You know how once in a while, you get that irresistable urge to make friends with worms? Me neither — though since I read The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms earlier this week, I’m seriously considering giving the wriggly ones a little home on my balcony.

Worms are cool because they help compost your veggie trimmings — and perform other near-miraculous feats, as I found out in The Earth Moved. This earthy underground book’s written by Amy Stewart, a prolific gardener and writer who more recently published Flower Confidential.

The Earth Moved takes you from the red wrigglers in Amy’s compost bin to Darwin — who by the way wrote his last book on earthworms — to Sam James, an earthworm taxonomist who’s discovered so many new worms that he wants to put them all on a website and have people name them: “You know, like they do with stars.”

Then there’s the scary and exciting large-scale stuff. Could worms take a huge bite out of our garbage landfill problem by eating up all our food waste — then take care of our chemical fertilizer problem by pooping out the garbage in the form of first-rate natural fertilizer? Could worms eat up our sewage, helping rid us of all the chemical treatment plants? People are already experimenting with such worm-powered technologies — and some, like the green company TerraCycle, are making good money — so a worm-propelled revolution is not out of the question –

But the coolest thing for me about The Earth Moved — and about worms — is that you don’t have to wait for governmental organizations or big businesses to get things going, at least on a smaller scale. You can get your own Wriggly Wranch Worm Bin and start your own wriggly revolution in the comfort of your own backyard or balcony.

Okay — So I still haven’t gotten a composter, but I’m worming up to the idea. Now I’m wondering if I should get a wormless composter, or a Wriggly Wranch. My main wormy fear — What if they escape the bin — or worse — what if I manage to accidentally kill them!? I have a fear of responsibility for other living things….

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