Worm Farm.

not so edible, but a crop. I want to make my worm farm better

 

That is all mine is, a bottomless box on the ground with leaves and partially composted leaves inside and some plywood that lays on it as a lid. I then bought a small amount of worms as fishing bait and put them in. It has worms, but not masses. I compost on a large scale but the worm farm has never done much.

 

I got rid of my wormery last year because the worms were not really as productive as say a compost bin.

Most of our food waste now goes into the compost bin, mouldy bread included.

 

I want worms for fishing. I think I need to feed them properly. Or something..........

Hi Alexmac. I hesitate putting in any proper foods because we have raccoons and opossums that would take an interest. I need some food like, well, dried leaves, that is free and they like. I do hot have grass clippings which could work I guess, and the chickens eat every bit of scraps.....

 

Don't give the worms grass clippings. This heats up the bin and the worms hate that. It's great for composting but not good for the worms who like their surroundings nice, cool and moist.

You need to give them kitchen waste but hold out things that are slow to break down like say broccoli stalks or cabbage hearts. Things like moldy bread and moldy jam they love. Leaves take ages to break down, two to three years I have found personally.

The worms in order to multiply will need to be happy, they eat food that has already broken down by mold partially to be able to digest the food. If you are already giving your scraps to your chickens then you don't need to give your worms a huge amount to start off with. Probably a handful, if that a week. But if successful then the consumption speed will increase overtime.

Perhaps you need to find food waste that you don't give to the chickens. Things like teabags (ripped open) and coffee grounds would be a good place to start as these are quick to break down and I imagine you don't feed your chickens coffee or tea.

I think with a bottomless box the worms are more likely to go into the ground imo.

If you have Raccoons in your area that may be threatening the worms home then perhaps yo should thing about redesigning the farm. You can buy worm farms for about £50 with the worms included and then wrap a tension strap around the whole thing to stop it being opened or weigh it down with a couple of paving slabs. If money is tight then I've seen people make them from old plastic paint kettles with holes drilled in the bottom.

 

Hi, Jane

I have a 'red wriggler' worm, the compost kind that are bread for fishing bait by being fed a diet of horse manure (from youtube) I do not think they will leave if they are happy, the location outside is kind of hostile for a worm, and if they are not happy the farm will not work anyway.

So far no problems with animals because I just feed them leaves that are a bit rotted, and some old veg. What I need to do is make a proper digging in it and a worm inventory - wile watching to see what micro environment they favor.