advice on wormeries please

[Passmethecake]

Has anyone bought a wormery and if so, how useful/ easy is it to use? I can't decide whether to go ahead and buy one or just stick with a composter. I'd like to know how much 'compost' they produce and whether they're worth the cost (which seems quite high).
I'm fairly new to gardening so any advice would be much appreciated:)

[Fifichef]

I'm sure that the 'gardenisters' will come back at me but I have my own sort of wormery which seems to work very well. My compost bin is one of those conical shaped plastic ones. I dug a fairly deep round trench the size of the base and placed the bin in this, filling in well around the sides - inside and out. In it I put all my raw food waste - peelings, fruit, old veg etc. but no citrus skins or onion skins. Hundreds of worms come up from the soil and munch through this, producing a lovely mix at the bottom that is fit for the garden within about 6 months. I'm not sure why you are supposed to buy special worms - my garden ones are doing the job for me.

[Passmethecake]

Thanks for the tip - sounds like a good idea to me. I don't understand why you need special worms either and I'm a bit dubious about how much compost the worms actually produce - hence my indecision about buying one!

Do you have any problem with rats getting into your bin?

[nymphadora]

The worms are especially productive breed I think. V strange getting a box full in the post. We now have 2 worldwide as they've bred so well.
We now have 2 and don't get a massive amount of compost but don't from the bin either. Do get a lot of fertiliser from it though.

One tip - don't put tomatoes in as they grow and when you spread the compost you end up with tomato weeds

[oldenoughtowearpurple]

i've had wormeries, including the round one. they work very slowly indeed - mine couldn't keep up with our household of 4 that included two small vegetable-phobic children. if you've got a compost bin going I would stick with that.

have also rejected bokashi bins; expensive and fussy and no faster or better than a nice big compost bin at the end of the garden

[Passmethecake]

Think I'll stick with my compost bin. I think I got carried away with the idea of hungry worms munching through veg scraps!

Interesting tip about not putting tomatoes in. Does that apply to compost heaps, too? To be honest, mine's a bit of a disaster so will have to start again.

[nymphadora]

I've not had the sane problem with the bin. Worm stuff must be richer

[fernyburn]

worm compost is far richer than normal compost.
I have a wormcity wormery, and although it doesn't keep up with all our waste - the worms do a stirling job - it makes me feel worthwhile as well 'feeding my pets'

[rebl]

My wormery is fantastic. The quality of the compost is far superior to what I get out of my compost heap. I find in the summer it wormery can cope with the volume of waste from a family of 4 but in the winter it can't so I use the compost heap for disposal in the winter. I get enough out of my wormery for all my pots. I love it.