Guide to Worm Farming

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Why Worm Farming?

We all put things in our garbage bin that could be put to good use. Did you know that organic material such as food scraps make up around 60% of our household waste? If you fill your 80 litre garbage bin each week, that means you are throwing out 48 litres of organic material each week! When this waste goes to landfill it is costly to us and it harms our environment. The good news is that most organic material can easily be returned to the soil as useful fertiliser and compost in your own garden.

Here are 3 more good reasons to start a worm farm in your garden or on your verandah.

Your plants will love it!Worm castings and worm juice are nutrient rich, improving plant growth, increasing the capacity of the soil or potting mix to hold nutrients and water, and helps plants to resist disease.

Worm farming is fun!Worms, worms, and more worms!. Kids and adults of all ages can enjoy worm farming and it is a great way for the whole family to get involved in recycling food scraps.

Reduce the amount of waste going to landfill!You can do this by simply recycling your food scraps at home. The worms and other micro-organisms break down the food scraps before they have a chance to rot. Did you know that around 90% of greenhouse gas emissions from landfills are a result of decomposing organic material such as food waste?

Worms - nature’s own natural recyclers!

Worms of course! You will need at least 1000 worms to start with. There are many different species of worms, but Red Wrigglers are the best because they don’t mind living in a crowded worm farm, they reproduce quickly and eat up to half their own body weight per day.

Worms need a comfortable bed. In a worm’s natural habitat under the ground, it is moist, cool, damp and dark. You can recreate these conditions easily using peat moss, shredded paper, grass clippings or straw as bedding.

Feed your worms a mix of food scraps such as fruit and vegetable scraps, tea bags and coffee grounds. Just like humans, if we ate the same foods over and over, we would get quite bored with eating, so a variety of food scraps is the key to keeping the worms active, growing and multiplying.

The Essential Ingredients for a Good Worm Farm

Suitable Bedding

Peat Moss

Straw

Autumn leaves

Sawdust

Shredded newspaper

Bark

Brown paper bags

Grass clippings

Food Scraps & other ingredience

Fruit and vegetable scraps

Tea leaves & bags

Vacuum cleaner dust

Coffee grounds

Green leaves

Hair

Egg shells

Fresh weeds & manures

Maintaining your Worm Farm

Using the ADAM Principles

A is for Aliveness. Your worm farm is a living system. It’s the worms and micro-organisms in the worm farm multiplying and digesting the organic material

that produces heat and speeds up the process of breaking down the organic material, creating nature’s own fertiliser - worm castings and worm juice.

D is for Diversity. Feed your worms a variety of ingredients to keep the worms healthy, active and more interested in eating.

A is for Aeration. Worms need air to breathe, just as people do. Place your worm farm in a shaded area with plenty of air moving around it, and make sure your

worm farm has holes in the lid. As worms wriggle and move around the worm farm, they shift ingredients and naturally create air pockets as they go.

M is for Moisture. Worms need an environment that is moist, cool, damp and dark. Their bodies also need to stay moist to breathe, if they dry out they

will die. Moisture is the key to any healthy and active ecosystem. The food scraps you add to your worm farm contain a lot of moisture, but you will also need a damp cover over the food scraps such as a hessian or calico bag, or damp newspaper.

Keeping the worms activeWorms are very easy pets to look after as they do not need much attention. Just ensure your worm farm is placed in a shaded area of your garden or verandah, with food scraps covered with a moist hessian bag or damp newspaper. Keeping the cover moist may require a little watering once a week. Worms will even survive if you go on holidays, as long as the worm farm remains moist.

Optimal temperature for worms is between 13º and 25º Celcius. At this temperature, the worms will eat well and reproduce steadily. If the worm farm is too cold or too hot (below 13ºC or above 25ºC) they will not only stop eating, but can die.

A FULLY OPERATIONALCAN-O-WORMS

LEVEL 4ThirdWorking Tray

LEVEL 3SecondWorking Tray

LEVEL 2FirstWorking Tray

LEVEL 1Collector Tray

©1995 N. Nattrass Sourced from www.reln.com.au

VENTILATION HOLES

LID

TAP

LEVEL 4ThirdWorking Tray

LEVEL 3SecondWorking Tray

LEVEL 2FirstWorking Tray

LEVEL 1Collector Tray

VENTILATION HOLES

LID

TAP

This tray catches liquid fertiliser that drains from the upper levels of the worm farm. Simply drain this liquid by turning on the tap, and there you have your own organic fertiliser to use on your potted plants or garden.

This tray is for the bedding and where you introduce new worms to the system. You can use material such as peat moss, shredded paper, coconut fibre or similar, just put enough bedding into the tray so that the next tray (Level 3) rests on top of this bedding, this way the worms will easily reach Level 3.

This tray is for food scraps. Place around 2cm of food scraps over half of the tray area and see how the worms go. Over time you will be able to assess how much food your worms can manage at any one time. Always cover the food scraps with a damp hessian cover or newspaper, don’t let the cover dry out. In a few months, when this tray has at least 2cm of worm castings (dark soil appearance), you can add the Level 4 tray to start the process over.

This tray is used for food scraps when Level 3 is at least 2cm deep in worm castings. Start to add food scraps in this tray and cover with the hessian bag/ paper used in Level 3, starting the process over again. In a few months, there should be no worms in the first working tray (Level 2), only worm castings. When this happens you can take out this tray using the worm castings on the garden as fertiliser, and then using this tray as Level 4 in the future.

Always keep a lid on your worm farm to maintain a dark, damp and cool environment, with a few holes in the lid for airflow.

The process starts here

1. Smelly

Your worm farm can start to smell if you are feeding your worms more than they can eat, or if the worm farm is too wet. Food scraps contain a lot of moisture and if there are not enough worms or too much food, the scraps will begin to rot before the worms have a chance to eat them.Stop feeding the wormsGive them a chance to digest what they already have available to them before adding any more food scraps.

Decrease moistureThis will happen naturally as you increase aeration, either through lightly mixing the scraps with a trowel, adding more worms, or adding a handful of calcium, lime or egg shells. Don’t add any more water to the worm farm, only keep the hessian/ paper cover moist.

2. Unwelcome visitors

There are millions of friendly critters in your worm farm (in addition to the worms themselves) which help to break down the food waste. However, larger critters such as cockroaches, mice and rats are not welcome, so here’s how to reduce the

attraction factor for vermin.

Keep the worm farm moist. Vermin do not like a damp environment.

Keep the worm farm at optimal temperature. Between 13ºC and 25ºC is ideal.

If in doubt, leave them out. Reduce the amount of acidic ingredients such as citrus peels or onions. Worms don’t like them as much, which means these ingredients will be slow to break down.

Add some wood ash, egg or oyster shells, lime or calcium. These are natural ingredients which help to balance the composition of the worm farm.

Always cover food scraps. Use a damp hessian cover or sheets of newspaper.

Keep your worm farm off the ground. This will stop any larger critters such as mice and rats being able climb in.

Common Problems with Worm Farms and what to do about them

3. Worms are not eating very much.

If the worms are slow to process the food scraps, it could be lack of air, water, heat or worms. There are good ways to make this process quicker!

Worm farm may be too dryAdd water, remember to give your worm farm a good soaking every 1 - 2 weeks and keep the hessian/ paper cover moist at all times. Position your worm farm in a shaded area.

Worm farm may be too wetThe worms can drown if there is too much water and they may not be getting enough air to breath. Use a trowel to gently mix the material and add some lime, calcium or egg shells.

Keep your worm farm covered with a lid As well as a moist cover over the food scraps, the worm farm will need to be covered by a lid to keep the environment dark, damp and moist. A lid also provides extra warmth during the Winter months by keeping the heat in.

Keep the worm farm at an optimal temperatureBetween 13ºC and 25ºC, is the optimal temperature for worms to thrive and reproduce.

Make sure your worm farm has enough worms. 1000 is a good start.

Where to use the worm castings

From your worm farm Worm castings Drip line around tree

In potted gardens Lawn top-dressing

Notes:

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Environmental Compliance / Printed on 100% recycled paper / Date: January 2008 / ECWRHA08

Contact Pittwater Council’s Waste Education Team if you would like more information on reducing your household waste through composting and worm farming, recycling and green cleaning. Telephone: 9970 1194 Email: EC Education_Team@pittwater.nsw.gov.au

Contact Kimbriki Recycling & Waste Disposal Centre for Free Eco Gardening Workshops, Recycled Garden Products (mulches, soils and potting mix) and Compost Bins ($45)Telephone: 9486 3512 Email: kimbriki@kimbriki.com Web: www.kimbriki.com

PO Box 882, Mona Vale NSW 1660 Phone: 02 9970 1111Email: pittwater_council@pittwater.nsw.gov.au