Running a wormery to make compost

[knittedmouse]

Has anybody tried this? We don't have room for a proper compost heap in the garden, but, years ago, we had a wormery. I can't remember much about it though.

It was in a sort of wheelie bin set up with a tap at the bottom to drain off excess liquid and the worms ate the kitchen waste.

Dh is a bit dubious about it, but I'd like to try.

We had one of those - well, we borrowed it from a friend who gave up on it and returned it. Much batter is the can-o-worms which is trays on legs. We have one for kitchen waste but we also have a compost bin too. It would fill too quickly if it was all we had. You may be able to get one discounted through your council's recycling scheme.

It works well. Worms, a bit of compost and some kitchen waste in bottom tray. Liquid drains into a sump tray which has a tap. When first tray is full, start filling next. When worms have digested waste in bottom tray, they move up and through to the next tray.

As they move up, you can empty your compost. We normally lift the trays off and put the first tray on top without the lid for an hour - any worms still there will move away from the light, so you'll preserve more of them.They breed very fast in the summer and will survive the winter if protected. It's easy to look after but not maintenance free. You end up with excellent compost.

Blatant placemarking. Do worms eat vegetable peelings? If so, how much? What about leaves scooped up from the garden? I need to goof, don’t I? 🐛

No to leaves swept up from garden - you can't really compost them either. You need to make leaf mould - never done it, but I'm told it's easy if you have the room.

The worms don't like to be overwhelmed with food so you need to start slowly, but as I said they breed quickly so they soon catch up. They don't like citrus or onion. You can put it in, but if you've juiced a dozen oranges, the peels will be too much.

They like tea leaves, coffee grounds, peelings etc. You can add egg shells but they won't be able to eat them. I believe calcium from the shells leaches out into the compost. Some paper (we use brown paper sacks for our kitchen caddy) stops it all getting too wet.

They can't be doing with broccoli stalks, nut shells etc. I put these into the compost bin and they emerge largely unchanged and so get dug into the soil. The worm compost goes to feed plants rather than condition soil.

Thank you for this info. I'm going to also go on YouTube to watch videos about it on there. I don't want to rush into anything because I want to care for the worms properly.

I have a wormery from Worm City, and I’m pretty pleased with it. It comes with a detailed instruction booklet.

We use the wormery alongside a proper 3-bin composting system and leaf mould - we have over 3 acres, so a lot of green waste!

The worms are a useful addition to the set-up because they will eat cooked food which you can’t put in a standard compost system because of the risk of vermin - plate scrapings and bits of leftover pasta, rice and bread are good for worms. They also like shredded paper and cardboard. They like their food cut up small, so as pp said, you can’t give them whole broccoli stalks etc.

How much they eat also depends on the time of year - they’re not very active right now. They also need protection from extremes of heat and cold - my wormery is in the greenhouse right now, but if you can’t put them under cover you’d probably need to insulate the wormery with bubble wrap or an old blanket.

I am adding to the above that the main thing that you will get is the liquid feed, which you can mix with water (I think in a 1-1 ratio) and feed plants.
The compost you get is good but not loads of it (compared if you had a compost bin). But is great as your stuff gets recycled quite easily.
If you see the worms trying to "scape" maybe is too acidic, so you need to put lime or a bit of grit
good luck