desert, and a compost seemed like it
might help. I was putting my fruit and
vegetable table scraps in an 18 gallon
covered plastic tub, but nothing much
was happening—the banana peels still
looked
like
banana
peels.
When I mentioned this to Perry and
Lester, they dug into their tub and gave
me a handful of worms.
Well, that was the beginning. I put
the worms into my tub of table scraps,
added a thin layer of peat moss, lightly
moistened the surface and let those guys
enjoy their new digs. Every few days, I
added more fruit and vegetable scraps,
and every week or so, I added another
thin layer of peat moss, wetting it down.
I had heard that worms need air,
(strange, since they live underground...)
so I put some small air holes in the tub.
Have I said that worms multiply?
Exponentially? Indeed, in no time at all,
the handful of worms became two hand-
fuls, then four, and so on. And as they
were multiplying, they were creating
quantities of castings, the rich, dark,
humus-like material that is created as
organic material passes through worms.
It’s a sort of worm doo-doo, and this
material is what makes plants grow and
thrive.
It is a miraculous process, and I was
awed by all that my handful of worms
had become. I fed my lettuce and
spinach plants with this beautiful mate-
rial, but was careful to not put any
worms into the soil. Here on the desert,
the soil is so dry, the worms could not
survive in the ground. Even with the
Agribon cover I keep over my vegetable
plants, the soil dries out between water-
ings, and the worms would not stand a
chance. So as I scooped out the com-
post, I picked out the worms and put
them back into their home.
My vegetables flourished and I had
greens all winter and spring. When it
was very cold, I covered the plastic tub
with a blanket.
The worms were fine through the
winter and into the spring.
But then it was time for my partner
Charlie and me to head to Washington
state, where we spend the hotter six
months of the year. It’s great, half the
year on this magnificent desert and half
the year by the ocean. Great for us, but
what about my worms?
There was no way they could survive
on their own. Untended, they would
simply dry up and die.
So began my worms’ yearly “vaca-
tion.” Charlie kindly indulged my plan.
The first year, the tub was still manage-
able, and we took all the worms with us.
In Washington, we fed them and they
did their job of spinning table scraps
into rich dark organic material. Back to
The worms had outgrown their tub
by then and were now living in a tub
twice the size of the original.
When April rolled around, time to once
Traveling worms
the Texas desert we went in October,
and I planted a new vegetable garden,
mixing all this rich compost into the
desert dirt.
again depart for Washington, it was
clearly impractical to try to heft this very
large tub into the back of our truck and
transport it to Washington.
Danny to the rescue!
Our house is located at the far end of
the DSL internet line, which, at that
time, caused many interruptions in our
service. Consequently, we had to have a
lot of house calls from Danny, our Big
Bend Telephone fix-it man. Danny
always noticed my vegetable garden and
became interested in trying to start one
at his house.
When it was time for us to leave for
Washington, I asked Danny whether he
might like to start a compost, using
some of my worms. He loved the idea.
So I separated the worms into two
smaller tubs, leaving one with Danny
and taking the other one with us as we
had done the previous year. Six months
later, when Charlie and I returned to the
desert, Danny had experienced the
amazing multiplication of the worms
and had started his own compost and
garden. He was happy to give us back
our tub of worms to reunite with their
worm relatives returning from “vaca-
tion.”
This cycle has gone on for some years
now. On our last trip from Washington
to Texas, we stayed with my niece in San
Diego.
This is where we changed to calling
our worms by their Spanish name,
gusanos. Lucy and her husband Jason are
bilingual, as is their two-year-old son
Rocky. Rocky was delighted and spell-
bound by the worms, saying over and
over, “Mis gusanos, mis gusanos.” So
gusanos they now are to all of our fami-
ly. Such a prettier sounding word when
spoken in Spanish. And somehow call-
ing them gusanos makes them sound
more like the alchemists they are: like
Rumpelstiltskin weaving straw into
gold, the gusanos take table scraps and
transform them into rich castings.
Rocky found the gusanos to be as tac-
tile and irresistible as I did, and he could
not keep his hands out of the compost,
lifting one gusano at a time, transferring
it to his other hand, letting it wriggle
around, and then putting it back into
the tub. It was an easy decision to buy
another tub and start their family com-
posting with gusanos. Rocky’s first pets.
People roll their eyes when they hear
that for ten years we have taken our
gusanos back and forth, Texas to
Washington, Washington to Texas. It’s
hard to explain, so we just smile and
carry on.
I love the desert. I love my vegetable
garden. And I love my gusanos that
allow the one to produce the other.
Cenizo
Second Quarter 2018
25