This one wouldn’t be big enough for us as we eat loads of veggies and also put own veggie garden cuttings in the worm farm (ours is made out of styro foam boxes) but it’s a fantastic example of a worm farm suitable for a small space!-Cate
Materials (makes a bin big enough for the scraps of 1-2 people):
16 Gallon Plastic/wooden/whatever container: $9.99 @ linens ‘n things
Fiberglass Screen: $5 @ Home Depot
1,000 Red Worms (1 lb): $26 from http://www.capecodwormfarm.com/
16 quart Organic Potting Mix – I forget! Cheap!
Leaf Mold – Free from worm lady
Hot Glue Gun
1 Gallon Water
Total Project Cost – about $45
Step One – Get a bin
Our bin is plastic because it’s cheap, but I hear wood is much better/easier to maintain in terms of moisture content. Get wood if you can!
Step Two – Drill holes
Drill small holes all the way around the top for ventilation
Step Three – Cut Slits
Worms need oxygen, too. Use a knife to cut narrow slats
Pop out the pieces you cut
**Some people recommend to cut drainage holes in the bottom – if you don’t, be extra careful when monitoring the moisture content of your bin. You don’t want worm soup.
Step Four – Screen over the holes
Make sure to sand the plastic to make sure your glue will stick!
Glue around the edges, allowing the glue to seep through the screen
We weren’t sure the screen was fine enough, so I added a second layer at a 45 degree angle to decrease the hole size
Here’s what it looks like from the outside
And the inside, all trimmed up
Don’t forget to put some screen over the small holes, too
Here is the “finished” bin
Step Five – Decorate!
Who wants a boring bin in their apartment?
People might not believe there are actually worms in there, despite the art
Step Six – Prepare Bedding
This is the leaf mold we got for free from the woman who sold us the worms. Websites SAY that you can use newspaper and a little soil, but Maggie Pipkins of Cape Cod Worm Farm told us that after 30+ years of experience, she would NEVER use newspaper. Yes, the worms eat the newspaper, but there aren’t any nutrients in it! She suggests:
1/3 Leaf Mold
1/3 Peat Moss
1/3 Manure
If you find an organic, no nonsense potting soil you shouldn’t need the peat and the manure because it’s already in the mix! Therefore, we used with Maggie’s Approval
1/2 Leaf Mold (decomposed leaves)
1/2 Potting Mix
Fill your bin about 1/2 way full. You should have at between 8″ to 14″ of bedding. NO DEEPER otherwise you’ll crush your worms.
Before you add your worms, you need to moisten your bedding. We used about a gallon of water, but you should see how much your own mix needs. How do you tell how much? The soil should be about as wet as a rung-out sponge. If you squeeze it, you should see the water but it shouldn’t drip
Step Seven – Add worms
Don’t just add any worm! You need Red Worms, otherwise known as Red Wigglers or Compost Worms. One pound of worms will eat the food scraps of 1-2 people.
Don’t mix the worms into the soil – put them on top and the light will cause them to burrow. If you’re ordering worms online, they should come with care instructions. If you want to find worms locally, check your nearby garden and bait stores, though we didn’t have any luck with that here in Boston – we had to visit a worm farm!
Step Eight – Feed your friends
There seems to be a lot of conflicting information on the web about what to feed (and what not to feed) composting worms. The problem is this: people assume that because worms DO eat some things, that means that they should. Cardboard, newspaper, coffee grinds, tea bags, orange peels, lettuce, potatoes — these are all things that your worms will eat but shouldn’t. You’ll have malnourished worms and poor potting compost when their done.
Here is some advice on feeding your worms - http://www.capecodwormfarm.com/te_food.asp
After about 6 months, you’ll have beautiful compost and a lot more worms… remove the compost, get more bedding, and start again.
Happy Composting!
source: Lolo on Craftster
Have you ever thought of making your own washing powder? We all want to do our bit for the environment but like me, you may find the $10+ costs for a container of ‘enviro friendly’ washing machine powder a bit prohibitive.
So, here’s what I tried…I got all the ‘ingredients’ from plain old Safeway supermarket. I always have good intentions to go to a local organic grocer or co-op but I work 9-5 like many and a 80 minute commute each way means I have limited access to organic type shops.
Borax (sodium borate) seems to be a contentious ingredient . Some recipes mentioned Borax, others said, no, no it will kill your plants and garden worms. So I went without for this recipe. In general, I use borax for washing really smelly towels and sneakers as I’ve tried nothing else works as well. It can be added to your washing water but personally I limited it to grey water which goes on hardier non-edible pot plants.
Laundry powder
You need:
4 cups grated pure soap (e.g. Sunlight soap) or Lux Flakes.
2 cups washing soda**:
I also added some tea tree oil
Mix all ingredients together well, and store in a plastic container with a lid. Use 2 tablespoons per wash.
* Borax is a naturally occurring mineral (sodium borate) but too much on your garden is toxic to plants and worms, so if you are going to use your grey water on your garden, leave out the Borax.
** Washing soda is the mineral sodium carbonate and in Australia is commonly known by the brand name “Lectric”. Lectric soda comes in crystal or powdered form – the powder is much easier to use as it dissolves in the wash water more quickly.
ta dah!
Chris and I have been working in the garden this morning. It is an absolute luxury after pretty much letting everything being burnt to a crisp in the heat wave. Here’s some piccies:
Hydrangea cuttings: If plenty of these strike successfully I’ll be growing more hydrangeas obviously and donating some of them to bushfire affected communities when they are ready to consider replanting their gardens.
This sedum has been growing out of crack in the wall next to the front door:
I planted these Liriope muscari out front. I bought them from the horticulture students at work:
Rosemary: We have loads and are constantly giving it away:
Gardening is great fun!
This article had a little bit of guidance from a post found on Sustainability Victoria, which now seems to have disappeared off their website. It’s a wok in progress project for us, so we make no guarantee that it will work, but I see no reason it wont. Our aims were to keep it as easy and cheap as possible, so in reach of almost everyone’s budgets and limitations.
Worm Farms are great ways of making fertilizer from food scraps in any rental property with a bit of space. You can buy worm farms with everything you need, but they’re quite expensive ($100+) and larger, it’s not too hard to make your own, here’s how!
Find yourself three (in fact two initially, the third is for future expansion) containers, old polystyrene vegetable boxes like the one pictured below are ideal.
We’ll start here with two boxes and add a third in the future, so take one box and using a sharp implement (I used a small screwdriver) make some holes in it’s base, they don’t need to be particularly regular, but you will need a fair few
These holes are for oxygen, but also for the worms urine (which forms one part of the fertilizer) to pass through into the second box below. Ending up with something like this.
Next you need something to cover the bottom of the box, to allow the urine to pass through but so the worms don’t fall through, we used several layers of newspaper, which should hopefully work. We also placed a few sheets of dampened paper around the inner edges of the box.
Next we add the worms! When I first started down this path I thought I could go digging in the garden and chuck a few earth worms in a box. Firstly you actually need special worms and secondly you need about 1000 of them to start, so I would have been there for a hell of a long time! This is the singly most expensive part of the process, but 1000 worms cost me $50 and included a healthy amount of dirt for the worms to live in. Carefully pour the worms on top of the news paper and evenly spread them about.
Next add another thin layer of paper on top of the worms, paper is mainly good to balance out the heavy nitrogen content of the food scraps.
Now it’s time for the food scraps, again spread them thinly and don’t put too much in at once. Ensure everything is nice and moist, when we made our worm farm it was raining, ensuring that everything was sufficiently damp!
Now find a cool and shady spot and something to raise your farm off the ground (perhaps an ever helpful milk crate weighed down with some bricks), place this box (with it’s lid) on top of our unmodified box and voila!
Add your food scraps on a regular basis, ensuring that you don’t add too much, keep everything damp and be patient, things wont happen overnight.
We shall return to this topic as we discover more and as our own little farm develops.
TIPS :
What composting worms like to eat
- Plate scrapings (cooked vegetables and stewed fruit leftovers)
- Fruit peelings (not too much orange or lemon peel)
- Vegetable scraps and peelings (not too many onions)
- Hair clippings and vacuum cleaner dust
- Stale biscuits and cakes
- Coffee grounds and tea bags
- Crushed egg shells
- Saw dust
- Soaked cardboard
What composting worms don’t like to eat
- Manures
- Acidic foods (onions, citrus, garlic, shallots)
- Garden waste
- Dairy products
- Meat
