Who has a wormery?

[Nickerly]

I built a wormery last week with storage boxes - cost me about £10 including buying £5 worth of worms.

They seem to have settled in well are are happily munching away at my veg peelings, shredded newspaper and bills and clumps of hair from my hairbrushes

Has anyone else got a wormery?

[pipscariad]

Yup, I have a can-o-worms (cost more than I care to mention , but I had a bit of money about 6 years ago, and had a rush of blood to the head!). I am a bit hit and miss with it, but the good 'ole worms keep going, and the compost that I've had out of it was fantastic, so it's definately worth having.

Every now and then I give it a worm boost with some from my compost bin, which is always swarming with tiger worms (not sure if that's right 'breed' name, but I do know they are the correct sort of worms!).

Well done for being so resourceful. Oh yes, and before I forget, one of the best and most interesting things I have given my worms was a pure wool sweater than a neighbour had managed to burn a hole in and was throwing away - it disappeared to almost nothing, to my total amazement. Respect to those worms!

[Safhyre]

How easy is it to manage a womery?

[Two_Sheds]

Lots of people have them. There're 30 odd old threads on wormeries. Have a browse: Grow Your Own - Wormery threads

[selfraising]

I have a wormery, wheelie bin type with tap. Just be careful not to overfeed them at this time of year. As the weather warms up they will become more active and then you can add more in. I chuck all sorts in there, just go easy on citrus fruit and onions. If you have put loads of the latter in, add plenty of egg shells and it will neutralise it.

[selfraising]

How easy is it to manage a womery?

Once its set up, its easy, the worms just do their own thing and I leave them to it

[GardeningMike]

Can-O-Worms - an efficient kitchen scrap digestor!

I have the Can-O-Worms kit that was mentioned above, though I bought two additional tiers to the three that come with the kit. Five layers is the limit really for the weight on the wormery legs.

I have had this wormery for 5 years and have only ever emptied it once. It's still going strong. All the scraps I add seem to be reduced to almost nothing very quickly, worm casts accumulating slowly. The brandlings, as these worms are called are very efficient; I've heard that the waste (fertilizer) that the worms produce (or worm casts) represents around only 8% of the original weight of scraps put onto the wormery. That's efficiency for you!

However from November to February they seem to go into hibernation outdoors so you wont be able to add any scraps for around 4 months of the year.

I am still unsure how to use the worm casts as a fertilizer as I know it is rather concentrated ... any advice or experience on this then I'd love to hear from you...

[NOG]

Oups I have been bunging stuff in all winter. I have worms on all three trays.

I bung in anything that I cant put in my compost bin.

[selfraising]

Gardening Mike, there is a whole chapter in my wormery book on the worm cast soil but here are a few ideas:
Can be used as a potting medium for all plants and veg
Can be used to enrich commercial compost.
Can be sprinkled direct on to soil
Can be used for seeds
If you brush into grass, it will enrich the soil and should improve the grass
Also you can mix 1 part vermicompost to 10 parts water, shake and leave to stand for an hour and pour directly into plant pots. You can also sieve the sediment out and use the remaining liquid as a foliar feed. The remaining sediment can then go back in the wormery.

[dexterdoglancashire]

I tried one a couple of years ago. OH made it for me, but we used clear plastic containers, not black. No wonder it was a disaster.

[pipscariad]

Gardening Mike, there is a whole chapter in my wormery book on the worm cast soil but here are a few ideas:
Can be used as a potting medium for all plants and veg
Can be used to enrich commercial compost.
Can be sprinkled direct on to soil
Can be used for seeds
If you brush into grass, it will enrich the soil and should improve the grass
Also you can mix 1 part vermicompost to 10 parts water, shake and leave to stand for an hour and pour directly into plant pots. You can also sieve the sediment out and use the remaining liquid as a foliar feed. The remaining sediment can then go back in the wormery.

I've used my worm casts for most of the above, but be warned, when I used it to start off seeds I did end up with several other things growing, which I assumed were things that I had originally put into the wormery! The seeds did well though

[FoxHillGardener]

... but be warned, when I used it to start off seeds I did end up with several other things growing, which I assumed were things that I had originally put into the wormery...

Me too! Wherever I've used the worm compost I've got rash of free tomato, pepper and chilli plants. Plus wormeries are pretty efficient at germinating avocado stones which you can rescue and pot up

[Leralc]

can you really put everything in that you would put in a normal composter, plus scrappings from plates ?

i also didnt realise that you couldnt put stiff in during the hibernation period - i thought it would work as a normal composter during that time...

[selfraising]

can you really put everything in that you would put in a normal composter, plus scrappings from plates ?

i also didnt realise that you couldnt put stiff in during the hibernation period - i thought it would work as a normal composter during that time...

You can put stuff in during the winter but just not as much, as the colder it is, the less activity you will get from the worms.

You can put pretty much anything in there just not too much citrus or onions (a little is okay). I put paper, cardboard, hoover bag contents, tea, coffee and so on. I'm more inclined to put cooked food in the wormery than in my compost because it is enclosed and rats can't get at it. My worms seem to particularly like choccie biscuits and cake (bit like their owner)

[seasprout]

My C-O-W has got through the winter ok and the worms are getting their appetite back.

Started increasing the food for them and they are munching away.