Kids + Dirt + Worms= Awesome

After six months of hard work on the part of my worms, it was finally time to "harvest" the compost. Instead of attempting to do it on my own, I decided to embark on this adventure with a class full of 4th graders. And wow, do city kids love to dig through worm poop! After a few initial disgusted looks and a few nervous squeals, I am proud to report that 90% of students willingly dug through piles of rotting vegetables, worms, and various other creatures with their bare hands AND LIKED IT! After an hour or so, we had a large plastic tub full of gorgeous compost for my garden.

Here's what you will need: a large tarp, a well-lit area (preferably outside), a container for compost, small shovels (we used plastic sandbox tools), and gardening gloves (optional) , newspaper, water, a bucket

If you're doing this with kids, it's helpful to assign jobs, especially if they have way cool names. Choose a couple of Vegetable Extractor Captains, a few Pile Engineers, some Worm Searchers, Compost Managers, a Quality Control Person, and a Photojournalist. If you are immediately starting a new cycle in your worm bin, you will also need some Newspaper Shredders and Hydrators.

1. Open up the tarp.
2. Dump out the contents of the worm bin.
3. Pick out any large vegetables that have not decomposed and put them back into the bin.
3. Using shovels or hands, make multiple small piles of the worm bin materials on the tarp. Our biggest mistake was making piles that were too large--aim for 2-3 handfuls of material in each pile.
4. Worms hate light. Wait a few minutes and the worms will migrate to the bottom of the pile.
5. Scoop the fresh compost off of the top of the pile and transfer it to your compost container.
(At this point, you might want your Quality Control Person to look through the compost to make sure there are no worms left in the compost container. They will survive for a while on the leftovers, but will eventually die if you do not keep adding new food.)
6. You will inevitably find balls of worms that were previously at the bottom of the piles. Transfer them back to the worm bin.
7. Once you have gone through all the piles, you are ready to restart the worm bin cycle. Have the Newspaper Shredders tear newspaper sheets into long, thin strips an inch or two wide.
8. Put the newspaper strips into a bucket.
9. Add half of a cup of water at a time and have the Hydrators mix the water with the newspaper strips until they are moist, but not dripping. If you have puddles in the bottom of the bucket, you are using too much water.
10. Layer the newspaper strips over the worms in the worm bin. Try to fill it almost to the top.