Warming the Worms

Warming the Worms

Noel Laflin

12-6-22

David and I keep an old Country Time Lemonade can on the floor next to the refrigerator. We empty the coffee grounds there each morning, along with tossed-in banana peels, apple cores, garlic skins, and every other type of veggie debris that doesn’t make it into either David’s wok or cast iron skillet. He’s got a bunch of those, by the way.

The cans have differed over the years, but as there was a great sale on Country Time Lemonade a few years back, we stocked up. When we are out of fresh lemons (their remains end up in the compost can, too), we resort to the store-bought stuff, especially in the summer; it turns out the opening on a Country Time Lemonade can is the perfect fit for the coffee filter basket, too, so there’s little mess when it comes time to tap the grinds into the can.

I will frequently open the can, as I did this morning, and feel slight warmth emanating from within. Nature and fermentation is already at work, apparently.

So, by the time the can is full and I dump it into the five-gallon container in the garden, watching worms having a field day from what is already in there, I like to think that I have just given them what amounts to a natural electric blanket, to help stave off cooler fall (nearly winter) mornings.

The worms never thank me, of course. But, that’s nature for you.

The garden thanks me in a variety of ways later once the five-gallon container and all of those warm, happy worms spread themselves out, and we start the whole process all over once more.