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Worm farming

Subhead
Great-granddaughter carries on family tradition
Lead Summary
By
Brenda Winter, columnist

The other girls recoiled in horror when Great Grandpa Gerald pulled back the plywood cover on his basement-based worm farm, but five-year-old Lillian leaned in, which is why she received a worm farm for Christmas.
Grandpa’s worm farm is contained in a 100-gallon stock tank and holds several thousand worms. Lillian’s worm farm is far smaller than Grandpa’s. It’s not a stock tank, or even a 5-gallon pail. It’s basically a canning jar with a little dirt in the bottom.
The worm farm kit came with yellow dirt and red dirt that Lillian says “goes under the normal dirt.”
And it had no worms.
The kit with all its supplies, for now, sits safely on a shelf in the pantry.
Lillian is taking her time looking for just the right worm, saying she plans to dig a fresh one from the back yard when the time is right.
She’s been using her kid-sized shovel to poke the frozen Indiana dirt under the trees in her back yard while she thinks about worm farming.
So far, the poking around has resulted in, “no worms at all. ’Cuz it’s winter.” But she continues the search saying, “I like to dig.”
Last summer, she found a lot of worms by using her special digging technique which involves “digging as deep as you can until you get a worm.”
She’s experimented with free-range worm farming on the patio.
“Once, I made a little home for them. I put some dirt on the table and some leaves and grass,” she explained. 
“I think they liked it, but I’m not sure. I couldn’t find any worms the last time I looked so I don’t think it turned out very well.”
Lillian is most excited about being the boss of her worm farm because “you get to do it all by yourself.”
When she eventually finds the five or six worms the worm kit will support, she’s not too concerned about caring for them and has a rather relaxed attitude about worm care.
She said, “I don’t even think they drink water. And they eat dirt. It’s pretty easy, mostly. You just have to make sure they don’t die.”

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