My friend Vivian lives in the West End and in addition to her clothing-design and culinary superpowers, she has worm composting down to a fine art.  Every few months she gives me a huge bag (or two) of worm-composted food-waste from her kitchen.  Not only is it really fabulous quality but it always contains lots of live worms.  Important things I have learned about using worm compost:

(1) If you don’t put it on the garden right away and leave the bag of compost in the sun, the worms suffocate and die. (Oops)

(2) Even though my food compost bin also contains lots of worms -some of whom are direct descendants of Vivian’s worm colony – her compost process seems to be much more efficient as she gets more end-stage compost in less time.

(3) Spreading the worm compost in rainy weather works best, because it dissolves and combines with the rest of the soil faster.

(4) Compost sometimes contains unexpected surprises, like missing peelers, elastic bands, measuring spoons and other cutlery. This last batch contained wine corks!

Vivian, thank you.  I will repay you in kale….