How to be a Worm Keeper
Since we got our Can-O-Worms back in April more and more of our left over food has made it inside rather than thrown in the bin.
The trick is to start off with fairly small amounts of food. The worms you get aren’t all fully grown, instead there’s a mix of babies, teenagers and adults. Therefore you have to put in smaller amounts of food in until the worms grow to adulthood. However as time has gone on we have slowly been able to increase both the amount and variety of things the worms get to eat.
Mistakes
“Vericomposting” to give its proper name is not quite as simple as chucking in waste food and putting the lid back on! But fortunately its not too far off!
Escapees
Worms aren’t stupid, some have escaped!
Due to a Wormery operating error (Kev left the tap open) some worms escaped. Unfortunately for them they were spotted making their break for freedom and promptly put back in. However three worms did manage to escape and were last seen heading underground (pun intended) carrying fake Passports pretending to be tourists!
The tap is now shut and guards deployed 24*7.
Flooding
Closing the tap wasn’t such a good idea after all! The bottom tray now keeps filling up with water.
As the tap is closed thanks to the escapology worms, the water cant get out either and the bottom tray fills up. We are only talking millimetres at a time but in the hollow where the tap is its deep enough to drown a worm. Sadly a few worms have met their maker this way.
First thoughts were that its the rain water getting in, so a complicated cone arrangement was constructed to get the rain to run off the rain cap more effectively. We also decided to open the tap regularly to drain away the water, shutting it afterwards to stop other worms heading for the border.
Worm Pee
Opening the tap wasn’t such a good idea after all! On thinking it through we realised that this water was in fact the very worm pee, or “leachate”, we want to feed our plants with!
Worms breathe through a layer of moisture on their skin so the wormery needs to be kept moist (not wet) at all times. As this moisture passes through the wormery it collects up all the nutrients and ends up becoming an excellent plant feed. The tap is there to help collect it and not to let it dribble out all over the patio like we were doing.
Successes
Some of the above mistakes have prompted a few modifications to improve the process, other successes have just happened over time.
Planning Permission
We have now put enough waste food in to warrant building a second floor extension so we have added the second of the three trays to the wormery.
All food scraps are now put in this new tray whilst the worms work their way up to eat it.
Haven’t You Grown?
The worms themselves have grown into what can only be described as big buggers!
Worm Pee
Having stopped pouring it out all over the patio we now collect it and plan to use it to feed our herbs with. So far we have about 1 pint, which doesn’t sound much till you remember you have to dilute it 1 part worm pee to 10 parts water.
Some mesh from a sieve was flattened and put over the hollow near the tap to stop the worms getting in and drowning, yet still allow the water to get out.
Daddy?
A brief moment of excitement (??) thinking the small things that looked like bits of white grit were worm cocoons was dampened when we found out they were in fact something called “Springtails” Though there arrival is apparently a good thing as they eat the decomposing food speeding up the whole process.
Smell
We are pleased to say that the Wormery doesn’t smell of anything other than damp earth. We even invested in a PH Meter to check that the contents are PH Neutral (about 7ph) as the rotting food tends to make things a bit acidy and worms don't like that. When needed we add Lime Mix to balance it out again.
Oh and in case you're are wondering the worm pee absolutely stinks!