I am sure this subject will have been discussed here before, but as
Google has done away with its 'groups search' feature, I was unable to
check!

Can anyone please enlighten me:

a) For a single person (with a larger than average garden, who doesn't
throw away much, if any, vegetable matter from the kitchen, are wormeries
worth the trouble?

And if so,
b) what are the pros and cons of maintaining one?

And,
c) can anyone provide instructions, or a link to a good guide to
starting an maintaining a home-made wormery?


Thank you,

Al

On 03/04/2012 20:12, AL_n wrote:
I am sure this subject will have been discussed here before, but as
Google has done away with its 'groups search' feature, I was unable to
check!

Can anyone please enlighten me:

a) For a single person (with a larger than average garden, who doesn't
throw away much, if any, vegetable matter from the kitchen, are wormeries
worth the trouble?

And if so,
b) what are the pros and cons of maintaining one?

And,
c) can anyone provide instructions, or a link to a good guide to
starting an maintaining a home-made wormery?


Thank you,

Al

I've had wormeries for years, but they can be a lot of trouble -
particularly in winter. An easy way that I have found to get the benefit
of wormeries, using your kitchen waste in the process, is this. Get a
large plastic container - I make home-brewed beer, and find the old
5-gallon brewing buckets ideal for this - and make a number of small
holes in the botton - about 1cm in diameter.

Put this container somewhere in the garden - in an area that's
convenient, and particularly one that you'd like to improve the
fertility of - and then just tip your kitchen waste in to it. In the
fullness of time composting worms will find the bin and colonise it (and
dreed rapidly). fill the bin with your waste and keep it topped up -
starting more bins when you run out of space. The advantage of this
method is that the worms will leave the bin when it gets too cold or dry
for them and go into the soil - returning when things return to normal.
The soil around the bin will improve enormously - and you can move the
bin after a while to spread the benefit. After several months you will
need to empty the bin and start again - using the residual worm cast
material in your composts, etc.

On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:11:00 +0100, Farmer Giles
wrote:

On 03/04/2012 20:12, AL_n wrote:
I am sure this subject will have been discussed here before, but as
Google has done away with its 'groups search' feature, I was unable to
check!

Can anyone please enlighten me:

a) For a single person (with a larger than average garden, who doesn't
throw away much, if any, vegetable matter from the kitchen, are wormeries
worth the trouble?

And if so,
b) what are the pros and cons of maintaining one?

And,
c) can anyone provide instructions, or a link to a good guide to
starting an maintaining a home-made wormery?


Thank you,

Al

I've had wormeries for years, but they can be a lot of trouble -
particularly in winter. An easy way that I have found to get the benefit
of wormeries, using your kitchen waste in the process, is this. Get a
large plastic container - I make home-brewed beer, and find the old
5-gallon brewing buckets ideal for this - and make a number of small
holes in the botton - about 1cm in diameter.

Put this container somewhere in the garden - in an area that's
convenient, and particularly one that you'd like to improve the
fertility of - and then just tip your kitchen waste in to it. In the
fullness of time composting worms will find the bin and colonise it (and
dreed rapidly). fill the bin with your waste and keep it topped up -
starting more bins when you run out of space. The advantage of this
method is that the worms will leave the bin when it gets too cold or dry
for them and go into the soil - returning when things return to normal.
The soil around the bin will improve enormously - and you can move the
bin after a while to spread the benefit. After several months you will
need to empty the bin and start again - using the residual worm cast
material in your composts, etc.

I understand that the best worms for compost are brandling worms which
can be bought at fishing shops .... and are not cheap.
They are not the same as earthworms, yet can be found in piles of
rotting manure.
So where do they come from? How do they get into compost bins and into
manure?

Pam in Bristol

Depends what you mean as "earthworms". Most gardeners mean Lumbricus terrestris. But brandlings are earthworms too, of genus Eisenia, and like a soil high in organic content. So the answer is, they are around in the soil in small numbers, but they flourish in high organic conditions, so when you provide these, they breed and multiply, and become a lot more evident.

More earthworms he
British earthworms | Natural History Museum

On Wed, 4 Apr 2012 14:59:06 +0000, kay
wrote:


'Pam Moore[_2_ Wrote:
;954967']

I understand that the best worms for compost are brandling worms which
can be bought at fishing shops .... and are not cheap.
They are not the same as earthworms, yet can be found in piles of
rotting manure.
So where do they come from? How do they get into compost bins and into
manure?


Depends what you mean as "earthworms". Most gardeners mean Lumbricus
terrestris. But brandlings are earthworms too, of genus Eisenia, and
like a soil high in organic content. So the answer is, they are around
in the soil in small numbers, but they flourish in high organic
conditions, so when you provide these, they breed and multiply, and
become a lot more evident.

More earthworms he
'British earthworms | Natural History Museum'
(http://tinyurl.com/dydus5x)

Thanks Kay
Interesting info!

Pam in Bristol

On Apr 4, 10:12*am, Pam Moore wrote:
On Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:11:00 +0100, Farmer Giles
wrote:





On 03/04/2012 20:12, AL_n wrote:
I am sure this subject will have been discussed here before, but as
Google has done away with its 'groups search' feature, I was unable to
check!

Can anyone please enlighten me:

a) For a single person (with a larger than average garden, who doesn't
throw away much, if any, vegetable matter from the kitchen, are wormeries
worth the trouble?

And if so,
b) what are the pros and cons of maintaining one?

And,
c) can anyone provide instructions, or a link to a good guide to
starting an maintaining a home-made wormery?

Thank you,

Al

I've had wormeries for years, but they can be a lot of trouble -
particularly in winter. An easy way that I have found to get the benefit
of wormeries, using your kitchen waste in the process, is this. Get a
large plastic container - I make home-brewed beer, and find the old
5-gallon brewing buckets ideal for this - and make a number of small
holes in the botton - about 1cm in diameter.

Put this container somewhere in the garden - in an area that's
convenient, and particularly one that you'd like to improve the
fertility of - and then just tip your kitchen waste in to it. In the
fullness of time composting worms will find the bin and colonise it (and
dreed rapidly). fill the bin with your waste and keep it topped up -
starting more bins when you run out of space. The advantage of this
method is that the worms will leave the bin when it gets too cold or dry
for them and go into the soil - returning when things return to normal.
The soil around the bin will improve enormously - and you can move the
bin after a while to spread the benefit. After several months you will
need to empty the bin and start again - using the residual worm cast
material in your composts, etc.

I understand that the best worms for compost are brandling worms which
can be bought at fishing shops .... *and are not cheap.
They are not the same as earthworms, yet can be found in piles of
rotting manure.
So where do they come from? How do they get into compost bins and into
manure?

This is a fiction spread by worm sellers. Leave well alone.

Farmer Giles wrote in news:-ZidnYWtPsT4-
:


I've had wormeries for years, but they can be a lot of trouble -
particularly in winter. An easy way that I have found to get the benefit
of wormeries, using your kitchen waste in the process, is this. Get a
large plastic container - I make home-brewed beer, and find the old
5-gallon brewing buckets ideal for this - and make a number of small
holes in the botton - about 1cm in diameter.

Put this container somewhere in the garden - in an area that's
convenient, and particularly one that you'd like to improve the
fertility of - and then just tip your kitchen waste in to it. In the
fullness of time composting worms will find the bin and colonise it (and
dreed rapidly). fill the bin with your waste and keep it topped up -
starting more bins when you run out of space. The advantage of this
method is that the worms will leave the bin when it gets too cold or dry
for them and go into the soil - returning when things return to normal.
The soil around the bin will improve enormously - and you can move the
bin after a while to spread the benefit. After several months you will
need to empty the bin and start again - using the residual worm cast
material in your composts, etc.

FG,
Thanks for the interesting suggestion.

I wondered if I could somehow employ worms to speed up the breakdown of new
composting material, such as grass clods, stable sweepings and grass
clippings (all of which I have a ton of. Using my present system (covering
it with two layers of tarp, it will take about 2 years to convert into
loam. Even if I could add a couple of buckets-full of the stuff to a
wormery and get some useful material from it within a couple of weeks, it
would make a wormery worthwhile. I wonder if your suggested option could be
used for this pourpose.

I gather that the commercially-sold wormeries are designed to produce
liquid fertilizer, and not much else. Is that correct?

Al

On 4 Apr 2012 10:02:18 GMT, "AL_n" wrote:

snip


I gather that the commercially-sold wormeries are designed to produce
liquid fertilizer, and not much else. Is that correct?

Al


No this is no true.

The worms eat the vegetation and produce the "compost".

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Worms can eat up to half their own body weight every day and can double their
population every 60-90 days. If you start your wormery with 1 kilo of mature
worms they will consume up to 500g of food waste per day*. After a few months
you should have double your population and you can feed them more. As you
become familiar with your system you will learn their rate of food consumption.
* This is dependant on the time of year, and how long your wormery has been
running

as an approximate guideline a 75 litre wormery should be able to manage 2 - 3
kilos of food per week.

This is dependant on the season and how long your wormery has been running for

http://www.wormcity.co.uk/wormfaq.ht...erywillcompost
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In article , jmsmith2011
@hotmail.co.uk says...

On 4 Apr 2012 10:02:18 GMT, "AL_n" wrote:

snip


I gather that the commercially-sold wormeries are designed to produce
liquid fertilizer, and not much else. Is that correct?

Al


No this is no true.

The worms eat the vegetation and produce the "compost".

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Worms can eat up to half their own body weight every day and can double their
population every 60-90 days. If you start your wormery with 1 kilo of mature
worms they will consume up to 500g of food waste per day*. After a few months
you should have double your population and you can feed them more. As you
become familiar with your system you will learn their rate of food consumption.
* This is dependant on the time of year, and how long your wormery has been
running

as an approximate guideline a 75 litre wormery should be able to manage 2 - 3
kilos of food per week.

This is dependant on the season and how long your wormery has been running for

http://www.wormcity.co.uk/wormfaq.ht...erywillcompost
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You appear to have confused the amount worms consume, with the amount of
compost worms produce. IME the amount of compost produced is so minimal
it's not worth the trouble. The largest usable product of wormeries is the
liquid waste , a good liquid fertiliser but no better than effortless
ones such as nettle and comfrey tea.

IMO (and IME of both) any gardener with enough room (and waste) for a
compost heap will get a much better worm-return by introducing a colony of
brandlings to it. You only need to do it once and never have to do any
worm care ; and if you know someone with a successful compost heap they
can easily supply you with a handful of brandlings.

Janet

Janet wrote in
:


You appear to have confused the amount worms consume, with the
amount of
compost worms produce. IME the amount of compost produced is so
minimal it's not worth the trouble. The largest usable product of
wormeries is the liquid waste , a good liquid fertiliser but no
better than effortless ones such as nettle and comfrey tea.

IMO (and IME of both) any gardener with enough room (and waste) for
a
compost heap will get a much better worm-return by introducing a
colony of brandlings to it. You only need to do it once and never have
to do any worm care ; and if you know someone with a successful
compost heap they can easily supply you with a handful of brandlings.

Janet


Failing that, would it be worth paying £5 for 100 dendrobaena worms? I have
a compost heap (about 5 cubic meters) the composting process of which, I'd
love to speed up! Whenever I turn it over, I don't find many worms.

Al

On Thu, 5 Apr 2012 13:58:23 +0100, Janet wrote:

In article , jmsmith2011
says...

On 4 Apr 2012 10:02:18 GMT, "AL_n" wrote:

snip


I gather that the commercially-sold wormeries are designed to produce
liquid fertilizer, and not much else. Is that correct?

Al


No this is no true.

The worms eat the vegetation and produce the "compost".

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Worms can eat up to half their own body weight every day and can double their
population every 60-90 days. If you start your wormery with 1 kilo of mature
worms they will consume up to 500g of food waste per day*. After a few months
you should have double your population and you can feed them more. As you
become familiar with your system you will learn their rate of food consumption.
* This is dependant on the time of year, and how long your wormery has been
running

as an approximate guideline a 75 litre wormery should be able to manage 2 - 3
kilos of food per week.

This is dependant on the season and how long your wormery has been running for

http://www.wormcity.co.uk/wormfaq.ht...erywillcompost
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You appear to have confused the amount worms consume, with the amount of
compost worms produce.


Apologies for the confusion - I was basing it on my experience of about ten
years using a wormery.

On 04/04/2012 11:02, AL_n wrote:
Farmer wrote in news:-ZidnYWtPsT4-
:


I've had wormeries for years, but they can be a lot of trouble -
particularly in winter. An easy way that I have found to get the benefit
of wormeries, using your kitchen waste in the process, is this. Get a
large plastic container - I make home-brewed beer, and find the old
5-gallon brewing buckets ideal for this - and make a number of small
holes in the botton - about 1cm in diameter.

Put this container somewhere in the garden - in an area that's
convenient, and particularly one that you'd like to improve the
fertility of - and then just tip your kitchen waste in to it. In the
fullness of time composting worms will find the bin and colonise it (and
dreed rapidly). fill the bin with your waste and keep it topped up -
starting more bins when you run out of space. The advantage of this
method is that the worms will leave the bin when it gets too cold or dry
for them and go into the soil - returning when things return to normal.
The soil around the bin will improve enormously - and you can move the
bin after a while to spread the benefit. After several months you will
need to empty the bin and start again - using the residual worm cast
material in your composts, etc.

FG,
Thanks for the interesting suggestion.

I wondered if I could somehow employ worms to speed up the breakdown of new
composting material, such as grass clods, stable sweepings and grass
clippings (all of which I have a ton of. Using my present system (covering
it with two layers of tarp, it will take about 2 years to convert into
loam. Even if I could add a couple of buckets-full of the stuff to a
wormery and get some useful material from it within a couple of weeks, it
would make a wormery worthwhile. I wonder if your suggested option could be
used for this pourpose.

I gather that the commercially-sold wormeries are designed to produce
liquid fertilizer, and not much else. Is that correct?


I don't know about commercial wormeries, but worms will produce lots of
very rich 'casts' after digesting your kitchen waste. This material will
appear in time at the bottom of your compost bin - and if you keep
adding more material the worms will move up into this. The method I
suggested would work very well with the material you have available -
but do try to provide a good general mix - although nothing much will
happen within a couple of weeks, it will take longer than that.

As someone has also said, you need to make sure that the bins are in
contact with the soil and kept moist (using normal kitchen waste
normally takes care of this, with any excess liquid just draining away
through the holes in the containers). This method works extremely well,
I've been doing it for years with excellent results. You can just leave
the bins winter and summer without having to worry about the bins
freezing, etc, the worms will just move in and out as the conditions
dictate.

After your bins have been in place for a while you will be amazed at the
number of brandling type worms underneath them when you lift them up.

Terry Fields wrote in
:


Farmer Giles wrote:

On 03/04/2012 20:12, AL_n wrote:

Can anyone please enlighten me:

a) For a single person (with a larger than average garden, who
doesn't throw away much, if any, vegetable matter from the kitchen,
are wormeries worth the trouble?

b) what are the pros and cons of maintaining one?

c) can anyone provide instructions, or a link to a good guide to
starting an maintaining a home-made wormery?

Get a
large plastic container - I make home-brewed beer, and find the old
5-gallon brewing buckets ideal for this - and make a number of small
holes in the botton - about 1cm in diameter.

Put this container somewhere in the garden - in an area that's
convenient, and particularly one that you'd like to improve the
fertility of - and then just tip your kitchen waste in to it. In the
fullness of time composting worms will find the bin and colonise it
(and dreed rapidly). fill the bin with your waste and keep it topped
up - starting more bins when you run out of space.

In the days when SWMBO composted the (non-meat) kitchen waste, I used
to add the output of the paper shredder. It was astonishing: worms
would turn up from seemingly nowhere and in seven days you couldn't
tell that any paper had ever been put in there. I think they liked the
paper best of all!

Terry Fields


That's great, I think I'll have a go with the highly acclaimed red
wigglers. Can anyone recommend an online source of these?

TIA

Al

On 04/04/2012 16:01, AL_n wrote:
Terry wrote in
:


Farmer Giles wrote:

On 03/04/2012 20:12, AL_n wrote:

Can anyone please enlighten me:

a) For a single person (with a larger than average garden, who
doesn't throw away much, if any, vegetable matter from the kitchen,
are wormeries worth the trouble?

b) what are the pros and cons of maintaining one?

c) can anyone provide instructions, or a link to a good guide to
starting an maintaining a home-made wormery?

Get a
large plastic container - I make home-brewed beer, and find the old
5-gallon brewing buckets ideal for this - and make a number of small
holes in the botton - about 1cm in diameter.

Put this container somewhere in the garden - in an area that's
convenient, and particularly one that you'd like to improve the
fertility of - and then just tip your kitchen waste in to it. In the
fullness of time composting worms will find the bin and colonise it
(and dreed rapidly). fill the bin with your waste and keep it topped
up - starting more bins when you run out of space.

In the days when SWMBO composted the (non-meat) kitchen waste, I used
to add the output of the paper shredder. It was astonishing: worms
would turn up from seemingly nowhere and in seven days you couldn't
tell that any paper had ever been put in there. I think they liked the
paper best of all!

Terry Fields


That's great, I think I'll have a go with the highly acclaimed red
wigglers. Can anyone recommend an online source of these?

TIA


You don't need to buy any, just put the right materials in a container
and they will find their own way there. It doesn't happen overnight,
though - just be patient, and once they colonise your containers they
will multiply very quickly.

"Farmer Giles" wrote in message
...
On 04/04/2012 16:01, AL_n wrote:
Terry wrote in
:


Farmer Giles wrote:

On 03/04/2012 20:12, AL_n wrote:

Can anyone please enlighten me:

a) For a single person (with a larger than average garden, who
doesn't throw away much, if any, vegetable matter from the kitchen,
are wormeries worth the trouble?

b) what are the pros and cons of maintaining one?

c) can anyone provide instructions, or a link to a good guide to
starting an maintaining a home-made wormery?

Get a
large plastic container - I make home-brewed beer, and find the old
5-gallon brewing buckets ideal for this - and make a number of small
holes in the botton - about 1cm in diameter.

Put this container somewhere in the garden - in an area that's
convenient, and particularly one that you'd like to improve the
fertility of - and then just tip your kitchen waste in to it. In the
fullness of time composting worms will find the bin and colonise it
(and dreed rapidly). fill the bin with your waste and keep it topped
up - starting more bins when you run out of space.

In the days when SWMBO composted the (non-meat) kitchen waste, I used
to add the output of the paper shredder. It was astonishing: worms
would turn up from seemingly nowhere and in seven days you couldn't
tell that any paper had ever been put in there. I think they liked the
paper best of all!

Terry Fields


That's great, I think I'll have a go with the highly acclaimed red
wigglers. Can anyone recommend an online source of these?

TIA


You don't need to buy any, just put the right materials in a container and
they will find their own way there. It doesn't happen overnight, though -
just be patient, and once they colonise your containers they will multiply
very quickly.


Make sure at least part of your compost bin is on soil and also keep it wet.
Watering can if needed.

Mike



--

....................................

I'm an Angel, honest ! The horns are there just to keep the halo straight.

....................................