Worm Farm is Working

A quick update to confirm that my worms are alive and starting to chow down on a full bucketfull every couple of weeks.

I bought the worm farm just over a month ago, and added the worms maybe three weeks ago. It's mostly full of compost, with a layer of food scraps and then a thick layer of newspaper.

The Hungry Bin
(read about this worm farm here)

I run the odd half bucket of water through it every few days, to flush out the leachate and dissolve some of the good worm castings. This then drains into the tray underneath, which is filled with coconut coir. The coir then expands, turns into magical potting soil without me having to wait and mix it up when I'm actually planting, and hopefully absorbs a few extra awesome nutrients.

The first bucket or so of food I put in, I just sort of hoped it would work. I was definitely overfeeding, even though I was trying to give them time to settle in. I tried to avoid poking around, but checked in occasionally under the newspaper.

The general insect life moved in pretty fast, but I didn't see any worms initially. They had a huge pile of new soil to get used to and plenty of breeding to do, as well as needing to wait until the scraps were decomposed, but I was still a bit worried as I knew there were some food scraps buried in the bin (which can be very bad for the worms when they rot).

But last week I had a look, and there were a couple of worms up on the surface enjoying the rotting veges.

The Ghost of the Melon

So I added a half melon rind, as I'd heard that worms enjoyed those. And did they ever. I found a handful of worms hanging out under it a couple of days later, and all the flesh scraped off.

This week, there's only the wax coating left, like a plasticky ghost.


So along with the melon, I added a bucketful of scraps, mashed up with a trowel (the scraps were about a week old, and I've been adding a fair bit of water along with teabags and coffee, so it was all soft and starting to rot already).

I added a second melon rind yesterday

There's already a worm under it (and some of the flesh is gone, and it's full of bugs).

The whitish plastic looking thing at the bottom is the wax from the previous rind. It's just starting to decompose now (it's edible, so it's safe for the garden). The big white thing next to it is just a badly photographed egg carton.

The Radius Garden ergonomic weeder

I know that you can run it all through a processor and things, but I'm a fan of efficiency (plus, my flatmates might revolt). Leaving it to "pre-rot" in a bucket and then chopping with my Radius Garden Ergonomic Hand Trowel seems to work almost as well.

Incidentally, a bit of fangushing over that hand trowel, and its companion weeder. I have carpal tunnel issues, and it is the best design I have ever used. The weeder works fantastically as well for pretty much any weed (including dandelion roots) and the trowel is just a decent all purpose garden tool. The handle design is just perfect and lets you apply very effective, efficient leverage without straining your hand or wrist. They're my two main tools, and I use them constantly. And the curved handle means that I can hang them off a shelf!

Anyway, back to the chopped scraps... 

This seems to have been very popular and has disappeared fast enough that it all looks the same in the bin now (I was adding food to different sections, so that I could see what was being eaten and so the worms could avoid food that they didn't like).

Citrus and onion went in as well, though when we ended up with nearly a bucketful of mandarin peel, I decided to play it safe and added that to the "real" compost bin. I know worms technically don't like acidic food, but from what I've read, it's entirely dependent on how much you give (like any well balanced diet or proper composting mix!). They've certainly gotten rid of the citrus peel so far (though some of the onion skins are still visible).

I also add cardboard and paper, though that's mostly being used to mulch weeds right now!

Hanging out in the mashed up food from a week ago
Banana skins, mandarin peel and pea pods are still visible.

The very first batch of (unmashed) food from three weeks ago. Looks almost the same as
the more recent stuff. Also note a happy compost worm and lots of tiny white wormlike bugs.

So all in all, the worm bin is working well. I can't count the worm population, obviously, but they're still alive. It seems to have a pretty healthy ecosystem, and there are no problems with bugs or smell escaping. I can't harvest any castings for a while, but I'm happy using run off for now, and it should be able to easily handle our small but steady flow of scraps.