SCHWOIT

Some months ago we decided that we would like to begin worm farming as a means to remove much of the vegetable waste that we are generating through being humans. We have decided that simply throw it in the bin to go to the local land fill we will feed the worms and produce an endless supply of useable fertiliser in the form, of worm castings, for use on the garden. Much of which will in turn return the worm farm for processing.

The one we decided on had a modular system where you start with one layer, and when it is at capacity add a second layer. The process continues once more, so at any point in time there is a maximum of 3 layers in service. When you harvest you take the lower most layer, empty it, and then add it back to the top. We have been running with the 3rd layer for about 2 months and it to was approaching capacity. As a result I decided that I would look at harvesting some of the worm castings.

Upon inspection I found that there were several thousand worms working their magic still in the first layer. This was a bit surprising as the food source in this layer should have been largely exhausted several months ago. That said they must still be deriving some nutrients from this layer as each dig I performed exposed a minimum of five worms. I think they have bred as we started with a thousand worms. However, there seems to be a monumental amount in the farm.

I then inspected the second layer and found that the worms had clearly been at this level and processed everything they could. All that was in this level was about 2 or 3 corn cobs and what looked like an avocado skin. The rest was bare clean plastic. I was shocked at how well the worms had processed this layer. It also explained why there were very few worms evident in the top most layer. Clearly traversing the great plastic divide was too much for the worms.

Today, I have decided I need to check out how encourage the worms to move upwards quickly. Clearly I can not produce enough vegetable waste quickly enough to fill the layer in the next month. As such I relied on my good mate Google and found the NSW EPA Worm Farming article. Within that it provided an easy answer to my problems, shredded, soaked cardboard.

As previously discussed I have heaps of cardboard available at present and I have a few sources of rainwater at present. So I have just filled the second layer, and half filled the first layers of the worm farm with cardboard. This should provide the worms with the perfect excuse to move from the first layer to the two rich food source layers.

I hope so as my half barrels have arrived from Deals Direct and I am keen to use worm castings with them to supplement the RichGro potting mix.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 14th, 2007 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Gardening, Worm Farm/Vermiculture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.