Worms can munch through your food waste, and turn it into castings and liquid fertiliser for your garden. Here's a quick video to show you how to make a worm farm, or read below for more details
To get started, you’ll need:
- A cool, sheltered spot to set up your worm farm
- A worm farm container, which you can buy at most hardware stores or nurseries.
- Bedding – this should be 10-15cm deep and can be a mix of shredded newspaper, and horse or cow manure, worm castings, coco peat or coir peat. Mix and wet the bedding so it’s as moist as a damp sponge.
- 1000 – 2000 worms from a hardware store or nursery. Add the worms to the surface of the bedding, and give them a few days to get used to their new home.
- Fruit and vegetable scraps. Add these a few days after you set up your worm farm. Just add a thin layer, and don’t totally cover the bedding.
- A damp hessian sack or old t-shirt to cover the scraps and worms.
Add more fruit and veggie scraps only when the worms have worked through the previous scraps. You can also include small amounts of paper, cardboard, and egg shells.
Do not add these things to your worm farm:
- Meat, fish or dairy products
- Onion, garlic or chilli
- Citrus fruits
- Oil and fats
- Garden clippings
- Animal droppings.
Keep the worm farm slightly damp by watering it lightly if it starts to dry out.
Most worm farms have a tap or tray at the bottom to collect worm ‘juice’. This can be diluted with water as a fertiliser for your garden.
Once a worm farm tray is full, tip it out on a flat surface and gradually scrape away the material until you’re left with mostly just worms, then start again with a new tray.
The scrapings – or castings – from the full tray can be used on your garden, or mixed with regular soil as potting mix.