Guide to Worm Farming - Pittwater Council

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.