I have had the worm farm for over a year now, and I have to say it’s the easiest and most convenient way I have found to make compost and to dispose of vege scraps and other organic waste. I have not had much success with putting everything in a compost bin, I find that the food scraps go all sloppy and don’t really compost properly. I have found that my current system works much better, all food scraps go to the worms and the compost bin is for weeds and manure. The worms are able to eat all our food scraps and convert it to compost and worm tea, and there is still plenty for the compost bin, but now its not full of sloppy food scraps. People often ask if its necessary or possible to have both a worm farm and a compost bin, and I think it actually works better for us.
The worm farm really requires very little maintenance. All I have to do is tip in more food scraps every few days, drain the tea once a week or so, check that the top tray is damp (if not, tip in half a bucket of water) and clean out the compost about twice a year. My worm farm consists of two trays, so the top tray is where we put the fresh food scraps and bottom tray is being converted to compost. When I want to remove the compost I sort most of the worms out of the bottom tray and put them into the top tray, then I swap the empty tray to the top. The worms tend to burrow down into the compost, so the easiest way to sort them out is to keep heaping up the compost and skimming a layer off the top. I don’t worry too much if some worms end up in the compost though, there seem to be plenty of worms. I also keep some worms to feed to the chickens, they love that as a treat.
this is the compost, I use it with seed raising mix to start seeds
this is all the food scraps in the top layer
Here's the outside of the worm farm
the wonderful products of worm farming - compost, tea and worms!
Do you keep a worm farm? Do you find it low-maintenance? Any worm-farming questions?
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