Even before we started work on our new garden, I began growing vegetables in pots on the patio. Given my concerns for the environment, a worm composter seemed the ideal addition. I ordered one with stacking layers, as that seemed the simplest design to manage.

On the day that the worm bin and worms arrived, I was very excited. My husband helped me set up the worm bin in the conservatory, and we gave the worms a little bit of food.

The instructions said we needed to leave the worms alone to settle into their new home, so we did. It rained heavily overnight, but I didn't worry about the worms as they were in the conservatory and safe from the weather.

Naturally an early riser, I was up at the crack of dawn the following day and excited to see how the worms were getting on. But I opened the conservatory door to a horrible scene the worms had climbed out of the wormery and tried to escape over the concrete floor of the conservatory. Many of them had died in the attempt as they dried out, and the rest were still heading away from the safety of the worm bin.

In a panic, I rushed upstairs and shook my husband out of bed. Bleary-eyed, he came down and helped me rescue all of the worms which were still alive and put them back in the worm bin. Then he went straight back to bed!

I later discovered that worms naturally move upwards when it rains to avoid drowning in waterlogged soil. My worms hadn't been in the bin long enough to know they were safe - they could feel the vibrations as the rain fell on the conservatory roof. And in my excitement, I hadn't stacked the layers of the bin properly and I'd left a gap through which they could escape.

Although the incident was distressing, the worms and I quickly put it behind us. Five years on, I have thriving colonies of worms in two composters and only the occasional Houdini-wannabe tries to escape!

Learn more about this author, Emma Cooper.
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