I used to think the only use for worms was fishing and dissection in school biology lessons, but how wrong can you be?
The humble earthworm has now become part of the frontline in the battle for us to reduce our carbon footprint and go greener to save the planet. Would you believe that worms have become the compost restaurateurs of our back gardens?
By munching their way through kitchen waste, and they’re not fussy about presentation, they produce some very useful by-products from their back ends, whichever that end is.
I looked hard and long at my aged neighbour several years ago when she proudly announced she had bought a wormery. A wormery? Hmm, she’s losing it I thought. What is she going to do with new pets at her time of life?
She was a pioneer of this new food recycling system and was extremely proud of her new collection which sat in an innocent looking large bin at the bottom of her garden.
So how do you begin a wormery? Basically a wormery system is a box system containing composting worms that like to nibble away on all those bits which we cast aside. Then out come worms’ castings, vermicompost and a liquid fertiliser (Leachate) which your plants will love.
Third Agers of a delicate disposition will naturally have concerns about having a kind of worm hotel at the bottom of the garden. Will it smell? It might, but if it does it’s your fault because you have been overfeeding them. It’s no good throwing half a ton of cabbage to three worms, they will get acute indigestion and a bad attack of the runs.
If your wormery is like this, clean up the mess with cardboard and paper and stop feeding them for a while. Put your rubber gloves on and give the wormery contents a good stir. Go on, they won’t bite.
A good wormery should just smell earthy. At the bottom is a sump to catch the Leachate which you dilute with ten parts water and feed to your plants. Cheaper than the garden centre and much more fun.
The worms will keep busy all year round apart from when the temperature goes below 10C. You can leave them outside but to keep up production it helps if you can put the wormery into a shed or garage. They won’t mind you going on holiday either and will happily keep on munching for a couple of weeks until you return.
Worms eat half of their own body weight every day and double their population over 60 to 90 days. Say you start with a kilo of mature worms, they will eat around 500g of food waste each day. The maths is simple, after 90 days they should have doubled in weight so the food intake can be increased correspondingly.
When your wormery is full the worms should be on top. They always travel upwards in search of food. Take off the top one third of the contents, check the rest for the odd worm, remove the remainder and put the top third and the worms back. Simple isn’t it?
There are various types of wormery but the basic principle is a sliding box system. As your population increases you add a box. Like building your own worm city at the bottom of the garden!
There are different types of worms too so it is important to get a composting worm which is different to your common garden worm. You’ll need a Dendra, also called European Nightcrawler or a Red Tiger Worm which is also known as a brandling worm. Once you’ve got a starter pack you’ll never need to buy more because of their prolific breeding rate.
A rule of thumb for what to feed them is anything you eat, but avoid meat and bones, highly spiced foods and a list of others which you will get if you buy your wormery from a good dealer.
I never thought worms would be such a fascinating subject, so much so that we will revisit them in a future piece with more tips on how to get the best from our new garden friends.
Graham Smith for Third Age.
More Gardening articles.
Written by Editor.
