In our house, we try to recycle as much as possible. Every shred of paper, bit of cardboard, tin foil, etc. etc and every scrap of food waste.
We’ve always had a compost bin at the end of yard, which took all our food trimmings and leftovers. When these were mixed with bits of cardboard and donated grass cuttings, they produced a good supply of compost for our plants… eventually.
When we moved house recently, we found that there was nowhere appropriate for such a compost bin. We could, of course, just let all our food waste go for composting via the Council’s kerbside collection, but that seemed a bit of a waste of all the ‘good stuff’ we produce, such as coffee grounds and tea leaves, which I know make lovely compost for our plants.
So, I decided to try a wormery.
I’ve been aware of wormeries and worm composting for quite a while. But I had formed the impression that it seemed like a lot of hard work for little return.
OK, so I admit I was wrong on both counts!
Eighteen months on, I’m very impressed. So impressed, in fact, that I’ve just bought a friend a wormery as a birthday present.
My friend, although very up for the idea, is going to need some guidance. So I thought I’d put down all the stuff I’ve learnt over that year and half… and put it out there in this blog, for anyone else who might be interested.
There are a bewildering range of wormeries out there, costing between about £60 to over £100, single chamber, multilayers, etc.
I plumped for a multi-tier system and, despite being a ‘newbie’, went for a full sized 4-tier wormery. Which, as it turned out, was a good move.
I got a ‘basic’ no frills kit from The Wormery Store, so no worms came with it.
Set-up is easy with just a few nuts and bolts (no tools needed) to fix the base stand and collecting tray and then add the all-important draining tap. The wormery came with a lining sheet for the bottom tray, which retains moisture and stops the worms getting through the holes into the liquid collecting train. I eventually found that it was keeping things a bit too moist, so would recommend that you trim this so it just covers the bottom of the tray and doesn’t go up the sides. Then, just hydrate the coir fibre starter bedding and you’re good to go. The new home’s ready, now for the occupants…
There are lots of species of worm, some better than others for composting. Your common or garden earthworms aren’t really suitable (no offence, chaps). Two sort seem particularly good at turning food waste into great compost, Tiger worms (brandlings) and Dendrobaena (nightcrawlers). Both types are readily available to buy online, but I decided to source mine locally as, it so happens that, Dendrobaena are also the worm of choice for anglers and can be bought at your local tackle shop (if you’re not into that sort of thing, so would have a clue where, ask around or look online). Call me an old romantic, but this method of acquisition also has an added feel good factor…a sort of mini animal liberation, saving a bunch of worms from the fisherman’s hook! A tenner’s worth is enough to get your wormery started and, if all goes well, they’ll breed plenty more.
You can site your wormery outdoors in a shady spot in the garden (definitely not in direct sunlight), but unless you live somewhere really mild, you’ll need to think about some winter insulation. The wormery is fairly weather-proof, but you have to watch out for heavy rain. The design means that driving rain will get in and make things far too wet. It’s recommended that when this threatens you leave the tap open to let all the rain through, but this also means you’re losing all the goodness. Given the recent vagaries of the British climate, I decided very quickly to put mine indoors and have found that the more even temperature this provides has greatly increased productivity. So my worms now live in a corner of my little ‘shed’ (ex-WC) at the bottom of the yard.
For the first few week of occupancy you will need to be vigilant. Like all ‘wildlife’ introduced to a new home, they have an overwhelming urge to escape! A lot, in particular, will find their way into the bottom liquid collecting tray from whence they must be retrieved regularly. I check this weekly at feeding time.
Feeding Time at the Wormery
And what about their diet? There’s lots of advice about on suitable menus (see end of this post). Basically, they will ‘enjoy’ all your trimmings and peelings and leftover raw food. I suppose I have to point out that this doesn’t include meat and dairy (despite the suggestions you may have picked up from the Yorkshire national anthem, worms are vegetarians). Try to avoid strong acidic foods, so leave out citrus fruits, onions, etc. They also ‘like’ coffee grounds and tea leaves (which in our caffeine addicted household form quite a bit of their diet!). You can also supplement your food waste will suitable garden trimmings, comfrey and nettle leaves are particularly nutritious and will improve the finished compost. Chop everything small before you feed it to the worms, the rule of thumb being if it’s too tough for the knife, it’s too tough for the worms (e.g. banana skins are really good but I discard the tip and stalk when chopping). Any food waste not suitable for the worms can be recycled elsewhere. We now have two food waste caddies in the cupboard, one for the worms and one for the council.
Moisture and acidity levels are important to worm health and happiness, they don’t like things too wet or too acidic. If things look a bit wet, you can always incorporate a bit of shredded cardboard or paper or coir (I tend to use paper pet bedding) to help. If it looks a bit dry, conversely, I give the surface a light spray with water.
One thing I added to my wormery is a cover on top of the ‘active’ tray to keep warmth and moisture in. I’ve used a coir hanging basket liner cut to shape. The worms also like to crawl through and nibble this. It will last about a year before it begins to fall apart when you can just cut it up and add in to the compost.
Worms also like a slightly neutral environment, so if you fear things are getting a bit acidic you’ll need to add something to adjust this. You buy bags of Lime pH Balancer, or make more use of food leftovers. Eggshells are a good source of lime. We save all ours, bake them in the oven, then grind them up and regularly add to the worms’ food.
How active and hungry your worms are, will very much depend on temperature. Ours get fed every week in summer, but only need feeding every fortnight or less in winter. If they haven’t started to ‘work on’ the last lot of food you gave them, don’t add anymore.
Don’t forget to regularly collect the ‘worm juice’ as well. At times there will just be a dribble, but at height of summer activity, maybe half a litre in a couple of weeks.
When your first tray is full, just pop the next one on top and add their food to this one. The worms will gradually migrate upwards once they’ve finished ‘processing the layer below and you just keep on adding trays until your wormery is full. With our four tray wormery this takes about a year.
One thing I’ve found is that, as you add the tray, because of all the weight, the lower layers become very compacted and the compost is hard to break up when eventually removed. So, I’m trying my own tweak. I’ve put a small (3”) plant pot upside in each corner of each tray, so that when the other trays go on top of the full tray the finished compost won’t get so compacted. I also figure that the ‘chimney’ this is creating in each corner will improve the air flow in the wormery. We’ll see how that goes?
Once the wormery is full, you start over again with a liner and coir bedding, which is readily available (I get mine in blocks from my local ‘pound shop’ which labels it ‘potting soil?)
To collect our compost, we empty the full tray out on to a sheet and patiently go through it retrieving all the remaining worms and returning them to the new layer of the wormery. Keen eye sight and gentle handling is needed here for all the hundreds of teeny tiny baby worms you find. I usually leave the pile of compost to dry out a bit in a sunny place for an hour or two (this also makes an errant worms hide at the bottom where they are easier to spot and catch) before loosely bagging it (they will still be some worms in there getting on with their job).
Is it worth it? (A new winter coat and shoes for the wife and a bicycle on the boy’s birthday, etc.) I hear you ask. I suppose it depends on your outlook. As already said, your start up costs will be about £60-£100.
What do I get? (no I’m not going to fill a bracket with Buzzcocks lyrics) Well, if all goes well, you’ll get about 60 or more litres of compost a year. And (going into M&S mode) this is not just potting compost, but high quality, highly nutritious compost that you can mix in with ‘ordinary’ compost or last years spent compost for this year’s crop of pot plants. Plus, you get several litres of concentrated liquid plant food, year on year.
And if this weren’t enough, you are getting an interesting ‘mini hobby’ as well!
How to look after and feed your wormery from Vertical Veg (includes gourmet recipes)
Worm composting A quick guide from the RHS
Alternative Kitchen Garden Podcast from Emma Cooper (episode 26 features Worm Composting)
