Bit of an Unpleasant Topic

I was speaking the other day with one of my favourite gardening friends—the gravelly-voiced divorcée with a fabulous garden—and asked her where her compost was located.

"Oh, I can't have compost. I have rats."

If you aren't keen on rats, stop right here.

I've been fighting a battle with rats since I moved to my current garden. They obviously have an extensive underground community, a series of tunnels that run along the side of the house, underneath the house next door (although they have two dogs and a cat) and up into the compost bins here. At first I thought, gosh the compost here turns itself over and goes down very quickly! Then I realized that it was not due to my diligence and the felicity of my healthy blend of microorganisms, but rather due to the creatures digging through it every night and eating the larger scraps. The result is actually a very nicely aerated compost, but the situation clearly couldn't continue because a) the tunnelling and digging does make a mess and b) they're rats.


This rat likes avocado.

Whether one could actually get a disease—such as, say, bubonic plague or Rat Catcher's Yellows—from having rats in one's compost is unclear. But, I'll say it again...they're RATS.

So I decided to use the compost bins only for garden waste (leaves, grass, small clippings) and use the worm compost for kitchen scraps. It seemed to be going well. Got my worms in, started putting in the potato peelings and limp arugula, and the compost was progressed at a great rate. Then, the other evening, took a bucket of scraps out to the compost, lifted the lid, and out jumped a rat. Fast. How did it get into the wormery (actually 4 stacked compartments)? See photo below.


Just chomp right through the plastic.

So now the worm composter is basically up on stilts and has bricks on top and hardware cloth (similar to chicken wire) lining the inside of the handles. It's like a Fort Knox Compost. Will it keep them out? Probably not. I may have to move. Or join my divorcée friend and become a non-composter.

Worm Tales

I might have spent money I didn't need to spend. Well, I did spend money I didn't need to spend. So many gardening items can be free, or at least cheap. Plants from seeds or from fellow-gardeners. Tools from garage sales. Mulch from fallen leaves. Oversized shirts from ex-boyfriends. Containers from old tyres. You get the picture.

And yet, when I was looking for compost worms, do you think I could find any? To explain, I need the worms because I am moving house (& garden) and won't be able to have a full-sized compost area any longer. So in preparation for this event, I wanted to get my worm composter working again. For those who don't know, worm composting is simple and space-saving. It's also amazingly efficient, especially for kitchen scraps. The composter I have is about 10 years old and consists of 4 stacked compartments, similar to this model. The bottom compartment has a solid 'floor' where the worms concentrate until the compost there is complete; they then move up to the upper compartments through their meshed 'floors'. I've found the process to be very clean and fast, requiring only some redistribution of worms and materials from one compartment to another.

So, for about three weeks I looked for worms. You can't use any old worms, you need red wigglers--read some fascinating facts about them here. (They have 5 hearts! They have no bones!) The Compost Education Centre in Victoria has plenty of information, but they are always looking for worms themselves. (Why? It seems like they could make some money from suckers like me.) Finally I ordered some worms from a local source, Salt Spring Global Worming. They duly arrived after two days in very good shape but as I didn't realize they were going to be COD, they did spend one night at the post office. I put them in my composter, added some existing compost from my big pile (full of lovely microorganisms), some kitchen scraps, some grass clippings, and that was it.



Needless to say, three days later I went to visit my friend and fellow gardener, Christy. I told her about moving, and the kerfuffle over the COD package. She said, "Oh, I've got masses of worms!" We went out to her back garden, took a fork to her wonderful compost pile constructed of used wooden pallets, and promptly filled a used yogurt pot with free worms.



Now all the worms are thriving and generating compost at an amazing rate. It will be easy to move and as I can't bear to throw kitchen scraps in the garbage, I'll be happy. But I'm too embarrassed to say how much I spent. Next time I'll look a little harder.