The Bucket That Changed Everything

What’s on my mind?

A bucket of worms.

My parents were coming over for a weekend visit, and my dad let me know he was bringing a 5-gallon bucket with holes drilled in the sides and bottom. His plan was for me to sink it into the middle of my raised bed garden and start a little in-ground worm farm.

He was going to show up with about a thousand red wigglers.

I told him not to mess with it.

Which was really just me trying to be nice while indirectly saying: I don’t want this. I already had kids to take care of—did I really need a worm farm too?

He insisted it wasn’t a problem. And he brought them anyway.

Leo was hooked right away. The photo of the little hands on the first page of the website? That’s his hands in our first worms. He just dug in. I remember thinking it was a cool photo, so I snapped it without a second thought. I had no idea it would matter later.

We got the bucket situated in the garden and started doing the simplest thing: instead of tossing veggie and fruit scraps, we saved a little bit and dropped them into the bucket.

I did it all summer without much thought.

There were several times I dug into the bucket and didn’t find any worms. I honestly thought they just ran away, and that was the end of it.

That fall, my dad came back over for another weekend. By then I was more into gardening—and more curious about the worm thing—but still pretty convinced they were gone.

He told me to put watermelon trimmings in the bucket about two weeks before he came over.

He said the worms would be attracted to the watermelon. Then we could pull them out and bring them inside for the winter.

He was right.

And I think that was the moment I realized how powerful and amazing these little red wigglers are.

Every handful I took from that bucket was worms. There had to be ten times the original amount.

I filled the original bucket with compost and more food waste, waited two weeks, and then dug in again… and found more and more worms coming in from the garden.

That’s the real beginning of Iowa Worm Farm for me.

Field Notes - Part 1 of 3