"Trefor Jones" wrote in message
...
I got a wormery as a gift at Christmas with the worms arriving early
January. I followed the instructions for setting up the wormery and kept
it
indoors by the kitchen door. At first there were worms crawling all over
the
inside (with a few escapees!). I kept adding kitchen scraps but nothing
much
seemed to happen. After about a month I had a look inside but could not
find
any worms. I took off most of the kitchen scraps and added some calcified
seaweed. But again nothing seemed to be happening. That's when I ordered
some new worms.

I was going to add the new worms to the wormery as it was but decided to
have a good look first so I cleared it out and found the grand total of 26
worms of which 25 were short fat red ones and one long grey one. The
bottom
of the container where allegedly the liquid was supposed to collect was
full
of dead worms! (Were the escapees trying to get away from a noisome mix?)

Should I throw the old mixture away and start afresh? If I do that, could
I
use two year old garden compost with torn newspaper and a good handful of
calcified seaweed - I am concerned that the raw compost may be too acidy,
or
would the contents of an organic compost which I saw in a garden centre be
better?

are you able to reseed it from your existing compost pile? If you have a
good worm rich compost going (that the worms are feeding on) why not simply
transfer a portion of that to the worm farm and bung in a few extra you
catch along the way. provided your feed is ok the worms should reproduce.
Why do keep it inside? All worm farms I have seen are outside, even through
frosts. If temperature is a real concern cover the worm farm with old carpet
or even better felt underlay.

rob

I got a wormery as a gift at Christmas with the worms arriving early
January. I followed the instructions for setting up the wormery and kept it
indoors by the kitchen door. At first there were worms crawling all over the
inside (with a few escapees!). I kept adding kitchen scraps but nothing much
seemed to happen. After about a month I had a look inside but could not find
any worms. I took off most of the kitchen scraps and added some calcified
seaweed. But again nothing seemed to be happening. That's when I ordered
some new worms.

I was going to add the new worms to the wormery as it was but decided to
have a good look first so I cleared it out and found the grand total of 26
worms of which 25 were short fat red ones and one long grey one. The bottom
of the container where allegedly the liquid was supposed to collect was full
of dead worms! (Were the escapees trying to get away from a noisome mix?)

Should I throw the old mixture away and start afresh? If I do that, could I
use two year old garden compost with torn newspaper and a good handful of
calcified seaweed - I am concerned that the raw compost may be too acidy, or
would the contents of an organic compost which I saw in a garden centre be
better?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Trefor

"Trefor Jones" wrote in message

I was going to add the new worms to the wormery as it was but decided to
have a good look first so I cleared it out and found the grand total of 26
worms of which 25 were short fat red ones and one long grey one. The
bottom
of the container where allegedly the liquid was supposed to collect was
full
of dead worms! (Were the escapees trying to get away from a noisome mix?)

Try adding some old leaf litter and some oldish composted hose poo on one
side of the wormery and see what happens. I had a simialar problem with a
worm stampede and concluded that I was killing them with too much kindness.
All went better when I threw out the recommended mix and tried to replicate
the sorts of conditions where I saw worms in my own garden.

I don't know about worms in the UK but if I saw red worms here, I'd know
they were manure worms and that the grey worms were common old garden
earthworms. You'll probably find when it does work taht you will have one
lot of worms thrive and the other lot die off.

Should I throw the old mixture away and start afresh? If I do that, could
I
use two year old garden compost with torn newspaper and a good handful of
calcified seaweed - I am concerned that the raw compost may be too acidy,
or
would the contents of an organic compost which I saw in a garden centre be
better?

Give them a good base and only add stuff on top and only add it as yous ee
them working int he old lot you added before. Having it in the kitchen may
also be a location that is too warm for the worms. Got a coolish spot (not
really cold) outside where you could cover the wormery with old carpet or
bagging?

"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
...
Farm1 wrote:
"Trefor Jones" wrote in message

I was going to add the new worms to the wormery as it was but
decided to have a good look first so I cleared it out and found the
grand total of 26 worms of which 25 were short fat red ones and one
long grey one. The bottom of the container where allegedly the
liquid was supposed to collect was full of dead worms! (Were the
escapees trying to get away from a noisome mix?)

Try adding some old leaf litter and some oldish composted hose poo on
one side of the wormery and see what happens. I had a simialar
problem with a worm stampede and concluded that I was killing them
with too much kindness. All went better when I threw out the
recommended mix and tried to replicate the sorts of conditions where
I saw worms in my own garden.

I don't know about worms in the UK but if I saw red worms here, I'd
know they were manure worms and that the grey worms were common old
garden earthworms. You'll probably find when it does work taht you
will have one lot of worms thrive and the other lot die off.

Should I throw the old mixture away and start afresh? If I do that,
could I use two year old garden compost with torn newspaper and a
good handful of calcified seaweed - I am concerned that the raw
compost may be too acidy, or would the contents of an organic
compost which I saw in a garden centre be better?

Give them a good base and only add stuff on top and only add it as
yous ee them working int he old lot you added before. Having it in
the kitchen may also be a location that is too warm for the worms.
Got a coolish spot (not really cold) outside where you could cover
the wormery with old carpet or bagging?

The thing to do is to ask yourself what you want a wormery _for_. Then,
having debated the matter thoroughly, weighing all the advantages and
disadvantages, chuck it away and start a sensible compost heap. If
there's no room for a heap, just bury the odd bit of kitchen waste in
the garden somewhere.

We have both: a big double compartment compost bin and a wormery. We had
hoped to use the wormery to get rid of kitchen waste.
As it is, we use the compost heap for uncooked vegetables and that is fine
and works well. The wormery was for leftovers and cooked food. It has not
really worked out. It is quite tricky to get a good throughput. I know,
one regular compost expert here (Alan Holmes??) says to put food in the
normal heap but I am not brave enough to do that yet.
A possible compromise is to use big "cones" stuck over/in holes in teh
ground. You dig a hole, put yer waste food in and stick the cone over to
stop foxes and rats getting to it. It gradually breaks down and then you
start again when it is finished.




--
Mike.

"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
...
Snip
The thing to do is to ask yourself what you want a wormery _for_. Then,
having debated the matter thoroughly, weighing all the advantages and
disadvantages, chuck it away and start a sensible compost heap. If
there's no room for a heap, just bury the odd bit of kitchen waste in
the garden somewhere.

--
Mike.



Mike,
I am tempted! Up 'til now I have managed extremely well with my double
compartment compost heap taking garden waste, uncooked kitchen vegetable
scraps, The Present Mrs Jones's dead flowers and virtually everything I've
thrown at it except moss. If I had not received the thing as a Christmas
present I would not have bothered but...

Trefor

"Des Higgins" wrote in message
"Mike Lyle" wrote in message

The thing to do is to ask yourself what you want a wormery _for_. Then,
having debated the matter thoroughly, weighing all the advantages and
disadvantages, chuck it away and start a sensible compost heap. If
there's no room for a heap, just bury the odd bit of kitchen waste in
the garden somewhere.

We have both: a big double compartment compost bin and a wormery. We had
hoped to use the wormery to get rid of kitchen waste.

There is a Japanese (??? I think it's Japanes) closed bin system especially
for kitchen waste and it lives in the kitchen - it involves the addition of
some sort of goop to start the fermentation/breakdown of the kitchen scraps.
Couldn't remeber the name of but google came up with it, - Bokashi see:
http://www.eco-organics.com.au/subpage1.htm

I don't know how well it works only having read about it (a garden guru in
this country swears by it) but I would think if it does work it would be
better than a wormery. Worms need care and won't work if it is too hot, too
cold or they don't have the right bedding. The main advantage of worms is
the liquid that comes from the wormery rather than the vermicasts.

A possible compromise is to use big "cones" stuck over/in holes in teh
ground. You dig a hole, put yer waste food in and stick the cone over to
stop foxes and rats getting to it. It gradually breaks down and then you
start again when it is finished.

If you have the space, a big deep slit trench progressively filled from one
end and covered with soil and with some bird/chicken wire pegged down on top
works well and the dogs/foxes etc don't seem to be able to get at teh waste.

"Trefor Jones" wrote in message
...

"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
...
Snip
The thing to do is to ask yourself what you want a wormery _for_. Then,
having debated the matter thoroughly, weighing all the advantages and
disadvantages, chuck it away and start a sensible compost heap. If
there's no room for a heap, just bury the odd bit of kitchen waste in
the garden somewhere.

--
Mike.



Mike,
I am tempted! Up 'til now I have managed extremely well with my double
compartment compost heap taking garden waste, uncooked kitchen vegetable
scraps, The Present Mrs Jones's dead flowers and virtually everything I've
thrown at it except moss. If I had not received the thing as a Christmas
present I would not have bothered but...

Trefor

go back to the composting and donate the worm farm to a school or community
organisation.

rob

"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message
...
"Des Higgins" wrote in message
"Mike Lyle" wrote in message

The thing to do is to ask yourself what you want a wormery _for_. Then,
having debated the matter thoroughly, weighing all the advantages and
disadvantages, chuck it away and start a sensible compost heap. If
there's no room for a heap, just bury the odd bit of kitchen waste in
the garden somewhere.

We have both: a big double compartment compost bin and a wormery. We had
hoped to use the wormery to get rid of kitchen waste.

There is a Japanese (??? I think it's Japanes) closed bin system
especially
for kitchen waste and it lives in the kitchen - it involves the addition
of
some sort of goop to start the fermentation/breakdown of the kitchen
scraps.
Couldn't remeber the name of but google came up with it, - Bokashi see:
http://www.eco-organics.com.au/subpage1.htm

I don't know how well it works only having read about it (a garden guru in
this country swears by it) but I would think if it does work it would be
better than a wormery. Worms need care and won't work if it is too hot,
too
cold or they don't have the right bedding. The main advantage of worms is
the liquid that comes from the wormery rather than the vermicasts.

thanks for the info on the Japanese yoke. I will have a look.
Otherwise, what you say about the worms is very true.
We have found it very very hard to keep them happy.
The food easily just piles up on top of them if the conditions are not
right.

In article , Trefor
Jones writes

I was going to add the new worms to the wormery as it was but decided to
have a good look first so I cleared it out and found the grand total of 26
worms of which 25 were short fat red ones and one long grey one. The bottom
of the container where allegedly the liquid was supposed to collect was full
of dead worms! (Were the escapees trying to get away from a noisome mix?)


Same thing happened to me last year Trefor, I bought two more lots of
worms, at one point after I added a lot of shredded paper there were a
lot of baby worms but then all gradually disappeared whatever I did!
Seems to have turned into a plain compost bin on legs


--
Janet Tweedy
Amersham Gardening Association
http://www.amersham-gardening.net