Composting is our effort to replicate nature’s recycling system. As with all composting it is simply gathering together waste organic materials and mixing them so that the worm and other micro-organisms do their work.

A worm farm is a self contained composting system that does not generate heat and retains most nutrients for reuse.

Properly maintained it is an odourless system.

The benefits from composting with worms:

• Worm composting can be undertaken all year round both inside and out. The great advantage is that it provides people with limited space an effective way of recycling their kitchen waste.
• Environmentally it makes good sense. It saves you money by reducing the amount of organic waste going to the landfill.
• Being a natural plant food and soil conditioner, worm compost provides an excellent high quality material particularly suitable for container growing, but equally as good for enriching the garden. 

Starting a worm farm

What you need (built entirely from reused and recycled materials):

• Old carpet or sack
• 3 old big phone books
• One piece of corrugated iron 600 x 600mm
• Three or Four car tyres of similar size
• One close fitting lid (maybe a piece of wood with a rock on it is ok)
• 35 newspapers
• One container – an old pot (to collect the liquid)
• Some old onion sacks or shade cloth to put between the tyres
• Lots of tiger worms or red worms (they like to live above the ground)

How to put your worm farm together:

• Soak the newspapers in water and stuff the tyres full of the damp newspapers (avoid coloured or glossy pages)
• Place the corrugated iron on top of the telephone books
• Stack the tyres on top of the corrugated iron. Dig a hole for the pot to collect the worm rum which runs of the iron
• Fill the bottom tyre with bedding materials, add worms (250 gm)
• Feed regularly with kitchen scraps
• Keep the worms covered with carpet or newspaper. Water them once a week in summer and once a month in winter. Place your lid on top to stop the flies. Make sure the worm bedding is always moist)
• As the tyre sacks fill up (normally takes several months) you slide out the bottom tyre and empty it of worm castings/vermicast. The paper in the tyre will probably be full of worms and can be replaced as is, used in your garden or compost your given to friends so they can start their own worm farm.
• The old tyre is now ready to reuse – stuff with fresh moist newspaper and place on top of the tyre sack.
• Regularly empty the pot of worm rum – dilute 8 to 1 with water and spray or pour on to and around your plants.

Worms suitable for your worm farm can be found in animal manure or rotting peastraw. Or for $25 you can buy 100 worms from Wastebusters.

It’s a good idea to site your worm farm reasonably close to the back door in a sunny spot (all day sun is best) during the winter but you may need to moved it into the shade during the summer.

Food to Avoid 

• Don’t put in any citric foods as these make the conditions too acid for the worms
• Garden waste is generally not suitable for these worms. Grass clippings may heat up quickly which the worms wont like, it may even kill them. Garden waste is best dealt with by conventional composting methods
• Fats, cooking/salad oils create slimly conditions, odour and fly problems
• Don’t use onions, garlic or hot spicy food scraps.

Don’t

• Add bones, glass, plastic, tin foil or other inert materials
• If adding aged (composted) manures to your wormery, avoid chicken manure as this tends to be acidic for the worms.

For more worm and composting tips, click here.