Worm Compost
My name is Hazel and I am a compost addict.
I do love making compost. There's something incredibly satisfying about turning old food into something you can grow your dinner in and I love that I can, in eco-gardening speak, 'close the loop'. I can use my waste to create a product I would otherwise need to buy (or buy more of, I'm not self sufficient in it) and I get to keep all that fertility in my garden. After all, one way or another I've paid for those vegetable scraps, straw and duck poo.
If you're lucky I'll show you my compost bins soon, but there's more than one way to make it. I sometimes use my bokashi bins (more on those another time too) and I also have a wormery.
There are lots of wormeries available online; big ones, little ones, trendy coloured ones, but it's also easy to make your own from a plastic lidded bucket or a wheelie bin. The essentials are a layer to keep the worms and compost out of the liquid (leachate) that will collect at the bottom, and preferably a tap to drain it off as the worms can't live in compost soup. There are lots of instructions online.
Wormeries are perfect for people without the space for a compost heap. They'll take kitchen scraps but not large amounts of garden waste and you can make them as big or small as you like. You can even keep them inside. In the classic text Worms Eat My Garbage there are mentions of wormeries as furniture in dining rooms if you don't have space in the kitchen. Plant some herbs on the windowsill in the compost.
Why have a wormery and a compost heap? You don't need to but from an environmental point of view they may help reduce landfill as food that can't be composted can go in them, and for gardeners, they produce a high quality, manageable plant food very efficiently.
The worms can eat most kitchen waste- peelings, trimmings, egg shells, coffee grounds, and the main reason I like having a wormery; they'll eat cooked food that I don't like putting on the compost heap because it makes an appealing dinner for rats, like mouldy bread or leftovers that hid at the back of the fridge.
The only things you shouldn't put in are meat, onion, citrus, oil, lots of ginger/spice and dairy. I put the citrus and onion in my compost bin (which we're also sometimes told not to do but as long as you don't run a pop-up cafe selling freshly squeezed orange juice you should be fine) and in practice the odd bit of onion and orange peel goes in the wormery and it's okay. Too much will make it acidic which the worms don't like. Meat and dairy usually end up in a dog to be honest, but if they're not mouldy they can go in the bokashi bin.
So, the worms will eat most stuff and depending on how fine you'd like the finished compost and how quickly you want them to eat the waste, you can just chuck stuff in or tear or chop it up first. Mine generally just gets thrown in and it disappears eventually. Egg shells take a very long time but the baby worms seem to like to sit in them.
If you're a gardener (indoors or outdoors) then worm compost is covetable as a concentrated source of plant food that can be used fresh without scorching plants- you can even sow seeds in it. It improves soil structure, helps retain moisture and contains nutrients, minerals, protozoa and even growth hormones. The leachate you drain from the bottom is also excellent as a plant feed, just take a bit of care as if parts of your bin are anaerobic it can contain plant harming compounds. Don't use if it smells bad and I'd suggest always using it diluted and on outside rather than your prized house plant, just in case. It isn't worm tea, which is made using the finished worm compost (castings).
I also like the wormery because when the kitchen compost bin is full and it's pouring with rain the wormery is near the kitchen door whereas the compost heap is halfway down the garden...
I need to rejuvenate my stacking wormery which has got a but neglected over the winter- I've just tipped the last tray of compost and slightly sorry-looking worms onto the garden to mulch some plants so I'm going to start again.
If you've made your own wormery from a lidded bucket or bin, this is also what you need to do.
There are kits with bedding, moisture mats and additives but I don't want to buy anything if possible and I'm aware that they're usually coir based, which isn't exactly local to the UK, so I'm going to use:
newspaper
cardboard
aged compost and
worms from my compost heap. You don't want earthworms, they wouldn't be happy at all. You need compost worms and in the UK at least they're tiger or brandling worms and they magically appear in rotting vegetation. If you don't have any you can buy them by mail order or rescue some from a fishing shop.
I got some old mushroom compost and dug some worms out of my compost heap along with some straw-y bits of compost because frankly life is too short to separate out hundreds of worms from semi-rotted compost.
I tore up the paper trimmings and added it to the top and also added some cardboard to keep moisture in. I'll probably do a better job of this in the next couple of days but it was getting cold and dark and starting to rain so I decided it would do.
The lid is now on and I'll cover it with an old tarp if the threatened cold/wet/snowy weather materialises. Worms can survive freezing but cannot mate once they've thawed so if you want your colony to thrive and multiply it's better to protect them.
Once the level of the compost reaches the top I'll put an empty tray on top and put food in that so the worms crawl through the holes and into the higher layer, leaving a mostly worm-free tray of compost.
Because the worms are native to the UK any that go back into the garden will happily wiggle off to compost more goodies but if you're elsewhere in the world you'll need to check they'll survive/you're allowed to release non-native worm species.
To minimise losses (although if they're happy they should be multiplying nicely) tip the made worm compost out onto a sheet and pile up. Leave for a while and the worms will burrow down. Remove the top of the pile and repeat and most of the worms should end up in the bottom layer. You can put them back and keep the cycle going.
I do love making compost. There's something incredibly satisfying about turning old food into something you can grow your dinner in and I love that I can, in eco-gardening speak, 'close the loop'. I can use my waste to create a product I would otherwise need to buy (or buy more of, I'm not self sufficient in it) and I get to keep all that fertility in my garden. After all, one way or another I've paid for those vegetable scraps, straw and duck poo.
If you're lucky I'll show you my compost bins soon, but there's more than one way to make it. I sometimes use my bokashi bins (more on those another time too) and I also have a wormery.
There are lots of wormeries available online; big ones, little ones, trendy coloured ones, but it's also easy to make your own from a plastic lidded bucket or a wheelie bin. The essentials are a layer to keep the worms and compost out of the liquid (leachate) that will collect at the bottom, and preferably a tap to drain it off as the worms can't live in compost soup. There are lots of instructions online.
Wormeries are perfect for people without the space for a compost heap. They'll take kitchen scraps but not large amounts of garden waste and you can make them as big or small as you like. You can even keep them inside. In the classic text Worms Eat My Garbage there are mentions of wormeries as furniture in dining rooms if you don't have space in the kitchen. Plant some herbs on the windowsill in the compost.
Why have a wormery and a compost heap? You don't need to but from an environmental point of view they may help reduce landfill as food that can't be composted can go in them, and for gardeners, they produce a high quality, manageable plant food very efficiently.
The worms can eat most kitchen waste- peelings, trimmings, egg shells, coffee grounds, and the main reason I like having a wormery; they'll eat cooked food that I don't like putting on the compost heap because it makes an appealing dinner for rats, like mouldy bread or leftovers that hid at the back of the fridge.
The only things you shouldn't put in are meat, onion, citrus, oil, lots of ginger/spice and dairy. I put the citrus and onion in my compost bin (which we're also sometimes told not to do but as long as you don't run a pop-up cafe selling freshly squeezed orange juice you should be fine) and in practice the odd bit of onion and orange peel goes in the wormery and it's okay. Too much will make it acidic which the worms don't like. Meat and dairy usually end up in a dog to be honest, but if they're not mouldy they can go in the bokashi bin.
So, the worms will eat most stuff and depending on how fine you'd like the finished compost and how quickly you want them to eat the waste, you can just chuck stuff in or tear or chop it up first. Mine generally just gets thrown in and it disappears eventually. Egg shells take a very long time but the baby worms seem to like to sit in them.
If you're a gardener (indoors or outdoors) then worm compost is covetable as a concentrated source of plant food that can be used fresh without scorching plants- you can even sow seeds in it. It improves soil structure, helps retain moisture and contains nutrients, minerals, protozoa and even growth hormones. The leachate you drain from the bottom is also excellent as a plant feed, just take a bit of care as if parts of your bin are anaerobic it can contain plant harming compounds. Don't use if it smells bad and I'd suggest always using it diluted and on outside rather than your prized house plant, just in case. It isn't worm tea, which is made using the finished worm compost (castings).
I also like the wormery because when the kitchen compost bin is full and it's pouring with rain the wormery is near the kitchen door whereas the compost heap is halfway down the garden...
I need to rejuvenate my stacking wormery which has got a but neglected over the winter- I've just tipped the last tray of compost and slightly sorry-looking worms onto the garden to mulch some plants so I'm going to start again.
If you've made your own wormery from a lidded bucket or bin, this is also what you need to do.
There are kits with bedding, moisture mats and additives but I don't want to buy anything if possible and I'm aware that they're usually coir based, which isn't exactly local to the UK, so I'm going to use:
newspaper
cardboard
aged compost and
worms from my compost heap. You don't want earthworms, they wouldn't be happy at all. You need compost worms and in the UK at least they're tiger or brandling worms and they magically appear in rotting vegetation. If you don't have any you can buy them by mail order or rescue some from a fishing shop.
 |
| Composting tiger or brandling worms |
I got some old mushroom compost and dug some worms out of my compost heap along with some straw-y bits of compost because frankly life is too short to separate out hundreds of worms from semi-rotted compost.
I have a stacking wormery, so I lined the bottom layer with some newspaper to catch any escapees before they end up in the liquid that pools at the bottom. I added the next empty layer and then lined the top layer with a couple of thicknesses of newspaper too. Old (natural fibre) fabric or cardboard would also work.
I tipped in the worms and compost. Any worms on the surface will soon burrow down out of the light.
I added some food- teabags, banana skins and egg shells mostly. I chopped them up but once they get established I doubt that will happen. Don't chop in a food processor or anything (waste of electricity). Don't overdo the feeding, especially at the beginning. Give them chance to get going. It's better to under rather than over feed (they will redigest their castings if left, giving even finer compost but obviously you don't want to starve them).
I tore up the paper trimmings and added it to the top and also added some cardboard to keep moisture in. I'll probably do a better job of this in the next couple of days but it was getting cold and dark and starting to rain so I decided it would do.
The lid is now on and I'll cover it with an old tarp if the threatened cold/wet/snowy weather materialises. Worms can survive freezing but cannot mate once they've thawed so if you want your colony to thrive and multiply it's better to protect them.
Once the level of the compost reaches the top I'll put an empty tray on top and put food in that so the worms crawl through the holes and into the higher layer, leaving a mostly worm-free tray of compost.
Because the worms are native to the UK any that go back into the garden will happily wiggle off to compost more goodies but if you're elsewhere in the world you'll need to check they'll survive/you're allowed to release non-native worm species.
To minimise losses (although if they're happy they should be multiplying nicely) tip the made worm compost out onto a sheet and pile up. Leave for a while and the worms will burrow down. Remove the top of the pile and repeat and most of the worms should end up in the bottom layer. You can put them back and keep the cycle going.
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