Worm farming again

I have previously posted about my worm farm.  However after about three years of modest effort i feel they are really going to hit their straps this Summer.

In preparation for this I spread a container of castings on a planned potato patch yesterday and did the normal shuffle of containers so that the most recently filled becomes the bottom layer with an empty one on top.  Before reconstructing the pile I also cleaned out the 'sink' at the bottom so that the liquid run out easily.

Here is the situation in the sink:
Obviously there are a good number of worms in the farm now - the layers above the sink are also heaving with life - which means they will digest the food quickly and generate lots of castings and liquid.  The second image shows some detail of the side of the sink, which was well layered with small white worms.
When I first got this farm the instructions said it would work best with above 10,000 worms.  As the worms cost about $10 per hundred I started with 500 but think I must now be close to the optimum.  They are churning out about 1.5l of liquid per week.  As I find that I can easily use 6 litres of concentrated worm wee when doing a major fertilise of the garden that is a Good Thing.

One wrinkle I have adopted is that since getting a leaf-vacuum (ie a leaf blower  which also sucks) I have taken to using a handful of the mulch from that to cover the the food.  A great success.


Comments

Wally said…
We had a worm farm, looks like the same type, but the worms died off, I think the location was too hot despite our attempts to provide shade. I'd love to get it going again but having found redbacks underneath it I'm a little nervous. Have you noticed any critters other than worms taking up residence in yours?
17 September 2011 at 02:15:00 GMT+10
Flabmeister said…
G'day Mac
My worm farm is kept in a tin tool shed so it doesn't get too hot. It is out of direct sun. I think I moved it in there because the rain was getting through the ventilation holes in the lid.

I operate it with the drain permanently open and a 2 litre ice cream container under the tap to catch the run off. If we go away for a couple of weeks I put a 10 litre bucket there to make sure it doesn't overflow.

I haven't had any issues with other critters taking up residence. If I get too enthusiastic with feeding small flies will appear for a while, but I suspect that issue will no longer apply having got the full complement of worms. Redbacks are around on the property but I haven't seen or felt them in or near the worm farm.

Best regards

Martin
17 September 2011 at 05:20:00 GMT+10
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