Brilliant Birthdays - Part One

Now that the weather's cheering up again I'm starting to plan what I want to do in the garden this year and this has coincided rather neatly with my birthday! I asked mum & dad for a wormery and, despite thinking I'm a little mad, they bought me this little beauty - a Worm City Wormery

Which came with lots of useful accessories - a book on worm composting, a PH monitor, worm food and a quick-start guide and two more expansion trays (which sit between the tap and the roof and are rotated as the worms process the food waste into compost).  Also included was a sturdy kitchen caddy (which I forgot to photograph) to store food waste in before giving it to the worms.

And most importantly of all, lots of big, fat, wriggly worms!

First impressions are that it's smaller than I expected... but not small - the shot above shows one of the three trays after I emptied and entire bucket of coir into it (plus some worms!) so it holds a surprising amount of stuff.  At the moment it's in the kitchen so that the worms don't get too cold but eventually it will go outside.  I'm keeping them in for now mainly so that they'll get settled and start eating quicker - they slow down in the cold and I want them to get munching and breeding so that I'll have lots and lots of worms to make me compost for the summer.  I was slightly worried they might try to get out but so far not one seems to have made a bid for freedom so it looks like I won't have to rescue too many worms from the kitchen floor!