How to start a worm farm

Yes, building a worm farm is incredibly simple, so whatever you do, don't make the mistake of spending $100 on one of those commercially made tiered plastic box contraptions - like the picture. Sure, you can get one from Amazon or any gardening shop, but you can knock up a perfectly good worm farm all by yourself with 2 polystrene fruit boxes, some shredded paper, and... some worms!

If you want a nice, simply written DIY guide to building your own, I recommend the following ebook on How to Start a Worm Farm. It's straight to the point, and well worth your money (and it's dead cheap.)

It's full of info on what you'll need to build your worm farm, where to get your worms, and what to feed them.

Make sure you choose a nice spot for your worms to live. Make sure the spot is not too hot or cold. If you use polystyrene boxes, you will need two of them with one needing a lid.

Poke about twenty holes in the bottom of one box. Put the lid on the box with hole and place this box on the box without the holes. The bottom box will catch the liquid produced by the worms (worm tea - the power drink for your plants).In the box with the holes or one of the trays in the worm farm, place about 10cm of bedding.

Use a combination of shredded paper, leaves and finished compost as a bedding layer, around 10-15cm deep. To this you should add about 1,000 worms - you'll need special worm farm worms called tiger worms or red wrigglers. Cover the bedding with a layer of hessian, newspaper, carpet etc. This will keep the worm bedding dark and moist.

Once the worms have burrowed into the bedding (two to three days) you can start adding small amounts of kitchen scraps.

That's the basics, but you'll find more details on how to start a worm farm here.

The best thing about a worm farm is that you don't need a huge yard. Even if you have a small patch of garden, a balcony in an apartment, or a small dark corner of your garage, you've got room for a worm farm!

Worm farms are especially good for apartment living, because you've probably got a lot of pot-plants and not much time for gardening. Your new pet worms will create a very nutritious 'power drink' to pour on your pot plants once a week, and you'll be astonished at how much your plants will like it!

Mature worms can eat up to half their own body weight every day! No matter what size you are, that's a lot of food.

Worms eat vegetable and fruit peelings, tea bags and coffee grounds, as well as some papers. They'll eat ripped up pizza boxes, leaves, dirt, dog and cat poop, hair and, incredibly, egg shells. They also like a nice drink of water every few weeks.

To help your worms eat more you can mash or blend or food process your food scraps, but personally I think that's a bit of trouble to go to for some small wiggly things that are never going to thank you!

Worms do NOT like:
Manures
Acidic foods like onion, citrus, garlic and shallots
Diary products
Meat

If your on this page, I guess I don't need to tell you how important it is to grow our own food. Chemical free, fresh and natural food is not a luxury, it's the way food is supposed to be.

Here is a little ebook I just love that is a wonderful guide to creating your own organic food garden - even if you know nothing about organic gardening. (Your new worm farm will be a big help :)

It's written by Julie Villani who lives in the beautiful Barossa Valley in South Australia. If you ever get a chance to visit this area, do so! It's a gorgeous corner of the world and by chance or design, it is full of people who seem to be devoted to fine, organic food. (I could talk for ages about the foodies of the Barossa, but really I'd like to convince you take a look at this book!)

I purchased Julie's book about a year ago now, and this year I have 8 different varieties of tomatoes growing, 5 different cucumbers, 6 different watermelons, and the rockmelons and pumpkins will be going in very soon. (Spring is just kicking off down here.) My point is, Julie's book convinced me, and showed me, how to do more than just grab a few wilted seedlings from the nursery.

Gardening is about love and passion. If that's too romantic for you, then think of it this way. Growing your own food will reduce your impact on the environment, and give you and your family the best chance of living long, happy and healthy lives.

If you want to read more, visit Julie's page on
Organic Gardening here.