Nature’s Expert Composter – The Red Wiggler Worm
Earth’s common earthworms live deep under soil while red wiggler worms prosper just under topsoil beneath decomposing organic matter. Robert, Olivia, Elliott, and Caris share what life is like in the 4th grade caring for worm buckets and how they use nutrients made from compost tea or castings.
Transcript
What are you doing in the dumpster, Mr.
Catherine:Walsh?
Catherine:And Mr.
Catherine:Walsh responded,
Catherine:I'm trying to save the worms.
Catherine:Hello there.
Catherine:I'm Catherine, your host of this variety show podcast.
Catherine:Your positive imprint is transforming how we live today for a more sustainable tomorrow through education and information.= Your own positive actions inspire change.
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Catherine:Visit my website, your positive imprint.com and learn more about the podcast and sign up for email updates.
Catherine:And thank you for listening on apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, Pandora.
Catherine:Well.
Catherine:Your favorite podcast platform.
Catherine:Music by the legendary and talented Chris Nole check him out, ChrisNole.com c H R I S N O L E.
Catherine:Thank you again for listening and for your support of this podcast.
Catherine:Your positive imprint.
Catherine:What's your PI.
Catherine:Well, exciting news!
Catherine:As you know, brilliant
Catherine:composer and keyboardist Chris Nole was spotlighted in Nashville at the Country Music Hall of Fame's Ford Theater this past weekend.
Catherine:Well, for the first time, I heard one of my favorite compositions playing now.
Catherine:Stage Run!
Catherine:Live, by Chris Nole.
Catherine:Well, quite a sentimental performance for me, and of course, very entertaining as well.
Catherine:Thanks always to Chris Nole.
Catherine:Well, it's Earth Day Week around the world.
Catherine:It's been exciting for me because while I was in Nashville, I attended Earth Day Weekend at Centennial Park.
Catherine:I met researchers and city planners, organic soap makers, organic mosquito repellent developers, organic composters, and the city, or local nursery, I'm not sure which, was passing out trees to residents to plant in their yards.
Catherine:There was food and music, of course, but also a fabulous learning experience.
Catherine:Earth Day week continues with four young environmentalists.
Catherine:They're nine and 10 years old from Annunciation Catholic School here in New Mexico.
Catherine:Thank you to Bobby Cook and Austin Walsh for setting up these four to be featured.
Catherine:John Denver says it best, Every day is Earth Day.
Catherine:I love his tune, Every day is Earth Day.
Catherine:Anyway, indeed it is, and students in Mr.
Catherine:Walsh's class take that to heart.
Catherine:Every day is Earth Day, and we all are doing our best.
Catherine:All right, I'm going to just get them introduced.
Catherine:Are you going to do a group introduction or an individual introduction?
Catherine:What do you want to do today?
Catherine:You want to do individual.
Catherine:All right.
Caris:Hello, I'm Caris.
Caris:I.
Caris:I do soccer, and I love putting a smile on people's faces.
Caris:Just, whenever I see someone that's sad, I, I look at them, and I have them look at me, and I just kinda go goofy mode.
Olivia:Hi, I'm Olivia, and I play volleyball, and I love playing with other people, even if they're lonely.
Olivia:I just, I just like, um, playing with everybody, and
Olivia:When anybody's lonely.
Elliott:Hi, I'm Elliot and I love like soccer, football, and I do swimming and many more sports and I love Giving funny jokes and messing around and playing with people to get them happy and make them laugh.
Robert:Hi, I'm Robert.
Robert:I try and make a difference in the world by helping out hurt animals and planting stuff for people.
Robert:homeless people.
Catherine:I'm so glad that you brighten other people's days.
Catherine:And you're brightening my day just by being here,
Caris:thank you.
Catherine:That's, uh, that's fabulous.
Catherine:These are great positive imprints just getting started and we haven't even started on the topic yet today.
Catherine:We have some very young guests.
Catherine:These are fourth graders at a local school in New Mexico, the school here, Annunciation Catholic School, and they want to share with you What they have been doing, what this school has been doing since 2016, this environmental project, so we're just going to have a conversation about it.
Catherine:So who at least wants to mention, all right, Elliot.
Elliott:So what ACS has been doing here since 2016 is worm buckets.
Elliott:So we pass out worm buckets around the school with the species of worms and they eat paper.
Elliott:scraps of food, any organic things they will eat, and it's pretty much just like a better recycling bin.
Caris:So, what we go around telling all the classes is that you can feed them paper and cardboard and things like that, but they can't have plastic.
Caris:It's not good for them.
Caris:But they will make it very much better for your plants and for our air.
Olivia:We, every, about every month we take the worm buckets back to our classroom and we take all the compost out and we sell all of it.
Robert:We pass worm buckets to the classrooms because the recycling bin fills up and stuff, we could take pieces out of it, rip it up, and feed it to the worms.
Catherine:Awesome.
Catherine:Well, so students, this is such a phenomenal project, and I know that you've been doing it, of course, before you even started here at the school, but since 2016, this project has been taking place, and Karis, I think it was your grandfather that started this project, and thank you to him for starting such a great project, and Karis, you mentioned that plastic is bad for the worms.
Catherine:We know that there's microplastics, we know that there's all sorts of types of plastics out there.
Catherine:Have you ever seen plastic in the bin where it hasn't been touched by the worm?
Caris:I have seen plastic in the worm buckets multiple times, but you want to take it out.
Caris:It's easier on the worms if you take it out at first.
Elliott:Not only the plastic, you don't want to put anything citrusy in there like oranges.
Elliott:tangerines, anything like that, because then the citrus and oils will get on their skin and prevent them from breathing.
Elliott:So it will suffocate them if you do put that in there and they try to eat it.
Elliott:So that would end up in killing the worm.
Elliott:So you don't want to do that.
Catherine:So even if they brush up against the citrus?
Catherine:Yeah.
Catherine:Oh, wow.
Catherine:I
Caris:did not know that.
Caris:They actually, they don't actually breathe through their mouths and they don't have a nose.
Caris:So they breathe through their skin.
Caris:And that citrus blocks the air holes.
Caris:And that isn't really good for them, and then they die, actually.
Catherine:How do you prepare the bucket?
Catherine:You said they're worm buckets.
Catherine:How do you prepare the buckets for the classrooms?
Robert:So we put some dirt in it with some, some of the worms compost.
Robert:Then we rip up some paper to feed them and we could sometimes water, water the dirt to make it like more moist and stuff.
Robert:So, and we could sometimes pour it on the paper so it could, it makes it easier for the worms to
Elliott:eat.
Elliott:And another thing so we have two buckets.
Elliott:We have like an old, wet wipe container, the top of it cut off, and we have that in-between the two buckets, and the bucket on the bottom has no holes, so, and the bucket on the top has holes, so all of the pee that the worms pee out, and the water can go to the bottom.
Elliott:So, when we go to, uh, To check up on the worm buckets, we have to separate them and take the little plastic separator out.
Elliott:And then we dump the pee on because it's actually known as compost tea.
Elliott:And it helps your plants if you pour it on them.
Elliott:It will help them grow better and it will also, the worms compost their poop.
Elliott:It also helps your plants.
Elliott:It helps your plants a little bit better, so.
Elliott:, Caris: we, we make the hole small enough so that the worms don't go through.
Elliott:And every once in a while you will see a worm in the second bucket.
Elliott:But there, it's only like, one or two, you don't see a lot in there.
Elliott:And we try to make the holes as small as possible, but allow water to go through.
Olivia:We try to check up on the worms like every Wednesday to make sure that there's not a lot of paper.
Olivia:So, When we're done with that, and we have paper in a bucket that we bring to class, we put it in different buckets in our classroom for the other worms to eat.
Catherine:Okay, so the paper.
Catherine:Let's go to the paper, because Robert mentioned that sometimes you put in shredded paper.
Catherine:Do the classrooms, when you drop off the buckets for them and you have it started, Do you have to shred the paper, or can the teachers and the students throughout the school just drop it in, Robert?
Catherine:So
Robert:I don't know, but sometimes it could be too big, I think.
Robert:So, so we shred it up.
Robert:The worms
Elliott:can also overeat, or eat things that are not good for them.
Caris:One of the reasons why they don't die immediately is because they have more than one heart.
Catherine:This is if they overeat.
Catherine:Let's go back to the shredding.
Catherine:Because I have seen in the buckets throughout the school, I see some paper that's been rolled up.
Catherine:You know, you just roll it up and it's thrown in there.
Catherine:Can the worms eat that?
Catherine:Can they navigate through that?
Catherine:They can
Caris:navigate through that, it just makes it easier on the worms if you shred it instead of roll it up into a ball It'll make it easier, but they will still go through that and eat it cardboard has three layers It's okay with the cardboard, and that's another example of that.
Caris:rolled up paper.
Catherine:How do you get the information to the students at your school so that they know and all of the teachers
Olivia:so we, . We practice, well we have a group.
Olivia:So it's not only us, like one person checking on the worms.
Olivia:It's a whole group, . So we practice, , learning about the worms and we practice presenting.
Olivia:And then we, and then we go to the class and like if they're little, we could tell them in a different way than, you know.
Caris:older kids, and so it's easier for them.
Elliott:We're not gonna be talking as like, seriously, like how a fifth grader would interpret
Elliott:it would just be a little different and you don't want to over water the worms either like with when you're dumping the water in
Caris:Overwatering May make the papers too wet.
Caris:So then it's like , soggier, My suspicion is they still will eat it, but it won't be, it's like food that you don't like, but you still have to eat it.
Caris:It's kind of like that,
Catherine:I take it that you have to go through each of the bins, which there's a lot of them here at this school, which is great, and you have to go through all of the bins to take out the gum that someone might've thrown in or the trash or the can or the rolled up paper.
Catherine:All right.
Catherine:So what does that entail?
Catherine:Robert, can you explain what you do when you have to clean it out?
Catherine:Do you have to take everything out?
Catherine:We
Robert:could, we could like scoop up the dirt and compost and take the things out.
Robert:and we don't notice it, some of the worms could eat it
Catherine:and die.
Catherine:We have this double layer, which I never knew.
Catherine:By looking at the bucket, you can't tell it's a double layer.
Elliott:Well, the reason we have to double bucket and put that little spacer in between is because, first of all, for the spacer, if the bucket, it's so heavy, if it gets pushed down, then the force you have to pull it apart with is extremely hard.
Elliott:And then we have that second bucket just so.
Elliott:It's not just holding a bunch of pee and water and stuff like that, so it can just all drain out.
Elliott:Okay, so you sell it.
Catherine:So how long, when you start, let's go to August, when you started school, when did you first see, as fourth graders, when did you first start seeing the compost where you could start selling it?
Catherine:How long does this take?
Caris:I believe it was Olivia said, once a month.
Caris:Um, but in the beginning, since we had a whole break in between, we did it on the first time my grandpa came.
Caris:And you don't actually, it looks the same all of the time.
Caris:You don't actually see when there's more compost or less compost.
Caris:What we use is this sifter.
Caris:So, you'll put one bucket at the bottom of it, and then another one with, with all the paper in it, and then you'll dump it down, and it spins.
Caris:So it's circular, and it spins, and the compost falls through the holes.
Caris:It's chicken wire, so.
Caris:Oh.
Caris:Um, goes through the holes, into this bucket we have underneath.
Caris:It's cheese.
Caris:And then the paper goes back down with the worms in it.
Catherine:So the worms then stay home, and the compost, tea, and the rest of the compost goes through the sifter.
Catherine:And who do you sell it to?
Catherine:So
Elliott:we just sell it, so mainly we'll go home, we'll, uh, We advertise to our parents or our grandparents for them to buy it.
Elliott:Don't we usually sell it as 8 a bag?
Elliott:Yeah, it's 8.
Elliott:Yeah, 8 a bag, and we'll double bag it and then tie it so nothing can get out.
Elliott:And it's a lot of worm castings.
Elliott:And it's crazy how you can see the difference in the worm castings.
Elliott:Like, pretty much.
Elliott:It looks different, like the worm castings, like in a 6th graders bucket, like, they look, like, tiny like they're supposed to.
Elliott:But then when you see a PreKers bucket, all the castings are just like, they put so much water, it's just like a mush.
Elliott:So you're just scooping up mush, and it's just kinda, it's a little different than an older kid's bucket.
Catherine:So the little kids are, are still, cause they have to keep it moist, right?
Elliott:Sometimes classes will over water it if they do put water in.
Elliott:And then that's how it turns into the pre K-ers bucket, like, that mushy stuff.
Catherine:Can you still use it?
Catherine:Okay, so you have to dry it out
Caris:before you sell it?
Caris:You don't have to dry it out.
Caris:All compost is moist.
Caris:It's moist.
Caris:Definitely, because of us watering it, and it, it sticks to the paper, so that kind of gets on it.
Caris:. So, it does kind of, it, It
Catherine:self dries.
Catherine:It air dries.
Catherine:How can students around the world
Elliott:So, generally, you're going to have, like, example, Charis grandpa.
Elliott:You're going to have, like, an, an adult there.
Elliott:It's not just going to be a Just a group of kids going around the school doing it because you need to get all the buckets You need to get all the things for the water.
Elliott:And
Catherine:so let's go through like a recipe Let's put a recipe together for the listeners as to what they could do because maybe some listeners can do it at their house even I would like to do this at our house Instead of just recycling the paper.
Catherine:So maybe in a household, can this be done in a household?
Catherine:, Elliott: it's even works with like Well, a Lowe's bucket, like a paint bucket, a big one, not a tiny little can.
Catherine:And you can just stack two on top, like how we were describing it earlier.
Catherine:That actually works a lot better
Catherine:So it's better just not ordering them off of online.
Catherine:Cause the ones off of online, like,
Catherine:they're just not as good,
Catherine:I can use a metal bucket?
Catherine:I can use metal buckets?
Catherine:Or is that not breathable?
Olivia:So you can.
Olivia:Um, so the reason we use our homemade buckets is because it's, it saves you money, one.
Olivia:And two, it's recycling stuff.
Catherine:And those look like ten gallon buckets?
Catherine:Yeah.
Catherine:Okay, ten gallon, so you have two ten gallon buckets.
Catherine:Robert, do you want to add anything, and then Olivia?
Robert:Hmm, um, I
Robert:don't think I have anything.
Olivia:The plastic, uh, Buckets are way easier to put the holes in than it would be for metal.
Elliott:Because metal you have to get, uh, uh, I'm trying to think of the word.
Elliott:A drill bit, and then you have to drill in.
Elliott:But then a bad thing about the metal is maybe if the worms were to fall through, the little circles might be sharp enough to maybe even cut them on the way by.
Elliott:It's just not as sharp and it just like Olivia said it's way easier to cut the holes and they're Homemade and it's just a lot better
Robert:Actually do have something to add.
Robert:Don't make a metal bucket because it could rust.
Caris:Oh, rust, cause the
Caris:water.
Caris:So, the way to make them is you'll get One bucket and you'll put it on the floor.
Caris:We'll leave that one to the side for now.
Caris:Then you take your second bucket, flip it over to the bottom part.
Caris:Take your drill and just drill, I'd say, 20 holes in the bottom next, and then you set those two buckets off to the side.
Caris:Then you'll get your, , wipes container.
Caris:Cut it in half, and take one half, flip it so that the bottom is facing up, bring the buckets back, take the bucket without the holes in it, and put the, the smaller container into the bucket.
Caris:And then you can take your, your your hole bucket, put it in, and then you have your worm container.
Elliott:And also make sure those 20 holes are spread out, because if you just jolt them all next to each other, it's just not going to be as effective as 20 holes spread out.
Elliott:Like, you could do Five just in one part of the bucket, five in another part, five in another part, and five in another part.
Elliott:Maybe five on each side, and it would just be more spread out.
Elliott:And then it would just be more effective, if you just put them all down the middle, and you have a bunch of compost tea on like the right side or the left side, just sitting there,
Elliott:which would take a lot longer than just having them spread out.
Catherine:Have you ever held one of the worms?
Olivia:I have.
Olivia:Sometimes they get uncomfortable, and they, like, start, wiggling around everywhere.
Olivia:Oh, and then we call
Elliott:it the pee dance.
Elliott:Once they start waving around, they actually spray all the pee over, all over your hand as like a defense.
Elliott:And it's a little bit disgusting, but then you can just usually wipe it off in the dirt or something.
Elliott:But then you should, after you do the worms, definitely wash your hands and make sure you're wearing like, Yard clothes, or something, some clothes that are like just, you don't, I'm not saying like you don't care about, but you don't care if it gets messy.
Elliott:Cause the worm bucket, you get real messy once you're, like painting clothes, almost.
Elliott:. Robert: You could make it a little easier by wearing gloves.
Elliott:Usually you have to hold the worms because when you're doing that sifting thing that Caris was talking about earlier, some of the worms will get stuck in the sifting thing.
Elliott:Like they'll be just sitting in the middle or on the top and you just have to like push them out and then you just put them on your finger and then you just.
Catherine:So, how big do the worms get?
Catherine:Oh, like this big.
Olivia:long.
Robert:Have you
Olivia:seen
Robert:Like the, like the biggest one I've seen was like three and a half.
Robert:I was like, they don't,
Caris:they don't get big.
Robert:Oh no.
Robert:They could get,
Robert:they could get chunky.
Robert:They get chunky.
Catherine:They're chunkier than a regular earthworm.
Elliott:So, um, worms are typically smaller than a normal worm that you'd see, and they're like a lot smaller than a night crawler
Elliott:The worms can breed consistently and we don't want.
Elliott:Like, bigger worms in there, breeding consistently, because then there would be a lot more worms, and it's just
Catherine:So I take it they reproduce while they're in here, right?
Catherine:Yeah,
Elliott:a lot.
Robert:It's kind of like they duplicate overnight
Catherine:When they reproduce a lot, as you say, do you need to make more buckets?
Catherine:Not
Elliott:We have a lot of extra buckets sitting in the corner.
Elliott:We have like 20 buckets.
Elliott:Yeah, but we haven't needed to use not a single extra bucket this year.
Elliott:I've seen baby worms, maybe the size of like the very tip of your fingernail.
Catherine:Can people use them for fishing?
Caris:Yes.
Catherine:What do you like best about working with the worms and all of this recycling.
Olivia:Just, I like helping the earth and it's just really fun because you get to, yeah, just help the earth and help, um, recycle paper.
Olivia:And also, the worms get something to eat when you recycle paper.
Catherine:Do you do it at home, any of you?
Elliott:Uh, yes.
Catherine:Do you recycle at home?
Elliott:Yes.
Elliott:Oh, yeah.
Elliott:We recycle cardboard a lot, because we go through a lot of boxes, like uh, snacks, because we have soccer games on the weekends and stuff, so we, we should probably start doing worms, and every, all these listeners, you guys should start doing worms if you go through cardboard and paper, the worms will actually eat it and turn it into compost, which, if you get it into the ground and your soil and your flowers, it's way better for the earth than just going into a landfill.
Elliott:Nobody wants that.
Elliott:. Robert: Well, I don't commonly use paper and cardboard
Elliott:You can recycle plastic bottles, you Because they will clean them out and reuse the plastic for either another plastic bottle or something else.
Elliott:But another reason that's terrible for the earth even to recycle plastic bottles and then to reuse them.
Elliott:It's not as bad as just throwing them in a landfill.
Elliott:But they have to use all the oils to make more plastic bottles and they have to melt down the plastic.
Elliott:And then use oil to remake it, and it's just not good for the earth, but you can't really do anything about plastic bottles unless the entire world stop using them.
Elliott:Cause everything in a landfill, most things actually, will dissolve eventually, but it may not be some things until millions of years later, like, and thousands, and like, the pieces of paper that you crumple up.
Elliott:You think, oh, it's good that it's getting recycled, it'll just be another piece of paper, but it's not.
Elliott:Most stuff goes to a landfill, and paper will dissolve within a year, maybe, not even a year, a couple months.
Elliott:But, that's just more stuff that goes in the landfill, more worse for the earth.
Elliott:It would be better if people just stopped using plastic water bottles in general, for everybody who's listening, just try not to use as many plastic water bottles.
Elliott:In general, you should mainly just use a metal water bottle, one that is reusable.
Elliott:And if you do use plastic water bottles, Don't throw them away, just try and clean them out and reuse them, because you can actually reuse them.
Elliott:You just unscrew the cap and put more water in, and it's just, it's not as good for the planet if you use plastic water bottles
Catherine:and it's not good for us.
Catherine:We eat plastic All the time.
Catherine:We're eating plastic every day.
Robert:Cheese can have plastic in it sometimes because of the factories.
Catherine:We need to protect ourselves too from all of this that's happening, I am thrilled with how you have been working this project I want to tell you a quick story about your teacher.
Catherine:Mr.
Catherine:Walsh.
Catherine:And I don't remember what year, but it was around when this first started when, because he's in charge of this project with your grandfather, Caris the custodial team that comes around to clean the classrooms thought that
Catherine:in the beginning that all of this was trash.
Catherine:So they dumped everything that was in the buckets into the trash.
Catherine:And your absolute wonderful pastor here at the parish, Monsignor Voorhees, was taking his morning walk and he saw Mr.
Catherine:Walsh in the dumpster.
Catherine:And he asked, Mr.
Catherine:Walsh, can I help you?
Catherine:And Mr.
Catherine:Walsh said, I'm trying to save all the worms.
Catherine:I think that is such an incredible, fabulous story about Mr.
Catherine:Walsh saving the worms.
Robert:It's actually good that he tried to save them.
Catherine:Absolutely!
Catherine:I think it's fabulous.
Catherine:Thank you Mr.
Catherine:Walsh for doing that.
Caris:I,
Caris:I have a story about my grandpa.
Caris:You tell it, Caris.
Caris:He Used to be a teacher.
Caris:A teacher teacher.
Caris:Uh, I think it was, he was a,
Catherine:he was at a local high school.
Catherine:Mm-Hmm.
Catherine:. Caris: Yes.
Catherine:He saw this video of this guy doing worms
Catherine:My grandpa went, I bet I could do that at home.
Catherine:I think he went to the farm, a farm, and he asked for worms.
Catherine:So the guy gave him worms.
Catherine:A bag full of dirt told them what to do
Catherine:this is really cool So he taught it to his students, and once he retired, he's teaching it to us.
Catherine:And he also has this flea market that he does, where all of the people come to this one park, set up their stands of different things that they sell.
Catherine:And my grandpa, he has his booth of worms.
Catherine:And he'll sell castings and he even has his own website fredsworms.com
Olivia:Have more information on the website.
Catherine:Caris, thank you.
Catherine:Awesome.
Catherine:I'm so glad that you are able to fundraise and work with the charities and work with the community, the international community, you've provided ways around the world for people to recycle paper in a fun way, but also in a very interesting and brilliant way, They can use the compost for their garden, and become more organic with what we are eating and putting in our bodies.
Catherine:I want to thank the four of you for taking time from your class to come on in and talk to the world About the worms and everything that you're doing with your teacher, Mr.
Catherine:Walsh, and Caris's grandfather.
Catherine:And Caris, I believe that it is you and your grandfather that take home all of the buckets.
Catherine:How many buckets do you take home every summer?
Olivia:Um, so, last year, we took a home about I I want to say a hundred buckets.
Olivia:at my grandpa's house and 50 at my mom's.
Olivia:bunch of worms.
Catherine:Excellent!
Catherine:I'm so glad that you cared for them.
Catherine:That certainly gave you the expertise, Caris, since you had them all summer long.
Catherine:Okay, we're going go to our closing, which is your last inspiring words you want to share with listeners.
Catherine:Robert,
Robert:change the world.
Elliott:Make the world a better environment.
Catherine:And that was Elliot.
Catherine:Olivia.
Olivia:Help the world and make sure everybody's safe.
Catherine:Caris
Olivia:Take care of the world and the world will take care of you.
Catherine:Robert, Elliot, Olivia, Caris, this has been so much fun and amazing.
Catherine:You are all brilliant, you're fun, you're interesting, and you have so much to offer the world with your positive imprints.
Catherine:Thank
Olivia:you for having us.
Olivia:Thank you for
Elliott:having us.
Catherine:You can learn about red wiggler worms, who are the experts in managing waste.
Catherine:Go to Fredsworms.com
Catherine:And happy Earth Day week!
Catherine:Later, I look forward to sharing Helen Charlie Nellist's positive imprints and information regarding Hadrian's Wall over in the United Kingdom.
Catherine:Thank you again for listening and supporting this podcast.
Catherine:Until next time, feed those worms and make that rich compost.
Catherine:Happy Earth Day Week!
Catherine:Your positive imprint.
Catherine:What's your PI?