"Jim W" wrote in message
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Franz Heymann wrote:

"Jim W" wrote in message
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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, I'll work through your questions/points in reverse order!

Brandlings are used in worm bins, but are not earthworms. They live in
manure, not in soil. Our worms cope with all the usual things that this
species cope with. Most of what you mention. Leaves, annual weeds, and
vegetable waste. The only things we tend to avoid are meat and cooked
food as well as an excess of citrus peel. there are 3 of us (sometimes
4) producing a fair bit of waste. Not all of it goes into the worm bin,
we have a conventional compost bin as well.

I do see your point but its away from the norm so I think you will get a
lot of people telling you about 'ordinary' worm bins. Maintaining. A
wormery is not arduous, other than remembering where to put your
vegetable waste and emptying the wormery every so often (about once a
year in our case)
Earthworms are other species all together and like a different
environment from brandlings. You would not innoculate the ground with
brandlings. You would need to buy earthworms for this. In which case
they would live in the ground. In which case they would not necessarily
be in the area of you're choice.

Your thinking is correct in 2 'seperate' points in that Brandlings will
break down raw waste and increasing earthworms count can be helped by
improving soil structure, but whether you're idea will work as you
describe it and in combinaion I am doubtful. Try it mebbe!-)

However the brandling worms aren't the 'worms in the soil' so if you're
brandlings don't eat quick enough the secondary stage may not be as
effective either.

If your compost is 'building up' that fast you either need another heap
or you're not manageing the heap correctly. A correctly made 1 m3 heap
uses up its oxygen approx every 7 - 10 days and if turned at that
frequency it is possible to produce compost in under 10 weeks in summer.

The other things I would be worried about with your idea are rats and
any 'uneaten' food being left behind.

Its certainly an interesting idea.. Why not give it a try and let us
know the results.. Both types of worm are availble by mail order.
Dendrbaena worms are available also from fishing shops (as bait)

Thanks for the information, Jim. If I knew where to get the earthworms, I
will order some. Or maybe there are enough in my garden for starting things
up. I will do a bit of investigating.

Franz