Mucking About With Isabella Rossellini

As if the guilt at piercing a lively, fat worm on to my fishing hook wasn't bad enough.
Now I'm gonna see Isabella's beautiful face staring up from every wiggler I impale!

Worms Pooping Is Gold For The Garden

The amazing, wondrous worm pooping out gold for the garden. Intrigued by vermiculture but worried about alien invasion (I mean the non-native worms not the little green men) and, to be honest, being a lazy bones about it, prevented me setting up a little worm composting bin.

Canada's worms were killed off by glaciers during the ice age. The introduced worm species are very beneficial, but they may also have a negative impact in old growth forest areas. As a noble environmentally minded person, I nixed the vermiculture idea. Okay, okay, so I'm just plain lazy and procrastinated.

Who Can Resist A Sexy Little Wriggle...Not Even The Scientists

BUT it is the New Year and time for resolutions and momma needs worms for fishing... time to regurgitate the worm compost idea. So did a little digging (research-wise; not in-the-garden-for-worms-wise) and found out this:

"...it has now been shown that native species of earthworms are present in Canada, in British Columbia; these are species that survived glaciation in unglaciated regufias on the west coast of the continent--on the Queen Charlotte Islands, Vancouver Island..."

Vancouver Island, hey, that's where I live! Oh, and I also found this...

" L. terrestris [earthworm] has been seen copulating while bathed with melt water"

How sensually evocative is that!
How many of us has copulated while bathed with melt water? No, don't answer that. But it does sound like a fab pagan winter solstice ritual. Well, no fears of seeing the neighbours indulging in melt water rituals around here as it has been very mild and there has been no snow to melt.

Canada does indeed have indigenous worms! So no more excuses to delay the worm casting composting. Canada's worms are referred to as ancient worms by the way - like the sounds of that. Well, it's a brand new year so here I am back at the blog (new year's resolution) and with a worm compost bin to build (new year's resolution).

Happy New Year all the best in 2010 to all you bloggy gardeners!