ADVENTURES WITH MY WORMS

Today I saw a little worm
Wriggling on his belly.
Perhaps he'd like to come inside,
And see what's on the telly
Spike Milligan

Links²Go
Tour

I bought a RELN™ worm factory from the local council. I bought 1000 worms by mail order and since then the worms have been happily disposing of all my kitchen scraps and some telephone book for me. My interest in worms is primarily for the lovely casts (garden gold) that they produce from our waste but I also enjoy the self righteous feeling of reducing the land fill by a little every week, which is just as well since I haven't had the good fortune to actually harvest any casts yet! I do collect one to two litres of water from the collection tray every week which I give to either the vegie patch or my indoor plants. The worm bin lives in my garage under our apartment block where it is well insulated and lovely and dark, conditions the worms enjoy. Keeping worms has been a great way to deal with compost in an apartment.

Feeding

I collect food scraps in a two litre ice cream container and empty it into the worm factory twice a week. If I haven't filled my two litre collection bin, I top it up with scrunched newpaper. I cover the scraps with old telephone book pages with which the worms supplement their diet. They have almost made it through a local directory. I don't feed the worms any parts of the allium family, onions, garlic, scallions etc., which they loathe, but they quickly dispose of capsicum cores and skin as well as pumpkin peel.

The addition of acidic foods such as citrus or tomatoes will lower the pH. of the environment. Worms don't like an environment which is too acidic so a periodic sprinkling of lime is recomended. However, it is possible to add too much lime and the worms will retreat into the lower bedding and disdain to eat the proffered scraps. I now use an inexpensive aquarium pH. test kit to monitor the pH. of the water in the bottom collection bin. When it falls to around 6.5 it's time to sprinkle with lime. This usually corresponds to a huge boom in the vinegar fly population along with hundreds of pupae and larvae so these pesky critters can be a good resource for monitoring the pH of the farm.

Uses for Worm Poo

When I harvested my first lovely heap of moist dark worm poo I was surprised to discover that it constituted almost 20 litres, which, since I had a very small garden at the time, seemed like a positive largesse. Its suggested in various sources that worm poo be used in different ways and these are some of my experiences and some I will try next time. None of my observations have much scientific merit and are based on purely subjective impressions.

Top Dressing The Worm Factory instruction manual suggests spreading a layer of worm casings around your favorite plants. Be Warned! Fresh worm poo has a lovely pastey texture and its easy to squish it down like dough around the plant. The castings quickly dry out, crack, curl up around the edges and generally look unattractive! Pile your castings loosely. I will say that the plants seemed to like it and I got some really vigorous tomato seedlings growing from it - another hazard!

Seed raising mixture Another suggestion from the worm farm manual. 3 parts aged compost to 1 part castings. I've tried this and found the mixture to be too gluggy. Seed raising mixture should be free draining.

Potting Mix I tried one part casting to three parts purchased potting mix and that seemed to work really well, particularly when pasteurised and used to pot on cuttings. For my next experiment I'll try adding 2 grams of slow release fertliser to 1 litre of cheap potting mix, as descibed in the September '97 edition of Gardening Australia and mix in worm poo again to mak a cheap and peppy mix.

Slurry Another technique advocated by more than one source is to mix the castings in a bucket with water and distribute the castings that way. This seems the best way to get the most out of the castings by spreading them thinly. My next harvest will be used primarily in that way.

This stop on the tour is owned by
Samantha Lane .
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