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Worm Farms

Buying a Worm Farm

I have decided to get a worm farm to help reduce the amount of waste that I throw away. This article describes why I chose to buy a worm farm and the research that I have done into the subject of worm farms

Why choose a worm farm?

Everyone knows that recycling waste is environmentally sound, and we even have a green cycle bin that takes away all organic matter (e.g. kitchen waste and garden waste). We also have recycling for plastic, glass and metal. However I'd like to go one step further!

Although recycling waste via your county council is a very good thing to do it still involves buying a great big truck and burning lots of diesel as it chugs its way around the houses, and there is still a lot of industrial processing required to turn the waste into compost. By recycling as much waste as possible without someone having to take it away I hope that I can do my bit in cutting down on fossil fuel usage.

And more importantly worm farms sound like they could be fun!

But why a worm farm, and not a compost bin?

I chose to go for a worm farm rather than a normal compost bin for several reasons

• Worm farms sound like fun!
• Our garden is very small and normal composters have to be pretty large to be effective
• Worm farms are much faster at turning waste into compost
• Worm farms don't produce any smell
• Worm farms produce great liquid fertiliser that can be used for plant pots (I don't have a big garden remember)
• Worm farms sound like fun! (have I mentioned that before)

Choosing a worm farm

Before buying a worm farm I did a little research on the web. There appear to be several types of worm farm that you can buy. They are detailed below:

Continuous Flow Worm Farms

These are pretty big and industrial worm farms. The waste goes in the top and eventually comes out the bottom (using some sort of griddle system) as compost. These worm farms seem to be the most effective, but they do take up a lot of space and are pretty expensive

Stacking Worm Farms

Stacking Worm farms have several identical boxes stacked on top of each other. The idea is that you fill up the bottom layer with food and worms and then gradually fill up the upper stacking boxes whilst the worms are munching through the food at the bottom. Once they have turned all the food in the bottom tray to compost the worms will move on up to the next layer. You can than take out the bottom tray, harvest the worm compost (called worm cast) and put the now empty container on the top ready to fill up with more worm food.

Single Bucket Worm Farms

These are very simplistic devices often consisting of a converted dustbin or similar. They have special inserts to allow for good drainage, aeration and generally are made a nice place for worms to live. The worm food just gets piled into the top of the bin and the worms eat their way through it. When you want to harvest the worm compost you have to remove the top layer of food (which should contain most of the worms) and then remove the compost. Usually you will have to sort through the compost to remove any remaining worms

Build your own Worm Farms

There are plenty of ways to make you own worm farm, all three types described above can be easily put together with a bit of thought and some common DIY materials. I thought about making a Stacking Worm Farm using some plastic stackable boxes that are designed to slide under beds. In the end I decided to go the low hassle route of buying an off the shelf worm farm, but don't let that deter you! A quick check of Ebay showed that there were people selling their own worm farm efforts. Quite often they looked like a wheelie bin with a few holes drilled in the bottom, so beware of what you are buying.

What worm farm did I chose?

Eventually I decided to go for a Stacking Worm Farm as it seemed the best compromise between size and ease of harvesting the worm compost. I went for the "Can-o-worms" device which can be found at all good worm shops. It was pretty pricey (�90) but included all the things I needed to get started, including the worms, some bedding mat, lime (needed to regulate the pH of the compost) and "worm treat". I'm not sure what Worm Treat is but I'm sure the worms will love it!!

Does the Worm Farm Work well?

My worm farm is arriving sometime next week so I will update this worm blog with more information as I get it. I'm stockpiling my kitchen waste in preparation for its arrival and am already amazed at home much stuff we throw away, I have a small bin full ready for our little worm friends to digest.

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