Worming your way to a great source of garden compost
The Age
Saturday September 12, 2009
WORM farms are another way of creating compost (and worm tea) although on a small scale. I have found worm farms need a greater degree of care and monitoring than a compost heap, so your "pets" (the worms) don't get cooked or drowned while doing their job of recycling your kitchen scraps into compost.Where do you find earthworms in your garden? In damp cool places with plenty of organic stuff to eat. You need to replicate these conditions to provide your composting worms (which are available by the container at nurseries) with an ideal home.Site the worm farm in the shade, pay careful attention to the worms' diet and you shouldn't have any problems. Most worm farms come with instructions.Check the Gardening Australia website for a fact sheet on making a worm farm in a bathtub, abc.net.au/gardening/factsheets.Worms don't produce nutrients but they consume scraps and convert them into vermicastings, which make a great fertiliser. The more you feed the worms the more castings they produce. Many books on making compost are available from book shops or libraries.–There will be an information session on worm waste systems at the Green Living Sustainability Fair at Valhalla Wines at Wahgunyah on Sunday, September 20, from 10am-3pm. You can also learn about permaculture and how to attract butterflies.
© 2009 The Age