Worm Farm

Worms, vermicast and worm wee are essential elements in a biodynamic soil; a healthy soil full of trace elements and nutrients, ready to encourage strong, vigorous growth, especially in the vegie patch. Worm farming is fun and free! Use worms in the compost to accelerate the composting process or have a completely separate worm farm. Worms work best in a worm farm and it’s a clean, safe way of producing organic nutritious fertilizer for your garden, completely free of charge!

Worm Farm
Open the worm farm and use the wrapping cardboard as the bedding layer. After soaking the coconut fibre block in water, spread this out as the worms bedding. Add 1000 worms and top with a layer of 6 sheets of wet newspaper torn into strips. Wet hessian or carpet is also a suitable blanket.

Think of a worm farm like a worm penthouse – the bottom layer is the toilet where you collect the wonderful worm liquid, the middle layer their loungeroom and the top level is the kitchen where you leave the food.

After 7 to 10 days, start adding the kitchen scraps under the hessian. Add more when the scraps are eaten. It might take a while to really get the worms humming – but when they are, you’ll be able to hear them mulching! Chop up kitchen scraps finely for the worms and feed a little and often. Every time you feed them add a handful of soil – this helps the worms’ digestive system. If the food decays quicker than the worms can process it, it could become smelly, so reduce the amount of scraps. Worms don’t like onions, garlic, meat and citrus.

Place the worm farm in a cool, shaded area, morning sun is fine. Every week flush the system out with 5 litres of water and every month add a handful of garden lime.

Harvest the worm castings by attracting the worms into the top layer with melon (they love rockmelon), then pick up worms into a bucket, remembering not to leave them in the sun. Scrape out the castings and siphon out the worm liquid. Use the liquid diluted 1 to 10 with water and use over the entire garden with this – leaves and all! Provide new bedding for your worms, like wet hay or newspaper and off we go again. Soon you’ll have free food and compost for your garden and a happy family of worms.