Guide to Worm Farming - Pittwater Council

Guide to Worm Farming

Why Worm Farming?
We all put things in our garbage bin that could be put to good use. Did
you know that organic material such as food scraps make up around 60%
of our household waste? If you fill your 80 litre garbage bin each week, that
means you are throwing out 48 litres of organic material each week! When
this waste goes to landfill it is costly to us and it harms our environment.
The good news is that most organic material can easily be returned to the
soil as useful fertiliser and compost in your own garden.
Here are 3 more good reasons to start a worm farm in your garden or
on your verandah.
Your plants will love it!
Worm castings and worm juice are nutrient rich, improving plant
growth, increasing the capacity of the soil or potting mix to hold
nutrients and water, and helps plants to resist disease.
Worm farming is fun!
Worms, worms, and more worms!. Kids and adults of all ages
can enjoy worm farming and it is a great way for the whole
family to get involved in recycling food scraps.
Reduce the amount of waste going to landfill!
You can do this by simply recycling your food scraps at home.
The worms and other micro-organisms break down the food
scraps before they have a chance to rot. Did you know that
around 90% of greenhouse gas emissions from landfills are a
result of decomposing organic material such as food waste?
Worms - nature’s own natural recyclers!

The Essential Ingredients for a
Good Worm Farm
Worms of course! You will need at least 1000 worms to start with. There are
many different species of worms, but Red Wrigglers are the best because they
don’t mind living in a crowded worm farm, they reproduce quickly and eat up
to half their own body weight per day.
Worms need a comfortable bed. In a worm’s natural habitat under the
ground, it is moist, cool, damp and dark. You can recreate these conditions
easily using peat moss, shredded paper, grass clippings or straw as bedding.
Feed your worms a mix of food scraps such as fruit and vegetable scraps,
tea bags and coffee grounds. Just like humans, if we ate the same foods over
and over, we would get quite bored with eating, so a variety of food scraps is
the key to keeping the worms active, growing and multiplying.
Suitable Bedding
Peat Moss
Straw
Autumn leaves
Sawdust
Shredded newspaper
Bark
Brown paper bags
Grass clippings
Food Scraps & other ingredience
Fruit and vegetable scraps
Tea leaves & bags
Vacuum cleaner dust
Coffee grounds
Green leaves
Hair
Egg shells
Fresh weeds & manures

Maintaining your Worm Farm
Using the ADAM Principles
A
is for Aliveness. Your worm farm is a living system. It’s the worms and microorganisms
in the worm farm multiplying and digesting the organic material
that produces heat and speeds up the process of breaking down the organic
material, creating nature’s own fertiliser - worm castings and worm juice.
D
A
is for Diversity. Feed your worms a variety of ingredients to keep the worms
healthy, active and more interested in eating.
is for Aeration. Worms need air to breathe, just as people do. Place your worm
farm in a shaded area with plenty of air moving around it, and make sure your
worm farm has holes in the lid. As worms wriggle and move around the worm farm,
they shift ingredients and naturally create air pockets as they go.
M
is for Moisture. Worms need an environment that is moist, cool, damp and
dark. Their bodies also need to stay moist to breathe, if they dry out they
will die. Moisture is the key to any healthy and active ecosystem. The food scraps
you add to your worm farm contain a lot of moisture, but you will also need a damp
cover over the food scraps such as a hessian or calico bag, or damp newspaper.
Keeping the worms active
Worms are very easy pets to look after as they do not need much attention. Just
ensure your worm farm is placed in a shaded area of your garden or verandah,
with food scraps covered with a moist hessian bag or damp newspaper. Keeping
the cover moist may require a little watering once a week. Worms will even survive
if you go on holidays, as long as the worm farm remains moist.
Optimal temperature for worms is between 13º and 25º Celcius. At this
temperature, the worms will eat well and reproduce steadily. If the worm farm is
too cold or too hot (below 13ºC or above 25ºC) they will not only stop eating, but
can die.

A FULLY OPERATIONAL
CAN-O-WORMS
VENTILATION HOLES
LID
LEVEL 4
Third
Working Tray
LEVEL 3
Second
Working Tray
LEVEL 2
First
Working Tray
LEVEL 1
Collector Tray
TAP
©1995 N. Nattrass Sourced from www.reln.com.au

LID
VENTILATION HOLES
Always keep a lid on your worm farm to maintain a
dark, damp and cool environment, with a few holes in
the lid for airflow.
LEVEL 4
Third
Working Tray
LEVEL 3
Second
Working Tray
LEVEL 2
First
Working Tray
This tray is used for food scraps when Level 3 is at
least 2cm deep in worm castings. Start to add food
scraps in this tray and cover with the hessian bag/
paper used in Level 3, starting the process over again.
In a few months, there should be no worms in the first
working tray (Level 2), only worm castings. When this
happens you can take out this tray using the worm
castings on the garden as fertiliser, and then using
this tray as Level 4 in the future.
This tray is for food scraps. Place around 2cm of food
scraps over half of the tray area and see how the
worms go. Over time you will be able to assess how
much food your worms can manage at any one time.
Always cover the food scraps with a damp hessian
cover or newspaper, don’t let the cover dry out. In a
few months, when this tray has at least 2cm of worm
castings (dark soil appearance), you can add the
Level 4 tray to start the process over.
This tray is for the bedding and where you introduce
new worms to the system. You can use material
such as peat moss, shredded paper, coconut fibre or
similar, just put enough bedding into the tray so that
the next tray (Level 3) rests on top of this bedding,
this way the worms will easily reach Level 3.
LEVEL 1
Collector Tray
This tray catches liquid fertiliser that drains from
the upper levels of the worm farm. Simply drain this
liquid by turning on the tap, and there you have your
own organic fertiliser to use on your potted plants or
garden.
TAP
The process starts here

Common Problems with Worm
Farms and what to do about them
1. Smelly
Your worm farm can start to smell if you are feeding your worms more than they
can eat, or if the worm farm is too wet. Food scraps contain a lot of moisture
and if there are not enough worms or too much food, the scraps will begin to rot
before the worms have a chance to eat them.
Stop feeding the worms
Give them a chance to digest what they already have available to them before adding any
more food scraps.
Decrease moisture
This will happen naturally as you increase aeration, either through lightly mixing the scraps
with a trowel, adding more worms, or adding a handful of calcium, lime or egg shells. Don’t
add any more water to the worm farm, only keep the hessian/ paper cover moist.
2. Unwelcome visitors
There are millions of friendly critters in your worm farm (in addition to the worms
themselves) which help to break down the food waste. However, larger critters
such as cockroaches, mice and rats are not welcome, so here’s how to reduce the
attraction factor for vermin.
Keep the worm farm moist. Vermin do not like a damp environment.
Keep the worm farm at optimal temperature. Between 13ºC and 25ºC is ideal.
If in doubt, leave them out. Reduce the amount of acidic ingredients such as citrus peels or
onions. Worms don’t like them as much, which means these ingredients will be slow to break
down.
Add some wood ash, egg or oyster shells, lime or calcium. These are natural
ingredients which help to balance the composition of the worm farm.
Always cover food scraps. Use a damp hessian cover or sheets of newspaper.
Keep your worm farm off the ground. This will stop any larger critters such as mice and
rats being able climb in.

3. Worms are not eating very much.
If the worms are slow to process the food scraps, it could be lack of air, water,
heat or worms. There are good ways to make this process quicker!
Worm farm may be too dry
Add water, remember to give your worm farm a good soaking every 1 - 2 weeks and keep the
hessian/ paper cover moist at all times. Position your worm farm in a shaded area.
Worm farm may be too wet
The worms can drown if there is too much water and they may not be getting enough air to
breath. Use a trowel to gently mix the material and add some lime, calcium or egg shells.
Keep your worm farm covered with a lid
As well as a moist cover over the food scraps, the worm farm will need to be covered by a lid to
keep the environment dark, damp and moist. A lid also provides extra warmth during the Winter
months by keeping the heat in.
Keep the worm farm at an optimal temperature
Between 13ºC and 25ºC, is the optimal temperature for worms to thrive and reproduce.
Make sure your worm farm has enough worms. 1000 is a good start.
Where to use the worm castings
From your worm farm Worm castings Drip line around tree
In potted gardens
Lawn top-dressing

Notes:

Contact Pittwater Council’s Waste Education Team if you would like more information on
reducing your household waste through composting and worm farming, recycling and green
cleaning. Telephone: 9970 1194 Email: EC Education_Team@pittwater.nsw.gov.au
Contact Kimbriki Recycling & Waste Disposal Centre for Free Eco Gardening Workshops,
Recycled Garden Products (mulches, soils and potting mix) and Compost Bins ($45)
Telephone: 9486 3512 Email: kimbriki@kimbriki.com Web: www.kimbriki.com
PO Box 882, Mona Vale NSW 1660
Phone: 02 9970 1111
Email: pittwater_council@pittwater.nsw.gov.au
Environmental Compliance / Printed on 100% recycled paper / Date: January 2008 / ECWRHA08