Meet Dave

From the book 'The Sneetches and other stories' Too Many Daves is one of the best Dr Seuss stories, that I can practically recite from memory. We have just the right number of Daves in our house, though I am not sure how many.

Here is Dave's house in the yard:

Meet Dave:

and his friends, Dave, Dave, Dave and Dave:

In the kitchen we collect food for Dave, veggies, bread, tealeaves, eggshells and stuff like that:

and they turn it into soil, that in a few months I can use to plant things in the garden:

I have been wanting to start a wormery for years. I bought 'Worms Eat my Garbage' by Mary Appelhof a couple of decades ago, and am delighted to find that there is a website promoting her ideas. If you don't want to go for a manufactured one the book tells you all you need to know about making your own.

I bought my wormery from Worm City. It is made in the UK from recycled plastic, and they have plenty of advice on how to care for your worms and what to feed them. In spite of having mouldy food in I have not found that it smells bad. There were a lot of flies in it at one point but covering the food with shredded newspaper and fitting a piece of cardboard over the top helps keep them out. Watch out for slugs because some kinds eat worms, but most other creepy crawlies that invade only add to the process of breaking down the organic matter.