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 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

"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?

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