This is one of a series of posts about setting up a wormery. You might like to read these as well:
Setting up a wormery 3 – Design Flaws
As most wormeries are sited outside and open to the elements, they can become soggy as rain enters through ventilation holes in the lid. If you have a tap to release liquid from the bottom of the bin, it can be worth leaving this open for a few days to allow the moisture levels to settle every so often.
In addition, it is worth making sure that 25% of the material you add to the bedding material is absorbent material, such as paper, cardboard, torn up egg boxes etc…
My worms are highly intelligent with a satirical bent, so I make sure they get a shredded copy of Private Eye in with their food every week. If you’re not sure which newspaper your worms will enjoy reading the most, here are a few suggestions:
My worms are:
- Lefty media types, interested in art and culture – try The Guardian.
- Always complaining about fruit flies, which are infiltrating the bin with not so much as a ‘by your leave’ and gradually eating all their food, stealing their jobs and their women. – try The Daily Mail.
- Tight. – Give them a free sheet, try The Metro, thelondonpaper, or if you’re really desperate, London Lite.
Be careful that the tap doesn’t get blocked with gunk – you might not realise until it’s too late. My first set of worms all drowned horribly when that happened to me. I felt like a mass-murderer and had to get my husband to dispose of the bodies. Now I cover over the tap with a small round filter (taken from a washing machine pipe, or something similar) and haven’t had the same problem again.
I also got worms for my compost bin – then a rat took up residence and ate all of those. So now I’m probably on a ‘most wanted’ list for worms somewhere…
hee hee, that made me smile xxx
:D
We always put a house brick in the sump, this always allows the worms to clamber out of the liquid.
Our worms really like reading ‘dear deidre’ agony aunt in the sun :)
A brick in the sump! Genius. I will do that forthwith.
I cannot comment on wormery antics, and I feel somewhat left out of the knowledge domain of this subject.
I shall have to consider how to get into this lifestyle of word-obsessiveness.
I haven’t even sussed how I’m going to use the worm juice!!
Made me smile too! like the idea of a brick will also do immediately + will go and investigate water levels.
While you are feeding glossies to your worms, I’m carefully tearing every last shred of label from my egg boxes so my worms aren’t tempted to eat ink.
Esther Montgomery
ESTHER IN THE GARDEN
We’re still wondering which composting solution to go for, living in a flat with no garden…
Your reading types of worms = very amusing!
I have seen my friend’s wormery in Ireland which has been very successful and would like to set up the same here in Canada. however, I have a question to ask this learned community – do raccoons present a problem, particularly with respect to cooked food and their desire to gorge on worms???