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.