Anybody have their own worm farm going at home? I'm only at the 'wondering if I should do it' stage. I have grand visions of these massively fat 8" worms.
Cheers,
E
Worm Farm
Re: Worm Farm
Hi,
I gave worm farming a try a couple of years ago, and I am not sure if I would do it again (If you want to google it, try vermiculture or vermicomposting). I originally did it to show my kids how worms break down scrap food. It's pretty cheap to set up, and once going provides a continuous supply. I used one of those 38 litre storage containers from walmart, filled it with crumpled, moistened scraps paper, worms, dirt (the worms need some form of dirt/gravel to help them digest food) and kitchen scraps. Make sure to use the lid with a series of small holes drilled in it. You would be amazed at how good worms are at escaping. So long as you do not put protein in (meat, eggs, milk products, etc) there will be no odour. I kept mine in my laundry/furnace room for about a year. If the bedding got dry, I just added a little water (I stress little since the worms will drown if you add too much). If you have too much food in the bin, just leave it for a couple of days to let the worms catch up. Once settled, the worms will begin to live happily, and start to produce new worms (how exactly this happens is not clear
), but you can tell the worms have been in the mood when you find small ones. It can take a little while before they begin mating, depending on the worm type. Once up and going, you will have constant supply, but you will have to adjust your harvest to make sure a breeding population is maintained. If you are using a lot of worms, you may need a larger container than I used. Periodically, you will need to remove bunch of the compost the worms create and replace it with a new bed of crumpled up, moistened paper (if you or your significant other has a garden, this stuff is miraculous - I had an old lettuce core come back to life while in the worm box one week). Its not a lot of work, but I hesitate to do it again since my wife was not happy about finding escapees on the floor (and I was not too happy when I accidentally stepped on them). Anyway, my son seems to be on a mission to dig them out of the back yard. He started trying last week.
Cheers,
Sourdough
I gave worm farming a try a couple of years ago, and I am not sure if I would do it again (If you want to google it, try vermiculture or vermicomposting). I originally did it to show my kids how worms break down scrap food. It's pretty cheap to set up, and once going provides a continuous supply. I used one of those 38 litre storage containers from walmart, filled it with crumpled, moistened scraps paper, worms, dirt (the worms need some form of dirt/gravel to help them digest food) and kitchen scraps. Make sure to use the lid with a series of small holes drilled in it. You would be amazed at how good worms are at escaping. So long as you do not put protein in (meat, eggs, milk products, etc) there will be no odour. I kept mine in my laundry/furnace room for about a year. If the bedding got dry, I just added a little water (I stress little since the worms will drown if you add too much). If you have too much food in the bin, just leave it for a couple of days to let the worms catch up. Once settled, the worms will begin to live happily, and start to produce new worms (how exactly this happens is not clear
), but you can tell the worms have been in the mood when you find small ones. It can take a little while before they begin mating, depending on the worm type. Once up and going, you will have constant supply, but you will have to adjust your harvest to make sure a breeding population is maintained. If you are using a lot of worms, you may need a larger container than I used. Periodically, you will need to remove bunch of the compost the worms create and replace it with a new bed of crumpled up, moistened paper (if you or your significant other has a garden, this stuff is miraculous - I had an old lettuce core come back to life while in the worm box one week). Its not a lot of work, but I hesitate to do it again since my wife was not happy about finding escapees on the floor (and I was not too happy when I accidentally stepped on them). Anyway, my son seems to be on a mission to dig them out of the back yard. He started trying last week.Cheers,
Sourdough