What wonderful creatures composting worms are. I first set up my wormery compost container about 15 years ago, and it has been converting kitchen waste into compost ever since.
What wonderful creatures composting worms are. I first set up my wormery compost container about 15 years ago, and it has been converting kitchen waste into compost ever since.
Unlike traditional compost bins where you simply pile in and mix-up your garden waste, worm bins harness the feeding habits of brandling or tiger worms. These fast-moving worms occur naturally in leaf litter and compost bins, and are different from earthworms.
They feed on the kitchen waste my family generate, converting it into a compost (sometimes called vermipeat) and liquid feed. However, to keep the worms contained, and prevent too many of them escaping into the garden, you need a proper worm compost bin.
My worm composter forms a tower, with three trays on legs and with a lid, and each tray has small holes in its base through which worms can crawl.
You start by just putting kitchen waste in the bottom tray, and bit-by-bit it fills up. Brandling worms are added from the start to feed on this waste. Once the bottom tray is full you start adding kitchen waste a little at a time to the next tray up, and worms crawl through the holes into this new food source.
Over time this will be filled, and so will the top tier above it. By now the material in the bottom tray will have been turned into worm compost, and all the worms will have moved onwards and upwards. Compost from the bottom tray can be emptied out onto the garden or used in potting compost or other ways, and the empty tray can be put back at the top of the tower for the process to continue.
This cycle has continued in my bin for 15 years, and still goes on, producing tray after tray of worm compost.
It's so simple, and in addition to producing worm compost you can collect liquid from a tap in the base to use as liquid feed.
Every gardener should try and make all the compost they can, and I currently have six compost bins (including a 3-bay New Zealand bin) and three worm bins on the go. Every scrap of kitchen waste is composted, and by this I mean vegetable waste like potato and carrot peelings, banana skins, tea bags, fruit skins, and so on (and NOT cooked food waste). I'm also experimenting with composting cooked waste in a bokashi bin, but haven't quite mastered this yet - a topic for a future blog, perhaps.
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