saw it at Trader Joe's. It's called a Pitcher Plant.

Signs of Life

I saw a big fat juicy worm in the grass-clippings layer today. It was about ______________________ that long. At first I thought it was a brown piece of grass, but then I looked more closely and it was a worm heading farther into the grass. I was happy to see it.


The sweet potato is huge -- it's almost to the other side of the tank or habitat or whatever-you-call-it.

My dad made a real lid. (Before we just used plastic wrap.) But now we use a metal net-type thing with plastic wrap over that to keep the moisture in.


The kitchen waste we gave them is almost gone. I don't think they are eating it, I think it's just getting buried by what they are eating, like, well, I don't know, but the level of the dirt in there has gone down and you can just barely see the dry leaf layer.

where are they?

I was digging in the worms' habitat. I didn't see any worms. I was surprised to see that they weren't there. I'm not sure they're not there. Maybe they just aren't toward the top or against the glass. Or maybe they just headed down to the middle because it's darkest there. But I don't know. I hope we find that they're alive and that we see them. If we don't I want to get more at OSH but Mom says we'll have to get them from our yard first because it's $12 a bucket at OSH.

Later I was looking around...just looking at the compost, and the lettuce was sprouting from the leaves which was kinda weird looking. I guess when you put a lettuce leaf in the dirt it just wants to grow. It's Romaine. I wonder if it grew roots too. But it's close to the glass and I don't see any yet.

freshly started...

A week later.......

Whoa!

I was looking at the photo in my last post and I scrolled down and looked at the image in Day Two and I noticed that the pinecone closed. I was very surprised. We kept that pinecone in a bin in our backyard for a couple of years. I'm surprised that it didn't change then, but now it's finally closing. It might be because of the humidity in there, but I'm not sure.

I Think They've Started To Sing

I checked the tank and I started to see some condensation on the glass around the edges and it's started to feel warmer inside the tank. I've been pouring a vase of water in about every other day. The level of the layers has gone down about half an inch. Although right by the sweet potato it measured 15 inches. It was 17...I wonder if we measured wrong or what, because it doesn't look that much different.

We've seen a couple of the worms tunneling against the glass. They are starting to look healthier, like redder and denser. You can see the tracks of where they've gone. One side of the tank is almost completely tracked. It's pretty hard to see the tracks. I tried to take some pictures, but they didn't really turn out. The tracks are very skinny and shallow, and it's dark in there.

We put in some more lettuce, coffee grounds, and some onion skins. But they haven't really shown any interest in that. I'm glad they're looking healthier. And they hope they eat the compost.

Day Three

Today my mom took me to OSH and got 200 worms in a little cardboard tub. As soon as I sprinkled them in the tank they disappeared. A little while later I put some lettuce, water, and coffee grounds in. So I basically just made coffee with some lettuce. After my dad got home he went to the worm tank and pointed out that he could see one...four...five worms tunneling along the glass. I'm glad the new worms won't eat the old ones (they're vegetarians).

Day Two

Today it looked the same, but the sweet-potato's leaves were a little droopy. The dry leaves that we sprinkled on the dirt were brown, the soil was fresh, and the grass clippings were still green. I watered the sweet potato and the gravel below it darkened. I haven't seen a trace of the worms since I put them in. I hope they are still alive. I want to go to OSH and buy worms there, but my mom said we have to wait a few days.

Day One

A few weeks ago my mom and I had the idea of creating a worm farm. First we got our old 37-gallon fishtank out of the garage. I tried to find a place outside with not very much sun but couldn't find one. Well, I could find shade, but nowhere that wasn't too hot. So I found a nice spot by a north-facing window in our patio room. My parents said that my worms could live there.

Later, my mom and I went to OSH and got gravel. We poured that on the bottom of the tank for drainage -- 50 pounds. We also put in three pounds of white volcanic rock because it is good for drainage too and it's not heavy. Over that I put a fiberglass screen so the worms couldn't get into the gravel. (I don't know why. My mom said we should do it.)

Then I put a layer of potting soil over the screen. Then a layer of grass clippings. Then a layer of dry leaves, another layer of potting soil, then more dry leaves. And I planted a sweet potato that I had rooted in a vase on the kitchen window (facing south).

I think it turned out pretty good. Except that there's a hole in the dirt where a large dry leaf makes a little cave against the glass. I like how it looks but I'm worried that worms will get in there and it won't be good for them. I like how you can really see the layers and the sweet potato roots. The worms right now are hiding, so we can't see them, but I still think we'll be able to see the dried plants decompose.

To get the worms, I got a spade and a cup and went to the garden to dig. A couple days before this my sister was weeding and while she was working there was a bunch of worms under her hoe, so I chose that spot. I gently dug there, not too deep, and at first I thought the worms had all left. Then I saw a huge worm, about four inches long. That was so creepy. My mom told me to grab it because he was sliding back under the ground. I said no because I was too scared. I tried to get it with the spade but it kept slipping away and I didn't want to hurt it. So my mom grabbed it and it started to breakdance (as I call it) and she dropped it. It was a light red, almost dark pink, with a red band around its middle. It looked greasy. It was wriggling hard and I tried again to scoop it with the spade, but it was getting away, so my mom plucked it up and dropped it in the cup. She was very proud of herself for handling that wild worm. I found a few more worms that were easier to get hold of.

I brought the cup inside and dumped it in the tank. The worms disappeared into the dirt. I went out a second time and got one more that I put into the tank next to the glass. I was able to watch that one for a while as it wriggled down. Then I lost sight of it.

So I'm not sure, but I think there are about 5 to 7 worms in there. If these ones don't do well, we'll order some redworms through the mail.