"Jim W" wrote in message
news:1fzs5io.bdvegm1m78xzcN%00senetnospamtodayta@m acunlimited.net...
Franz Heymann wrote:


Please comment on the following musings:

Make a wooden frame about 18" square and cover one open side with black
polythene, so that when inverted on the ground, you have a small
darkroom.
Lightly till a piece of soil in the garden bed with a handfork. Make it
just the size of the darkroom.
Put about half a pound of compost worms in this space.
Tip today's kitchen waste over them.
Cover with the darkroom to protect the worms from the birds and the sun.
Repeat daily somewhere else.
If you are lucky, you might be able to build up a dense enough worm
population to enable you to cease inoculating the ground with worms
after a
time, and to just put out your kitchen scraps out under a dark
protective
cover.
Or am I behind the times, as usual?.

Assuming you have an unlimited supply of worms that is.. I don't think
you'd be able to stop them retreating into the soil?

If I were a worm, I would congregate with my pals where the food is.

Thus you would lose
worms each night?

The worm is only lost when it dies. Until then it eats and converts raw
rotting stuff into compost.

half a pound of worms, thats.. 14 pounds a month.. in weight.. thats a
lotta worms!

Yes. I am talking about building up a very dense worm population in the
soil.

If you are thinking of 'worm compost' as in 'worm bins' then these are
not earthworms but closer to manure worms (the red ones). These are
Dendrabaena species.

I am thinking of any earthworm species which will eat rotting kitchen scraps
ravenously.

I think you are being optimistic that a days waste will dissapear
completly overenight.

If the worms don't cope daily with the daily kitchen waste, there will be an
ever increasing heap of rotting, unconsumed kitchen scraps building up in
the compost heap as well.

We have a commercial Worm bin that we found on a skip (I believe the
original purchasers threw it out as they weren't managing it properly)
It works fine here but the main thing is keeping the conditions OK for
the worms.. Luckily we have ideal places, the shade of a mature Birch in
high summer and a frost free GH in winter.. The compost is a fine rich
worm manure.. I really ought to take some pictures!-)

What weight of plant material can you convert per day?
Do your worms cope with weeds?
Do they cope with leaves?


There are however a variety of plans to make your own bins froma
converted plastic dustbin to a wooden insulated bin.. Take a look at
the HDRA's site www.HDRA.org.uk or just search online for Worm Bin Plans

Just my 2p's worth!

Thanks for an interesting note. But my whole point is to try and find a way
of circumventing the maintaining and harvesting of a wormery by just letting
the worms do their job in the exact spot where I ultimately want the compost
to be.

I was told that the brandlings sold by fishing tackle skops would be just
what I need. Is that correct?

Franz