Learn how to make your own ‘black gold,’ at the library or online

You may have once heard your wise gardener friend tell tales of “black gold.” Surely they don’t mean petroleum products or jewelry. No, the black gold they refer to is the product of the sheer digestive power of worms, and although it may not sound glamorous, it is one of the best things you can add to your soil and one of the easiest ways to compost your food scraps.

If you have a young learner in your life who seems like they may be into this kind of wriggly, environmentally friendly venture, the Hillyard Library welcomes them to an educational hour from 4 to 5 p.m. Thursday on all things worm composting. Each participant is invited to get their hands dirty making their very own miniature worm farm.

“Our mini worm farms are made from 24-ounce food containers – the types used at restaurants,” said Mason Neil, youth environmental specialist at Spokane Public Library.

“The lids are perforated to allow airflow, and we fill them with bedding we make together comprised of shredded paper, coconut coir, water to make it moist, and some original bedding from the worms’ original farm,” Neil said.

These humble beginnings provide each participant their own start into vermicomposting, but due to the size of the container, the worms cannot continue to stay in this miniature farm. Participants will leave with follow-up instructions on how to build a full scale vermicompost set-up, or they can simply release the worms into their garden where they will thrive just as well in the backyard soil.

Worms haven’t gotten much respect for the incredible amount of waste management they’ve contributed. To this day, calling someone a worm would be intended as an insult.

But Charles Darwin himself recognized the amazing ways worms make the best of waste. In his last work, “The Formation of Vegetable Mould, Through the Action of Worms,” written in 1881, he wrote “It may be doubted if there are any other animals which have played such an important part in the history of the world as these lowly organized creatures.”

It all starts with worms tunneling their way through soil to find bits of decaying organic matter. They ingest it, along with bits of grit from the environment, and they grind that matter down until it becomes a paste. What the worm does not absorb is excreted as castings, and those castings are what is referred to as “black gold.”

The castings are super rich in the nutrients needed for growing healthy plants, such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. These nutrients are released slowly, which benefits plants throughout their life rather than being flooded with a lot of nutrients all at once. The castings also have plentiful microbiological colonies that protect the soil from pathogens.

“This program uses red wriggler worms, who eat about half their body weight every day. If you have a large community of worms, you can turn large amounts of food waste into compost rather quickly,” Neil said.

To learn how to create your own worm bin, visit extension.wsu.edu. This site for Washington State University’s extension programs has a wealth of knowledge on gardening topics and they have a full step-by-step guide to create your own budget-friendly worm bin.

The basics involve drilling holes into two 8 to 10 gallon opaque bins, stacking them, filling one bin with newspaper bedding, adding in a bit of dirt, adding in your worms, topping it with wet cardboard, closing the bins, and placing them in a well-ventilated area. It’s a fairly simple and small set-up for anyone who doesn’t mind a bit of a DIY project. Or you can also purchase a ready-made worm bin from a hardware store.

Worms make the perfect gateway into teaching young learners about the power of nature’s waste management processes.

“We begin the program sitting around the large farm, making observations about the characteristics of what we see – food scraps, bedding, some small insects at the top, and further down we see totally decomposed compost rich in nutrients to be returned to the soil,” Neil said.

Even those who aren’t huge fans of dirt-dwelling creatures are welcome to join.

“You would be surprised how not-gross worms are when you get to experience them up close. If you’re hesitant about being near or handling worms, swing by the program and allow yourself to observe. No one is forced to handle the worms, but so far everyone has warmed up to them by the end of the hour,” Neil said.

Visit spokanelibrary.org or call (509) 444-5300 to learn more.