A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2005 Vermicomposting??? Earthworms...

I was just reading a thread that got to talking about someone has earthworms in their frig--I assumed they were keeping them to collect castings for the garden (turns out they are bait for fishing!! ). What I would like is an Idiot's Guide To Home Vermicomposting--for the purpose of collecting castings for fertilizing the garden. I need a quick easy guide to how to set up for my own little worm farm to get to work eating my vegetable peelings, coffee grounds, egg shells, etc to make me some lovely earthworm castings (doo doo) for fertilizing the garden inexpensively!! I can be pretty dense sometimes so to avoid a long drawn out misunderstanding if I could be told in terms a 5 yr old would understand maybe???? Thanks a BUNCH!!

question for all: have you found wood or plastic make better vermiculture containers???

Catlover

I have a couple of wooden boxes that were used to ship things from different countries...so I have lids as well....don't have any further use for them except maybe plant something in them so might as well try the vermiculture and if it doesn't work convert to a planter!
okie dokie... Can anyone explain how to set it up! # of holes, where etc....short version please.
Catlover

the book that was suggested in a previous post is a very good read. I actually have been researching this very thing , something that I plan on doing within the next 3 weeks or so, anyway I've got the book out from my local library right now. It's so informative and worth the trip downtown.

I work in the kitchen at a school and the waste everyday drives us all nuts! My only problem is going to be getting the kids to separate their garbage?????

Hi,

I've had a worm farm for about 4 months now so i can give you some hints.

after scouring the eplanet for the best worm system,
I found the can o'worms style bin to be the best idiot proof worm farm method.

well funny as it happened, I checked with my local council to see if they had a bin.
and i found that all the councils in our city were distributing the can o worms.
it was cheaper than retail and free delivery by courier.

it's so cool..
here's the link to their web site.

http://www.reln.com.au/frames/gdncano.htm

has 3 levels of accomodation for my worms,
when the top level fills, i remove the bottom one,
empty the castings and then the emtpy one goes on top and it goes around like that.

the base is a resevoir that holds the worm tea.
it has a tap and at the moment i'm getting about a pint a week.

When it's hot, I hose the bin down a bit and the water flushes through the system and into the base.
keeping a bucket under the tap gives me 10 litres of good juice for my vege's.

my cucumbers are amazing this year and i credit the worm juice for it.

I can go on forever about my worms

you need compost worms, reds and tigers.
not earth worms.
I bought 1000 from a garden store.
the box is huge as the worms come in their own castings,
so you simply place the whole contents in the bin and away you go.

I don't recommend making a worm farm as there's so many inexpensive systems available.
but here's a good basic one if you must..
http://www.wheatgrasskits.com/wormgarden.html

feeding them is slow at first, untill you get like 5000 they won't eat all that much.

I juice my fruit and vege's and use the left over stuff. they love it!
infact untill you have 5000+ worms i would only feed them finely chopped foods.
if there's still food from a week ago then there's enough food and don't put anymore until they eat the old stuff.

they will eat their favorites first, then the rest so don't add more of their favorites until they eat the other stuff.

The more variety they are fed, the better quality the castings are.

don't put in fresh greens, have a container where you put scraps into.
when it's starting to rot put it in.
don't put in pieces of potato peel or rockmelon seeds, they will sprout.

a handfull of dried grass or shredded paper a week is good. (soak in water first)

there are also some worm fattener recipes available which will give your new worms a good start,
the baby worms clump all over the worm fattener mix, they love it.

fishermen use fattener 2 or 3 months before the main fishing season so the're fat and ready.

once a bin reaches capacity you can give away worms in lots of 1000 (2lb) and set up friends.
or if you have chooks, then you have a yummy treat for 'em year round.

there's so many benefits to having a worm farm.
it's the best thing i've bought in ages.
highly recommend it.

Ben

thank you so much ben for the info! I tried it last year and it didn't work, now i know what i did wrong. I'm going to try it again though.

i do have some questions though. one, do you know if there is an american version of the can o'worms? that really looks like a neat contraption. two, can you give us the dimensions of a box that would hold 2 pounds of worms?

welcome to the garden helper, we are glad to have you (we seem to be getting more gardeners from Australia ) and thanks again!

Hi Jiffy,

I don't think size is really important for 2000 worms as if it's too small they just won't breed much but basically, one of those polystyrine white fruit boxes in size would house 5000 easily, so if you started one with 1000 worms it doubles in about 10 weeks then doubles again until they are happy with the size of the family.

I'm sure i saw an american worm farm that was square but had the same stacking principle.

and with worm farms that don't have a stacking system it is a lot more work as you have to bury the food within the bedding and harvesting the castings is a chore and knocks the worms about.

well, i'm thinking, maybe i can make myself one. i don't need something as large as the ones specified, but how large would the holes need to be for the worms to crawl through and the castings to drop? and i wouldn't want castings in my tea would i? i'm thinking if i get some plastic boxes that stack that are the "right size" for me, could i drill holes in the bottoms and make the boxes like your worm can? (i am on a tight budget too )

Hi,

You can make one as basic as you like.
but if you want to make a system that's similar to the can o worms then i'll try and help.

ok well the holes are the size of a 3/32 drill bit.
just big enough for the worms to move up
and keep the castings in place.

the base on the can o worms has what looks like a cone in the middle.
so if the worms climb down into the resevoir they can climb back up on the cone.
so whatever you use as a base should have some sort of cone in the middle that touches the next level. hey maybe you could cut half a coke bottle and leave the top on, cut it so it just touches the 1st tray.

Also stick a plastic tap in the base to extract tea easily withought lifting it all up and disturbing the clan.

make 3 trays but start with 2 and keep the 3rd for later.
make a frame for the lid and 1/4 cover it with fly screen mesh. (don't want too much light if any coming in)

put the first tray on the base and buy a block of coir/coconut coir from a garden shop, it looks like a brick and you pop it in big bucket of water and it soaks up and turns into a pile of bedding!

spread it over the 1st tray. not the base
then if you have bought 1000 or 500 worms from a worm farm it should come with it's own castings, don't forget 1000 worms is like 300 fat ones, then smaller and smaller and even eggs so it won't look like a heap.

throw the worms and all, over the coir bedding and that should be perfect to put the second tray onto.
once the 2nd tray is over them, don't lift it again unless you have to.

put the lid on the top.
the 3rd tray is in waiting until the 2nd tray fills.

Go to your local vege store and ask for a potato sack/hessian.
try and get one of the heavy thick ones.
cut it to fit in the 2nd tray, it will shrink a bit.

the sack covers the food and light so the worms will happily sit under the sack and eat away.

so to feed, you simply throw in food under the sack. no more than 1 inch deep of food though.
the worms will most likely start to eat the coir bedding rather than climbing up at first.

you put the 3rd level on when the 2nd level is full, then the system is in full action!
when the 3rd fills, remove the 1st, save the castings and that then becomes the top level.

lmk if you get stuck

oh and some ventilation at the base,
the reservoir that'll hold the tea needs air.

you'll need legs so i reckon you should use a tube for legs of some sort.
like pvc piping maybe,

if you can insert the legs into the base so they sick in the reservoir near the top,
then that'll act as ventilation.

another idea i had was to make a good base then use them polystyrene boxes at the green grocer.
they stack well and you can cut them down.

you don't want the unit more than 3.5 feet high when standing on the legs.
so your trays should only be 6 inch high max.