| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Bugs |
Who has a wormery?We compost mostly everything but I understand a wormey can do more, including some cooked food?"They"  also say that they are very good for small houses and can even be kept indoors, for flats and other gardenless houses.
Does anybody here have any experience (especially if you have built your own!). Would love to know more about it - what can you put in them, do they really not smell, how do you prevent the massacre that my friends carried out on theirs, how long does it take for you to harvest compost or juice, do you have to do much maintenance, how do you tell the worms apart (William, Winifred, Wally, Wyatt and Wendy?). |
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| tahir |
We put all our waste including cooked non-animal products on the compost | ||||
| neilk |
I have a wormery, only since the summer though, so I'm still learning.
It's outside and it's had a fair few problems with flies. It's produced plenty of liquid manure though, I just need to remember to regularly top it up with shredded newspaper to keep the flies down. I don't reckon I'd have one inside. I got mine from http://www.originalorganics.co.uk/ (subsidised by the council) You could try this: http://www.troubleatmill.com/wormbin.htm |
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| Gervase |
We've got one, and the liquid manure seems to be the mutt's nadgers. Neil's right, though, it does seem to attract a fair few fruit flies, but keeping the compost slightly alkaline helps to discourage them.
The worms also seem intent on drowning themselves in the sump at the bottom, bt they're prolific blighters, so we reckon that natural selection will kick in and in years to come the worms will have become good swimmers or learned to pole-vault! You can't put citus peelings, onions, egg-shells or tea bags in the wormery, but just about anything else will be munched and mulched. |
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| neilk |
I'll have to consult my handbook - but I thought egg shells were useful and were used instead of calcified seaweed for raising pH. No onion skins or citrus peel, remember that bit, can't remember what it said about tea bags. | ||||
| Sarah D |
I remember reading that eggshells should be avoided due to their sharp edges, even if finely crushed. | ||||
| tahir |
Have you noticed the google ads on this thread, they're quite good aren't they? | ||||
| Sarah D |
Very good. We like topical. Hopefully will give some people some ideas. | ||||
| deerstalker |
I have one to raise worms for fishing and help in the compost. | ||||
| tahir |
How much are worms to buy? | ||||
| mrutty |
The Can O Worms is great by the way and worth the money. Once the greenhouse is sorted then one will be going in. | ||||
| Treacodactyl |
We have a couple of big compost bins and they a wriggling with worms so I'm sure we can use some from some rotted compost to start a wormery. |
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| wellington womble |
You can't put onions in? damn - they are a staple in our house - what do you do with them instead?
There is a worm farm in stoney stanton, leices if anyone is around there - it's amazing what you find out about your home town when you leave! |
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| mrutty |
Chuck them in the normal compost bin with the citrus, egg shells and tea bags |
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| deerstalker |
Wrong! Eggshells (crushed up) and teabags are a staple for worms!! 
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| Sarah D |
Use your onion skins as a dye for natural fabrics/yarns. I believe you can use them to make invisible ink as well. After that. the compost heap, or into pots/planters to rot down in situ. | ||||
| wellington womble |
The worm bin is going to be instead of the compost bin, as it can live by the back door (which is on concrete) and I can plant a redcurrant bush where the composter currently is. I think I'm going to turn the composter upside down on the patio and put pumpkins in it. I might leave the compost in it.
Like the idea of invisible ink though. I suppose onions are too acidic for the worms (same as citrus) |
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| spicycauldron |
The worms can break out if it gets too warmI've been keeping a worm farm for just two months, and can tell you initially they were kept indoors because we were just about to move house and so the worms bred quickly and started climbing out. After we relocated the worms spent just two days indoors, doing the same thing - one managed to get twelve feet away from the worm farm! - and then they were put outside in a sheltered position on top of a box, not directly on the ground. They're still happy, still alive and doing their thing, but there have been no escapees and, if anything, the rate at which they digest has increased despite it being obviously much colder outside.From my experience I'd say keep the worm farm indoors if it's a cold season when you get it, just for four weeks; that way they get a chance to get comfy (well, as comfy as a worm might want it) and to start breeding. After the month, stick 'em outside somewhere sheltered and, as others have said, add cardboard and shredded paper to stop things getting too mushy. I usually rip cardboard and paper into small pieces and dampen them just a little before putting them in, unless things are really wet, in which case the cardboard quickly soaks up the liquid and the worms start eating it. I hope this helps. I'd definitely recommend a worm farm or two to anyone - they are fascinating creatures and it's a tangible way to show kids (and adults) just how easy it is to make something good out of waste products most people just bin without thought. Oh, and I nearly forgot to add: I've found the worms love those corn starch plastic bag replacements! Andy |
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| Fee |
We got this one:
From these people. We only got it at the end of the summer, but seems good so far. They're in their winter home in the unheated greenhouse for the winter and seem to be doing fine. We've got a compost too, so we pretty much just feed the worms every now and then at the moment, we'll step that up next year once they're more established. |
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| spicycauldron |
You can also buy them for £40 or less via eBay. I got mine for just over £30, but intend to make my own next year as I am sure I will need one the rate the worms are multiplying! | ||||
| LynneA |
We got ours just before Christmas, so they're still at the settling in stage.
We've got a small model wormery, and if it works we'll make a larger version ourselves. Hopefully. |
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| Andrea |
We made our own from an unused composter (the type that councils in the UK sell you), and I'm constantly astonished at how quickly the worms break it down. I chuck all veg peelings, household scraps & paper / card based waste in it - including citrus, teabags, egg shells & onions. They also get a daily dose of wee as my son pees in the compost bucket when he doesn't want to go outside in the dark!
Teabags disappear quicker if you rip them & I try not to overdo the citrus. I'd never heard of a problem with onions so I've been including them & never noticed a problem. What's supposed to be the issue with them? In the case of eggshells you'll get out what you get in so if you chuck them in whole they'll come out in your compost like that. I like to put some in as big pieces though as the worms curl up inside the shells. I know sod all about worm reproductive habits, but there are so many tiny worms inside the shells when I dig through that I figure that they're being used as protection & that can't be a bad thing. I rip or shred paper waste & dampen cardboard before it goes in. Garden waste tends to go on the compost heap. I use the worm bin rather than the compost heap primarily because it's so much faster. I've never tried saving the 'tea'. My worms were originally dug out of the compost heap. Since we set up the worm bin we've discovered another unexpected bonus. All the huge, hairy, scary spiders that used to hide under the seat in the compost loo have vanished. The worm bin is sited behind the loo so I can only assume they get better pickings there, though I have never seen one. Personally I'd not want a worm bin inside, but I suppose I could modify what I chuck in to make it more house-friendly. |
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| spicycauldron |
Hi there
The eBay shop we got our wormery from was Stoke Worms, and the accompanying leaflet was quite explicit about NOT putting in any forms of citrus fruit or anything from the onion family, including leeks, etc. You might want to change your policy on that, and on your son's peeing into there--that's most suitable, though, for general composting as it really does help break things down. The worms won't be keen on urine as it will make things far too wet for the worms. If you can squeeze a fair bit of liquid out of the worm's bedding (ie the dark soil stuff) then it's too wet and you need to add more shredded paper. The reason for no citrus or onions is they make the environment too acidic and the worms do not like that at all. Again, fine in general composters but a no in wormeries unless in tiny amounts as part of, say, the remains of a salad bowl. You could find the combination of pee and citrus and onions eventually builds up to such an extent your worms try to escape to better conditions or, worst case scenario, but possible, die. I hope that helps! |
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| Andrea |
Well I have to note no problems so far, and it's been up & running long enough for me to be fairly confident that they're well established. I use the dump & sift method, so perhaps it's a case that I'm removing nasties before they get to a problematic level. Re the wee / wetness issue, it's worth pointing out that mine is open based, mounted on gravel over weed membrane so pretty free draining. I wouldn't suggest you wee in a closed based version. What a way for the poor buggers to drown! It's also worth pointing out that mine probably needs a bit more additional moisture adding due to the warmer climate drying it out. I do go a bit easy on adding liquid in the winter, but the primary reason for adding wee to the wormery rather than the compost heap is because I'm lazy & it's closer to the house!! It's possible that I also have a higher concentration of worms than average, as it's a home made set up. I started with a 5litre ice cream tub full of worms for a home composter sized bin. I don't know how that compares with recommendations. I'd seen the advice about citrus but was testing it by adding varying amounts till it made a difference. As it didn't seem to make any difference at all I stopped worrying about it. Thanks for the pointer re the onions though. I'd not thought of them as acidic! |
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| New Brunswick |
Never thought of having a wormery before, being new to the growing of veg and fruit, what do you do with the liquid stuff? | ||||
| Pilsbury |
the liquid that drains to the bottom and can be collected makes a good feed, just dilute it and water plants and veges. | ||||
| Aeolienne |
I don't because I don't have a garden. | ||||
| Brandon |
I'm always rather sceptical about the "YOU MUST NOT ADD..." commandments that are issued for wormeries and compost in general. In my experience, worms will eat the whole lot, onions, citrus, and do a particuarly fine job on junk-mail.
Granted if you feed them nought but onion family or citrus, then they will not appreciate it, but onion skins seem to get munched just as quickly as every thing else. Don't get me started on what can be put in your compost.... |
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| marigold |
I don't have much cooked food waste apart from the odd chicken bone (which goes in the landfill bag along with grapefruit skins). Everything else goes in the daleks which teem with worms. I don't get the liquid feed, but I'm too stingy to buy a wormery and don't think I'd generate enough "food" for one anyway.
I'm thinking of trying seaweed as a mulch round the veggies this year - has anyone else tried it? |
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| Andrea |
I collected bags of seaweed last year for mulch, and it's still sitting rotting in plastic bags outside awaiting rinsing 
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| marigold |
Cor I bet that'll whiff by now!  I read on another forum that rinsing doesn't matter too much if you get good rainfall, a bit of saltiness might also deter the wretched slugs...
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| Andrea |
Oddly, it doesn't. I'm not convinced about the no rinsing thing. I don't fancy all that salt going into my beds, particularly if I was planning to use seaweed mulch over & over. Saying that, if mine isn't rinsed after all this time naturally, then it never will be! |
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| Blue Sky |
I made mine along these lines ....
Good old WIKI That was three years ago. Got millions of worms here now. |
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| Slim |
I agree about the compost. If you've got a robust & spicy mixture of critters in there, they should be able to munch most things. And maybe you will encourage diversity by supplying diverse wastes to feed on. P.S. where do you think dairy cows go when they pass on? (I hear they compost in under a week in a good active pile, leaving just bones) |
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| Quail By Mail |
My wormery is a Can o'Worms brand and I've had it since Sept 2007. So far, I've been getting a little bit of 'worm tea' dripping out of the bottom but very little breakdown seems to be happening by the worms...it's more like 20% actual worm munching (because I can see their fallout) but 80% seems like its more of a compost-effect. I've been told by the wormery sellers that it takes time for a womery to gain 'momentum'. Anybody in the same boat? | ||||
| wellington womble |
I found my worms a bit fussy - needed to be a bit cosseted, and couldn't take the amount of waste I wanted to get rid of. I still have them - they make really useful tea and potting compost, but they would never be my first or only choice for a compost solution. The tumbler composter is the best thing I've found for good use of space and volume of compost.
Has anyone used a dog waste composter? Now there is a useful idea - I wonder if it works? |
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| Andrea |
Take a pile of poo, let it stand - what is there to not work about it? Same concept as a compost loo I presume? |
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| wellington womble |
It smells and attracts flies. Our garden is small, and there is a limit to how far away from such a pile we can sit, of a summers evening! I'm hoping I can pursude the dogs to poo in it! 
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| Andrea |
Well a compost loo doesn't smell or attract flies if used properly, so I can't imagine a dog poo composter would either. I read some interesting stuff about the use of worms to deal with human waste actually. It's something I keep meaning to read up on more thoroughly. |
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| Slim |
That's touched on in the later sections of the book Solviva. |
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| Quail By Mail |
I agree that smell can be controlled but I still think it's weird that some wormery manuals say wormeries can be for indoor use. | ||||
| joanne |
I'm just about to start using the wormery I bought for my dog and cat waste - I've been feeding it the starter food for the past fortnight so they should be ready to roll
I bought it from a company called Stoke Worms who are on eBay (same company that Spicy Cauldron used actually) - I bought the specific dog waste "model" which is actually no different to their other medium sized wormery (same worms, same bedding and same cost) but the instructions are geared towards this specific use. It is recommended that you don't add any other materials to the wormery apart from the animal waste as I suppose they will eat those first in preference and you don't give them the waste for a week after the animal's have been wormed - obviously the chemicals in this are likely to kill the worms in the wormery as well After processing you theoretically can use the result compost for any purpose but they recommend you restrict it to flower beds and around fruit bushes and not used in any beds that vegetable crops are grown in - I doubt this is for any other reason than covering their backs should anyone accidentally add unprocessed waste to a veg bed (YUM  ) as by now it is all worm casts
I'll report back on how it goes ! |
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| wellington womble |
I'd be interested to see. If I can sit on my hands long enough not to buy before you get going (refers to my impatience, not Jo's procrastination!) | ||||
| shopgirlsue |
We inherited two dog waste composting loos when we moved into our house 6 months ago.
They're half buried in the ground at the bottom of the garden - I haven't had the courage to look inside yet but if anyone is passing and wants to dig them up they're welcome to them
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| Jamanda |
A couple of years ago our neighbour's kids brought round a frog they found living in an inherited dog poo composter. They thought it a dreadful place for the frog to live, so brought him round to our pond I expect he went straight back home grumbling about the yoof of today.
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| Grenwich |
Don't put dog or cat poo in your wormery if you've given them worming tablets. Obvious I know but.... |