Having a worm farm is the best alternative to having your own compost pile if you don’t have the room for one. They’re great for apartment or city dwellers. Worms create incredible fertilizer, aerate your soil and are super easy to look after. You just need to throw them your food scraps which will help them to multiply quickly and they’ll produce some beautiful soil for you to use in your organic garden or indoor plants.
A worm farm not only provides amazing fertilizer for your garden but the amount of garbage your family throws out can be reduced by almost 40 percent!
How do I keep worms?
The easiest way to keep worms is by purchasing a worm farm or worm bin.
There are many different types of worm bins but I find the multiple tray system the easiest to use.
The worms leave behind their fertilizer after eating their way up through the different levels of trays.
There are vent holes that keep your worms in and the insects out. They are also odorless in case you were worried about that. Some will also have a spigot on them for easy access.
Check out the Gusanito Worm Farm 3 Tray Garden Compost Bin
Want to do it yourself? Create your own worm farm? It can be done. Check out the info at DIY Worm Farm to find out how you can make your very own worm farm on the cheap.
Where can I get them?
The Internet is a great place to get your worms especially if you can’t find them at your local garden center. You can get just the worms or a whole worm farm setup if you like.
What do I feed my worms?
Worms love vegetable peelings, fruit peel and cores, eggshells, tea bags, coffee grounds, bread, paper napkins and towels, paper coffee filters. You need to break this stuff up into smaller pieces. Doing this will make it much easier for the worms to eat and digest it.
Don’t give them too much citrus fruit and do not give them any meat, pastries, dairy products or anything oily. Make sure to feed your worms three to four times a week.
You can use the fertilizer the worms produce everywhere in your garden. You can also use it for your indoor plants…anywhere that you need fertilizer. It’s a very rich plant food and won’t harm your plants in any way.
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Tags: organic compost, vermiculture, worm bin, worm farm
Great site Maureen! I just started gardening and your tips have already come in handy. I’m going to give the worms a go in my composter to make it work better. I’m not able to mix it about so I’ll let the worms take care of that.
Worms are great little helpers! They don’t get enough credit or loving ;o) Glad the tips have come in handy for you!
I started my own worm farm accidentally, too bad I didn’t know their fertilizing value before giving them the boot!
I am thrilled to know that a worm farm is a great alternative to composting though. I will continue to come back for more tips.
I’ve seen worm farms before, but they were used mainly for fishing bait! Great info about using worms to create compost. We try to grow an organic garden each year, so I will start up a worm farm for our compost.
Very interesting post.
I would wonder how worm farms would survive the 115-degree summertime weather in Arizona?
On especially hot days you can keep your worm farm cool by putting some moist newspaper on top of the worm farm and then place a frozen 2 litre milk/juice container in a plastic bag on top of the newspaper. This works to keep things cool and helps keep the worms at the top of the pile.
Interesting post on rearing worms for fertiliser. I didn’t know you could do that in your own home! Good tip I can make use of when I am ready to start my own organic gardening plot. Book mark this site to return again.