Worm Composting

Hello!

The other day we were all crocheting and knitting away at Cooper's Creative in Skipton, when we got on to the subject of composting.  I said I was a committed fan of worm composting, and my lovely friend Lucy (Attic 24) asked me to write a blog post with some hints and tips, so here I am!

I've always composted, but found traditional composting took up rather a lot of room, was fairly slow and also sometimes a bit smelly.  Several years ago I discovered wormeries and my composting was transformed for ever.

There are all sorts of commercial wormeries you can buy, or you can make your own, but I will talk about the type I use, which are a series of stacking trays with a sump, tap and lid.

I should say here that my worm farm, as I call it, is in my vegetable garden, completely out of sight and away from the house.  It is therefore not very clean looking.  I would have washed it all down for you but it was freezing cold today and I only had a few minutes to take some photos!  At one time I had the wormeries on the patio and I then kept them very clean and neat, and again, there was no smell at all.

I have two different brands and my favourite is Worm City.  The trays are larger, you can buy extra trays and they just seem to compost faster.

I'm seriously regretting not hosing them down before taking photos...

Anyway, to get started with a commercial unit, build it according to the instructions and place the worm bedding provided in the first tray.  Between the first tray and the sump tray I place a piece of fine nylon mesh, to save any worms that try to burrow down too far!

You'll notice at the bottom of each wormery a little black tap.  This is to drain off the excess liquid, which, diluted down, makes the most marvellous plant food.  I leave my taps open, as we do get a lot of rain up here, and I had a very sad episode when the bottom filled up and some of my worms died.  I was very sad and felt terribly guilty, so I leave the taps open now, with old jugs underneath to collect the liquid.

With your wormery you will be able to buy a starter bucket of composting worms.  These are different from the big, fat garden worms. You place your worms in the first tray with the bedding and follow the instructions as to when to add their first 'meal'.  The idea is to start slowly and then build up how much you feed them.

Let's assume you now have your wormery set up according to the instructions and are now ready to start serious composting.  What can you feed them?  Well, the answer is, more than you may think!

We eat huge quantities of vegetables and fruit in our house and I keep two caddies in my kitchen for waste. I bought this one from Worm City, and it holds a good amount.  You can use compostable liners in it, again from Worm City, I discovered Aldi sell them too.  

 My second one came from Lakeland, and holds a bit less, but it is neat and clean, and easy to wash.  It has a charcoal liner in the lid. (I cut new liners from a large, cheaper sheet of charcoal pad. sold for cooker hoods.)

Into the caddy I put all our vegetable peelings, fruit peelings, tea bags, egg shells, vacuum cleaner contents etc. and then carry them down to the worms when they are full.

So, here are some things you CAN feed your worms:

Vegetable peelings (not huge quantities of onion though)
Fruit peelings (but not large quantities of citrus in one go)
Tea bags
Coffee grounds
Egg shells (better to crush them a bit)Dead flowers
Contents of your vacuum cleaner
Torn up egg cartons
Leftover rice
Leftover plain pasta
Used kitchen towels (not used for meat though)
Used tissues (the worms can't catch your cold...)
Receipts
Envelopes (remove the windows)
Confidential documents (the worms may read them but won't tell - promise!)
Torn up newspapers
Small scraps of 100% cotton or wool

It is better to cut large things up first, such as broccoli stalks, cauliflower stalks, melon skins, grapefruit skins. This makes it easier for the worms to eat, plus you can spread them around a bit.

You can also add soft prunings from the garden, old bedding plants etc. but not twigs or woody stuff.

I also save all my cardboard boxes and tear them up and add them a bit at a time to the wormeries.  The worms love cardboard and it is amazing how quickly they demolish it!

What you are aiming for is a good mix of food - too much kitchen waste will make it slimy, and too much dry garden stuff won't keep them as happy.  You also want to keep it nicely moist, similar to a wrung out facecloth.  If it's too wet, add some more torn up cardboard or egg cartons.  If it's too dry, add some of the liquid that's drained off, or some rainwater (tap water is fine, but worms do prefer rain water!)

There are some things you CAN'T add.  These include:

Meat
Fish
Dairy
Ash from the fireplace
Large quantities of citrus
Large quantities of Onions
Diseased plant matter
Glossy paper
Plastic or plastic coated paper

As I have four wormeries I spread the food between them and that seems to work well and not overload them with any one thing.

Once your first tray is full, place the second tray on top and line the bottom with some torn up newspaper, egg cartons or small bits of cardboard, and sprinkle with water to make it damp.  Then start adding food to that new tray.  As the worms run out of food on the first tray they will make their way upwards, leaving the lovely rich compost behind.

Keep adding more trays in this way, and after a few weeks, take a look at the bottom tray.  If it is nicely composted it will be dark, crumbly, sweet smelling with only the odd worm remaining.  If it's not quite ready and you are running out of trays, try tipping the second tray into the first tray, (the volume of each tray will be greatly reduced) thus freeing up a tray to place on the top.

Once you have your finished compost you can spread it on your garden!  Fish out any worms you see and put them back in the wormery.  Also remove any bits that aren't composted and put them back in to finish off.  The worm compost is very rich, so add a thin layer.  You may find a few odd seeds sprout (tomato seeds, I'm looking at you), but these are easily hoed in.

I recently emptied all four wormeries, and had literally buckets of the stuff.  We spread a layer on both greenhouse beds and on the vegetable beds too.  I therefore don't have any finished compost to show you, but the bottom tray is nearly done, and looks like this:

The tray above is actively composting and looks like this. There are litterally hundredsd of worms gathered just under the surface:

You soon get in the rhythm of moving the trays from the bottom,  using the compost and placing the empty trays on the top, one at a time, as you need them.

One final note is that worms don't like excesses of temperature.  If you can, place them in a sheltered area that has a bit of shade.  If the winter is very cold you can either move them into a shed or garage, or cover them with large pieces of cardboard or even an old blanket (this is what we do, as the shed is full and we won't talk about the garage!)  You will find the worms don't eat as fast in the winter so don't worry if thing take longer in the colder months, They will soon start chomping away when the warmer weather returns.

At the risk of sounding peculiar, I love my worms!  They do such a great job and help turn everyday waste into 'Black Gold'.

Donna x