Sand and Worms

I’ve been working in our backyard this last week, because this lay-out the previous owners left behind doesn’t exactly excite me.

I was imaging the plants were feeling rather unwanted, shoved to the sides.

I want my backyard to be lush, green and full of life. I want to see birds, bees and butterflies. I want my outdoor space to change throughout the seasons. And not just like this:

I want something like this:

How did I plan to get there? By carefully removing some of the tiles and replacing them with plants, of course.

Easy.

As it turned out, our backyard consist of sand. I don’t mean sandy soil like we had in L.A. I mean: sand. And rubble. I’d fill it with cacti if the Netherlands wasn’t so rainy.

Luckily, I started a project some months ago, to bring people together who either want to improve their yard or help others do this. That’s how I got to meet folks who know what they’re doing. They told me all I need to do is add compost.

Spending around $100 on compost gave me an idea. I have been composting in my worm bin, but I wondered if there isn’t a way to compost directly into this sandy soil. I know you sort of do that with a Bokashi system, but something about half fermented food scraps doesn’t appeal to me. I was thinking, isn’t there a way to I call in the help of my worms to improve this soil directly? I assume they’ll stick around as long as I feed them. After some searching I found this delightful video.

Here’s the short version:

Now all I need to do is…

… and wait for my sandbox to slowly turn into healthy soil!

If you’re considering composting with worms, search for ‘vermicomposting’. I also recommend watching videos by Epic Gardening and the Urban Worm Company. It’s easy, but you do want to start well informed to make sure your worms are happy.

With love,

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