Before midterm 4th class started ‘rebedding’ in the old wormery. They discovered that it needed replacing. Nicola contacted Craig, our trusty ‘worm guy’ and he arrived with a new wormery for us.
We emptied the entire contents of the old wormery into wheelbarrows and various large containers.The old wormery was removed (thanks to Craig). We placed the new wormery in the side garden and refilled the contents back in. We topped it up with more fresh leaves and paper.
The worms are settling into their new home now. The compost we ‘harvested’ just before midterm is ready in window boxes for 4th to plant and the rest went in some of veg beds. More compost will be harvested in about one month or so if anyone wants that for a project let Nicola know and she will sort you out.
Well done 4th Class, Nicola and Laurna.
History of our Wormery
October 2019 2nd Class agreed to be the lead class on setting up a new wormery. 2nd Class got their hands dirty when they helped to set-up the Wormery but they loved every minute of it!
February 2020 Second Class tell us how our worms are doing after winter. Second Class have been looking after our wormery and worms since we built it in October. Every week; children from 2nd Class feed the worms with fresh fruit and vegetable waste on 1/3 of the wormery. The whole of Second Class went to check in on the worms at the beginning of January to see how they were doing after the Winter break. We were very pleased to see pink, long worms making their way through all the fruit and vegetable waste we feed them every week. The worms are looking very healthy and happy.
This week, Second Class teamed up with Junior Infants to teach them all about the worms and their importance in our school. We have started to see the fruit and vegetable waste decompose and are excited to see the compost that will be produced soon in the wormery.
April 2020 Even during COVID lock downs, staff continued to check on the worms and to feed them. keeping earthworms in a wormery and feeding them fruit and vegetable scraps, is a simple way to cut down on waste from the kitchen. RETNS has a wormery in the school which is being maintained by 2nd Class and their teacher Ciara along with Una SNA. Ciara, Una and Clodagh went into school yesterday to feed the worms and check on the wildlife garden and the community garden. They practiced social distancing always keeping 2 metres away from each other. The worms are doing really well, they are very active. They gave them a bucket of food waste and some more shredded paper. Clodagh continued to feed the worms throughout the spring and summer months.
In October 2020 3rd Class discovered that our lovely worms in our Wormery had produced rich fresh compost after only one year! The children loved picking up some compost and smelling it, it smelled like a forest one child said.
Since we first began with our wormery, we have gotten lots of lovely compost over the last few years. But it has been incredibly successful for the children and the staff in the school to see how such humble creatures can transform food waste into a rich organic compost which we have been able to use in our community garden plots. Have a look at our video below of when we first set up our wormery.
