Worm Farms

Having a worm farm helps reduce waste sent to landfill, where it can contaminate ground water and produce greenhouse gases. The advantage for us is that it also creates wonderful fertiliser which can be used on the garden.

Worm farming is an excellent way to use up kitchen scraps, garden waste and other scrap materials such as paper and cardboard.

Worm farms are relatively inexpensive and, as long as you follow the basic guidelines, easy to operate.

Worm farms and worms can easily and quickly be ordered online and posted to you! Worms on holiday!

Compost worms are a different variety to common garden worms. Garden worms live at a much deeper level and are unsuitable for worm farms. The common types of compost worms are Tiger Worms, Indian Blues and Red Wrigglers. These worms all look very similar, but it isn’t necessary to know which you have if purchasing more worms, as they have similar requirements and will happily co-exist.

Worms thrive in a cool, dark, moist environment. Do not handle worms excessively or expose them to prolonged light, or allow them to dehydrate. When setting up your worm farm, spray with a light mist of water. After this, the food scraps should provide adequate moisture. Do not let the worm farm become too wet, as your worms can drown! Protect the worm farm from rain entering it, or spray from sprinklers.

When conditions are right in your worm farm, your worms will double in number every 2 or 3 months. If your worm population becomes too large for your worm farm, you can either start another farm or transfer some of your worms into your compost heap.

As compost worms live in the leafy surface layers, make sure there is a plentiful organic layer present at all times, to give your worms adequate protection from light and drying out. In the right circumstances compost worms can live happily in compost bins, but it is essential that the temperature in the bin is not too high. Therefore, this practise is probably safer to avoid for the inexperienced, unless you are confident yours is appropriate.

Compost worms are very hungry little critters and will consume about half of their body weight in scraps every day! As worms have no teeth, scraps should ideally be chopped up into small pieces. Do not overfeed worms, or the excess food will rot and cause problems in your worm farm environment and attract pests. Allow approximately 1 kg of food scraps per square metre per day, for a well populated worm farm.

Scraps your worms will enjoy:

• Having pizza? Why not share it with your worms and let them have the box! Soak and shred cardboard, newspaper etc for your worms.
  
  
• What about a lovely cup of brewed coffee? Worms love coffee grounds!  Make sure they are cool first.
  
  
• Worms love their “7 a Day”- give them plenty of fruit and veggie scraps and peelings.
  
  
• Rake up your leaves, and other garden waste. Check first if you are concerned a particular plant could be toxic.
  
  
• Hair and animal fur.
  
  
• Egg Shells.
  
  
• Animal droppings can be added, if you wish, however never use droppings from an animal which has recently been wormed (or those on heartworm treatments) as these chemicals will also kill compost worms.
  

Things you should avoid feeding your worms:

• Citrus, pineapples, onions, shallots, garlic. These contain oils which repel the worms, and may lead to them climbing out of the worm farm to escape the smell!
  
  
• Sawdust from treated wood, or other chemically contaminated material.
  
  
• Meat and dairy foods- although worms will eat meat etc, it quickly goes off and smells, and also attracts pests such as maggots, rats, mice, wasps etc.
  
  
• Human faeces- this is dangerous because of possible contamination and spread of disease.
  
  

Worm castings (worm droppings made of the remains of organic material which has passed through the worm) make great nutrient-rich, pH neutral garden fertiliser, which is natural, organic and will not burn plant leaves. A handful mixed in a bucket of water can be given to plants once a week or so.

The liquid which drains from the bottom of the worm farm can also be diluted and used as a fertiliser. You will achieve really great results with this wonderful natural fertiliser!

Be careful to always leave a decent quantity of castings in the worm farm, as the worms require it as a bedding material for breeding.

So, why not give some worms a loving home?! You’ll be glad you did.

Check out worm farm retailers, to “adopt your worms” and buy their worm farm home.