Thursday, May 20, 2010

Oh where, oh where have my wormy friends gone??

Ahhhhh.... home again! I'm back from a week-long trip to Montana. I left Colorado a week ago Tuesday, passed through cold, rain & some snow in Wyoming and got to Montana in time for a beautiful weekend! Hubby flew in from Korea and met me there to watch my stepson graduate from the University of Montana in Missoula (with high honors I might add) and to see my step-daughter get married in Great Falls. What a week! We're all back home now. I made it just in time for some beautiful Colorado weather!

Today, instead of unpacking or doing my laundry, I worked in the garden. I put up the ladder trellis and the other ladder-like trellis I built last year and hopefully have them secured in their spots. I planted the corn and watered the perennials. lettuce & potatoes. When I pulled back the straw mulch where I intended to plant the radishes & carrots, I discovered a little problem. The mulch layer I added in the fall had not decomposed like I expected. The corn bed was the same way but those seeds are big enough, I was able to fake it (hopefully) by planting into flakes of straw. I can't do that with my paper-towel seed mats. I ended up moving the mulch, digging out the fully composted lasagna layers of two years ago. I put the old stuff in a few large tree pots for temporary storage, dumped the mulch layer into the bottom of the bed, tossed in a few clods of sod from the front garden (they need to go somewhere...), watered it all and put the finished stuff on top to create a better planting area. Aside from doing something I thought I would NOT do (dig in my raised bed), I made a disconcerting discovery - my worms have gone AWOL!!

The bed I was digging in is the same one where I found the bounty of beautiful worms last spring (in the pumpkin shells). Sure, I've got some wrigglers in there but not the glorious gobs of them I was expecting. The deeper I dug the emptier it was. Truthfully, I'd suspect if asked, they might claim it was a hostile work environment as the bed and all the mulch layers were on the dry side. I don't think we had as much moisture this winter. Hopefully adding some moisture will bring them back. I will have to do some digging this summer and check on the troops, I may have to re-think some of my plans...


I was going to post this with no pictures but it just seemed like something was missing- so here you go- a couple pics from our side trip to White Sulphur Springs where we enjoyed a good burger and the hot spring-fed pools in a small town where there was nobody (read children) that we had to make any plans with- for just one night.




4 comments:

Unknown said...

Welcome home! Aw, I am sure your worms are still there. Sometimes they go deeper into the soil for a while. I am sure they will return.

Toni said...

Hi Amy! Sounds like you had a nice trip!

The weather sure has been strange here in Wyoming!

Kris said...

Unpacking vs. gardening? Sounds like you have your priorities straight. LOL Welcome back. Sorry about the worms. I'm sure the little guys are just goofing off somewhere...

Amy said...

Well, I located some of them... there are a lot of them in the neighboring beds. I knew they were still around, I just need to get them back into the beds they left.