We compost like crazy at our house and have been looking at starting a worm farm. Worm farms are a fantastic way to compost and they produce organic fertilizer and soil conditioner. More importantly, if everyone in Australia had a worm farm compostable garbage would be reduced by 21,007,310 tonnes per year [that's potentially 303,824,640 tonnes in the USA]. Have a look at how easy they are to start…
How to: Start a Worm Farm
Melbourne
What you need:
- Worm Farm
- Composting Worms
- Newspaper
- Water
- Mulch
- Kitchen and Garden Scraps
How to:
1. Assemble your worm farm- kits can be bought from the hardware store like this one or there are a couple of good DIY models that we saw on Instructables here and here.
2. Set worm farm up out of direct sunlight.
3. Wet some newspaper and lay it on the bottom of the farm then cover with 1 1/2 inches of mulch.
4. Place the composting worms [available from your local hardware store or nursery] on top of the mulch and cover with another layer of wet newspaper. Between 500 to 1,000 worms per farm is required and 1 farm will suit the amount of scraps from 2 to 3 people.
5. Let the worms settle for a few days and ensure that the top layer of newspaper is always damp.
6. Start adding you kitchen and garden scraps under the top layer of damp newspaper.
Worms will digest most kitchen scraps but they especially love lettuce, egg shells, bananas, potato, coffee grounds and tea leaves. Don’t add any meat or too much garlic, onion or citrus as worms don’t like the acidity. A small amount of soft garden scraps like grass clippings and leaves should be added as worms like a variety of foods but kitchens scraps should remain their main food group.
After a month or so you will start collecting "worm wee" which is a fantastic highly concentrated fertilizer and should be diluted at a ratio of 1:10 with water. After about 6 months the lower section of the farm will be full of "worm poo" which is a powerful soil conditioner and should be carefully sprinkled around your plants.
There are some Common Problems though:
If your worm farm is too dry, add some water and more vegetable scraps
If your worm farm has ants, add more vegetable scraps
If your worm farm has little flies hovering around, don't add anything acidic
If your worm farm smells, add less scraps
After looking into this, a worm farm is defiantly something we are going to invest in. Do you or have you had a worm farm? Do you have any advice to add?
Other How To Posts:
Comments (5)
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I just started one on the weekend! It's in my basement (I'm in Toronto - it's too cold to put them outside). It's going well so far. I'm excited for the fertilizer.
view jenc's profile
Its even easier than all that. All you need is two storage containers, a drill, and some newspaper. And worms of course. You can keep a worm bin in your apartment quite easily. I've had one for three years, in two different residences. They don't smell or make any kind of mess.
Super simple directions are here.
view Atalanta0jess's profile
To Vancouverites out there, the City will help you get set up!
http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/solidwaste/garbage/garbagetips.htm#worm
I'm already on the waiting list for the kit and the class, and I think classes begin in April, though the waiting list is very long apparently.
If you call in, they'll give you the number of a woman in Maple Ridge who will ship the worms to you so you can get started on your own.
City Farmer's photo-guide is a pretty good reference as well. http://homepage.mac.com/cityfarmer/PhotoAlbum23.html
view emmaduck's profile
If you live in the Glendale, and can prove residency, the city offers a composting class each spring and the next one is occurring in March. If you attend a one hour class they give you a free bin.
view foodiegirl's profile
This is something I have been meaning to do for years but just keep FORGETTING! I know exactly what I'm doing this weekend. :)
view Erin Lang Norris/Yellow Canoe's profile