What wonderful creatures composting worms are. I first set up my wormery compost container about 15 years ago, and it has been converting kitchen waste into compost ever since.
Unlike traditional compost bins where you simply pile in and mix-up your garden waste, worm bins harness the feeding habits of brandling or tiger worms. These fast-moving worms occur naturally in leaf litter and compost bins, and are different from earthworms.
They feed on the kitchen waste my family generate, converting it into a compost (sometimes called vermipeat) and liquid feed. However, to keep the worms contained, and prevent too many of them escaping into the garden, you need a proper worm compost bin.
My worm composter forms a tower, with three trays on legs and with a lid, and each tray has small holes in its base through which worms can crawl.
You start by just putting kitchen waste in the bottom tray, and bit-by-bit it fills up. Brandling worms are added from the start to feed on this waste. Once the bottom tray is full you start adding kitchen waste a little at a time to the next tray up, and worms crawl through the holes into this new food source.
Over time this will be filled, and so will the top tier above it. By now the material in the bottom tray will have been turned into worm compost, and all the worms will have moved onwards and upwards. Compost from the bottom tray can be emptied out onto the garden or used in potting compost or other ways, and the empty tray can be put back at the top of the tower for the process to continue.
This cycle has continued in my bin for 15 years, and still goes on, producing tray after tray of worm compost.
It’s so simple, and in addition to producing worm compost you can collect liquid from a tap in the base to use as liquid feed.
Every gardener should try and make all the compost they can, and I currently have six compost bins (including a 3-bay New Zealand bin) and three worm bins on the go. Every scrap of kitchen waste is composted, and by this I mean vegetable waste like potato and carrot peelings, banana skins, tea bags, fruit skins, and so on (and NOT cooked food waste). I’m also experimenting with composting cooked waste in a bokashi bin, but haven’t quite mastered this yet – a topic for a future blog, perhaps.
Now that we’re in the middle of National Tree Week I’d love to invite everyone to join in the fun and try and earn a spot in the Guinness Book of Records. During one hour next Saturday 5 December 2009, thousands of people will be joining in to plant as many trees as possible, setting a new world record.
The Tree O’Clock scheme is run as part of the BBC Breathing Places campaign, and pledges have already been made to plant nearly 270,000 trees during the hour! Everyone can join in, whether planting trees in their gardens or local projects improving the environment, and more information can be found at Breathing Places website.
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Funny this post came up today. We are having unseasonably warm weather, and decided to clean out the worm composter we made this spring.
We used an old garbage can that had the bottom broken. We cut the bottom out, drilled a few holes around the bottom edge so we could “pin” the can to the ground and just started adding food waste – and we use cooked food waste (no meats or fat though) too. After a few months, we could tell that there wasn’t much worm action (and the can was about half full of ook), so I posted to Craigslist looking for someone who had some worms to spare and a nice couple let me come to their rabbit farm and take as many as I could shovel (and each shovel had hundreds of worms!). We only took about half of a 5g bucket worth and added it. After a few months we could tell that stuff was happening as we had finally filled the garbage can, but each time we needed to empty the kitchen can, there was always room.
Anyway, today we took a look to see what was happening and we had a garbage can full of “vermipeat”. We forked it over to the open compost bin (made from pallets) and now this spring we will have some nice fertile loamy stuff to add to our beds!
I LOVE worms!!!
Me too! I have had my wormery for many years and compost my kitchen waste and that of my neighbours. My worms don’t care for onion skins or citrus fruit but process everything else and I crumble up eggshells to give them some grit. I feed them and the birds before myself. The productivity in my garden is amazing and all due to vermipeat and worm wee!
On the subject of egg shells. I put them in an old plastic container with a few golf balls and shake. Produces nicely ground egg shells which I add to my wormery.
I have a conventional green compost bin with a lid and little sliding door at the base. I added a few worms when starting out a couple of years ago and now keep two bins on the go, rotating waste between them as the levels drop.
I occasionally turn the compost with a fork and it now resembles spaghetti under the surface with thousands of worms which seem to live and feed happily under this environment. It is really rewarding and encouraging to see this wonderful compost being made for free!! Love it.
I would so love to keep worms going but I have failed miserably. I am coming to the conclusion that they do ned to be kept in a shed over the Winter – a protected place outdoors is insufficient (in our part of Wiltshire anyway). They became another mouth to feed and we were always surprised at how little waste they can deal with. The three bin tower is brilliant for making comfrey fertiliser though!
I bought a “wheelie bin”-type worm composter about 15 years ago. According to the leaflet that came with it you could even “keep it in your kitchen”-as it was odourless”. As I’d bought it in winter I decided to start it off in my garage. The worms wouldn’t stay in the bin. Every day the floor around the bin was littered with dead worms. Lord knows what my kitchen would have been like if I had kept it in there!
When I eventually put it outside, the lid fitted so badly that every time it rained, it filled with water and drowned the worms. I gave up in the end.
I purchased the original bin wormery many years ago now. The problem with a wormery of this type is that you can forget to drain the liquid off regularly (I have no experience of the tray wormery)and once the compost gets too wet it can lead to problems such as flies and ultimately your worms may die – lost my original worms this year! I have now connected a hose from the drain tap to a collection vessel and leave the tap open at all times to avoid the above problems.
I have just read through previous comments. I purchased an insulation coat for my bin wormery from the supplier and leave my wormery outside the backdoor 12 months of the year. I have no problems with escaping worms or smell. I agree about keeping citrus peelings and onions out of the bin – they go in my garden compost bin.
Can you help me I would like to start a wormery as my husband go fishing regularly, Is this possible as the cost of worms are expensive. What would I need to do to get one started, would they produce enough to warrent the initial out lay. Please advise. Josie
Reply to Josie: I’ve never bought worms for angling, so don’t know how much they would cost, or how many would be needed.
Anyway, the worms used by anglers are exactly the same worms that we use for composting.
Provided you can supply regular kitchen waste like potato and carrot peelings, banana skins, uncooked veg waste, crushed egg shells, etc (you’ll get full instructions with any bin you buy), then why not invest in a worm bin. However, by regularly taking out worms you’ll gradually reduce the worm population in your bin. Provided you aren’t too greedy you should be OK.
Do let fellow bloggers know how you get on.
I have a normal compost bin. Not much action untill I mixed in a couple of bags of horse manure(full of worms) about a year ago. With a blanket on the top I am now getting my best compost ever. Still plenty of worms in there.
Sadly my husband has developed Alzheimers and has recently been provided with equipment to make life a little easier – especially useful is his bedside commode. His nightly pee is now next morning added to our compost bin with spectacular improvement to a previously slow and dry process. He thinks this is highly amusing and it brightens his mornings considerably to think he still has a useful purpose in life.
For the last three years I have had tomato blight, I am giving up hope of ever growing tomatoes, I have tried the grow bags. a friend told me I might have to leave the ground for 7 years before I can grow tomatoes again, is this true
Cheers
Desperate to grow tomatoes of Devizes
hello I met you at the Garden Museum for the recording of GQT. Thanks for taking the time to have a chat with me. I felt quite honoured to be there for the recording. I have seen your comments on the wormery. I am just waiting for you to have it in the Gardeners World Mag on special.
i do have 2 compost bins which are full all the time and full of worms.
Thanks Santosh. Very pleased to meet you at the recording of Gardeners’ Question Time where I was invited on the programme as a guest. The programme will be broadcast on Sunday 27th December at 2.00pm.
Yes, I’ve been taking photographs of setting-up this new wormery for a feature in BBC Gardeners’ World magazine next year. We’ll hopefully develop a special offer for one at the same time.
I have recently started composting, and got lots of information through various web sites. Having filled up two compost bins and adding Garotta as instructed to the layers,I then added some worms which I took from a patch of ground I was digging as I thought this might help. Unfortunately when I looked in the bins several days later, I found all the worms dead on the surface where I had put them. Obviously I made a boob, but why did this happen?.
Hi, I live in southern Spain and would love to have a wormery, can anyone give me some advice on the best type to get.
I will buy it over the internet (I have not seen them here in Spain) so it is important I get the right one.
Any other advice would be welcome as well