Wormery Support
Wormery Support
Wormeries are a worm-assisted composting system which converts food waste from your kitchen and garden into a rich, dark growing medium and liquid feed. They are simple to operate (the worms do all the hard work!) and, if properly maintained, will repay your investment many times over.
Besides helping yourself you will, of course, also be helping the environment by reducing the volume of food waste being added to the nation’s landfill rubbish tips. Food waste in such tips is simply left to rot away: releasing methane, one of the ‘greenhouse’ gases, into the atmosphere as it does so.
Contents
What you’ll need to get started:
If you purchased a value pack from us or another retailer, you should already have all of these items.
Wiggly Composting Worms
Our composting worms are a mixture of species (mainly reds and dendras) selected for their composting ability. Composting worms are native to the UK and in the wild can be found on the surface of the ground, generally in leaf litter. They are not the same as earthworms, which are deep burrowing creatures and not suitable for composting systems. Composting worms will eat all manner of household waste from fruit and vegetable peelings, cardboard, paper, bread, pasta right through to the contents of your vacuum clean.
A Coir Bedding Block
Our coir blocks are perfect to use as bedding when starting off worms in a wormery or for mixing with worm casts to make a finished coir compost. Made from compressed coconut fibres, coir blocks make a very practical alternative to peat. Just add water and within minutes you'll have a high quality compost base that's ready to use.
Other Extras and Consumables
Worm Composting isn’t a full time job, generally once the Composter has been established and the worms are comfortable you won’t need to do much, just keep feeding them. Here are a couple more things you’ll need.
Worm Treat
Worm Treat is our natural accelerator for any worm-assisted composting system. It is a special mixture of all the things that worms love best. Mix a handful into your composter every few weeks to give it a boost. The pellets also soak up any excess moisture in your composter and swell up in volume.
Anti-Acid Lime Mix
Add a handful of our Lime Mix neutraliser to your wormery every couple weeks to prevent acid build up. Lime Mix also helps prevent smells, flies and white worms. Because it contains grit it also aids the worm’s digestion, and its drying properties make it good for wet or under-performing kits. Good composting conditions are achieved when the contents are close to pH7.
Moisture Mats
Worms work best in dark, moist conditions. Our breathable Moisture Mats provide these conditions where they are most needed, on the surface of your composter.
They encourage the worms to work in the freshest waste, thereby speeding up composting and reducing odours. Moisture Mats disintergrate over time so these will need replacing every few weeks. Our Moisture Mats are made from 600g/sq.m hemp fibre matting.
Using a Worm Composting kit to compost food waste.
If you have a bedding (coir) block
Half fill a bucket with warm water. Put your Bedding Block into the water. As the block soaks-up the water, begin to break it up into an even mix. It should take an hour or so. Squeeze out any excess moisture when finished. Evenly distribute half of the soaked bedding into a tray - a couple of inches is plenty. The left over soaked coir is a great potting base.
Getting Started:
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Empty your bag of worms onto the bedding or some fresh waste. Worms are light sensitive, so leave the lid off for a couple of hours to encourage them to burrow down into the bedding.
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Cover the waste with your Moisture Mat. This will be munched by your worms over time so be sure to order a few spares.
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Slowly, over the next few weeks, add more waste (small amounts at a time) until the tray is full. The key to worm composting is that you don’t need to wait until the worms have eaten all the previous waste: as long as they are working just below the surface they’re ready for you to add a little more.
Adding another tray
Place the Top Working Tray on top of the first Working Tray only when you are sure its base will touch the material beneath. Always place your Moisture Mat (and Lid) on top of the freshest waste. Ensure that the waste level touches the base of the new Tray before fitting it—as the worms continuously reduce the volume of the waste this level sinks all the time! Now you can continue to add waste to the new Tray. Before adding any more waste ensure that the worms are working just below the surface of the existing waste.
Harvesting your Waste
Gradually add waste until the top tray is completely full. This will take longer than you think because every time you add waste and the worms process it - it drastically reduces in volume. At this stage most of the worms will be in the Top Tray - the Bottom Tray will contain fully worked waste, ie worm casts
Now is the time to take out the Bottom Working Tray and harvest the rich casts. Once you have emptied this Bottom Working Tray it goes back on the top of the pile becoming the new Top Working Tray and you start adding scraps here to begin the process all over again.
Note: When starting the a new Working Tray you don’t need to add further bedding as you did when first setting up the kit. The worms will make their own bedding as they progress up through the system.
It may take over 6 months for your system to become ready to harvest its first compost. Thereafter you should be able to harvest new bottom trays full of compost on a regular basis. Important: Add a handful of Lime Mix and Worm Treat every couple of weeks with your kitchen scraps.
If you have a tap on your kit you can collect worm tea: You will produce an on-going supply of worm tea which is really rich in nutrients. Dilute 1 part worm tea to 10 parts water and use on houseplants and throughout your garden.
Using your Compost
The compost is very rich in nutrients and organic matter and can be used as an excellent medium to grow plants in. It is rich in soluble plant foods and its fine crumbly texture will greatly improve soil structure. It is not necessary to sterilise the compost before using it in the garden, its bacterial content comprises beneficial species which will not harm your plants. It can be used in all the situations where compost is normally used, for example when planting seeds or shrubs; or as a top dressing for fast growing plants.
As a Fertiliser - Worm Compost is much more than just a simple fertiliser, it can be used to keep favourite specimen plants in peak condition. Used around the plant’s base it will both feed the plant and help retain moisture for the roots. When planting out seedlings, beans etc sprinkle a little along the bottom of the trench to give them the best start in life.
As an Organic Soil Improver - Most soils can benefit from an increase in organic matter and natural fertiliser. To produce your own soil improver mix 5 litres of Worm Compost with the contents of a 50 litre bag of finely ground bark. Dig into the area of garden to be treated, applying 2 litres per square metre. For an acidic garden bed (such as those containing Rhododendron species) a low pH material should be used instead of the ground bark.
As a Top Dressing - House plants in pots eventually use up the supply of fertilisers in their soil. Top dressing with Worm Compost is the ideal way to replenish the nutrient levels. Scoop out the top 12mm of compost from the pot and replace with fresh Worm Compost, then gently mix this in. The foodstuffs in the Worm Compost will be carried down to the roots by watering.
As a Compost - Worm Compost is an ideal base for mixing fine composts. The mix of products in your own compost ‘recipe’ is, up to you, but the following proportions will give good results:
- For potting:
25% Organic Compost, 25% Coir, 25% Perlite, 25% Sand
- For seeds:
25% Organic Compost, 25% Perlite, 50% Coir (Ground Bark or Coco Peat are suitable
alternatives to standard Moss Peat.)
Maintenance and Troubleshooting: Keeping Things Running Smoothly
Why are my worms determined to escape?
When you first set up the kit... Your worm bin is not designed to house your worms so that they cannot escape – in fact worms can get through virtually any crack... The point is to make your wormery as attractive to the worms as possible so that they stay put. If you think of worms in a wooden composter or a compost heap these don’t need to imprison the worms – the worms stay if conditions are favourable and so that’s what we aim to provide.
When you first set up your worm composting kit and add your worms – it’s a bit like taking the cat to a new house... There is a tendency to explore and head for the exit... Once they are settled into their new home and established their burrows they are less likely to run for home but here are a few ways you can help minimise the losses.
Set up your worms in the morning and once you have put the bedding into your kit and the worms in with it add some kitch- en waste and leave the lid off all day. Worms go away from the light so this helps to ensure they start to get established. If the kit is outside accept a few losses and repeat the next day and gradually you will find your worms will settle down. If you are keeping them in a shed then leaving the light on and the lid off will also help.
Once you have had your worms for a while... The first thing to do work out if this is a mass exodus or just a few worms. If it’s just a few worms around the outside of the bin don’t worry – this is part of the natural process. There are always some worms that like to go walkabout (like humans really). However, if they are all trying to leave look for the problem...Here are a few things to look for:
1: Is your bin too wet? If there is liquid puddling at the bottom of the bin, and the bedding material drips liquid when you squeeze a handful of it the wormery is too wet. Add lots of dry waste – newspaper worm treat and lime mix will help as well and avoid waste with very high water content for the next few waste additions (melon, squash etc)
2: Have you added something different to the bin? If your worm composter was composting well and then all of a sudden the worms are trying to get out look at what you’ve added. Sometimes particularly if you’ve added a lot of citrus fruit this can irritate the worms due to the acid content. Remove the excess and add a good handful of lime mix and things should recover.
Worms are natural composters and they don’t need to be in a completely worm tight bin to work (often they occur in a compost heap which has no sides) So by paying attention to what you add to your bin, and adjusting the moisture levels, you should be able to keep your worms happy and inside the bin, where they belong.
How to I handle Fruit Flies?
Fruit flies (together with other organisms) are a part of vermicomposting to a lesser or greater extent. We can avoid reproduction of fruit flies in your wormery by covering the surface of the compost with your Moisture Mat. You can cover the newly added food a little or possibly cover the surface with already processed compost.
You can also create one of the recommended traps. For example, you can put a piece of banana at the bottom of a jar,
create a paper cone with a tiny opening and place it point down into the glass, sealing around the edges. Or mix 3 tablespoons of water, 1 tablespoon of vinegar, 4 drops of dishwashing liquid and a pinch of baking yeast and place a container with this
mix near your wormery. If the flies do hatch, they don’t get out and that can be a success. Unfortunately, you may repeatedly introduce the flies into the composter with fruit and vegetable peels containing fruit fly eggs.
How do I decrease the moisture level in the wormery?
Higher moisture is good for the production of worm tea, but an excess of anything is damaging. You can reduce moisture by adding materials that bind moisture, such as paper towels, newspaper, egg crates and similar dry material.
What to do if my wormery smells?
Properly maintained compost doesn’t have an unpleasant odour. Should odours appear, it’s most often because the earthworms can’t manage to process all the bio waste, so lower the amount. The unprocessed bio-waste also causes high level of moisture of the composted material that then decays and smells. You can dry the contents of the composter with pieces of shredded paper, newspapers, cardboard or egg crates. The cause of the odour can also be remnants of stalk vegetables or potatoes. These should be introduced to the composter only after several months, when the earthworms are sufficiently active for timely processing.
Wormery Videos
Our Top Wormery Blogs
The Ultimate Guide to Resurrecting Your Wormery
Can I Add Grass to a Wormery? How Much Should I Use?
Winter-Proof Your Worm Farm: Essential Tips for Keeping Worms Cozy
The Benefits of Using a Moisture Mat in Your Wormery
How long does it take to compost a full container in a Wormery?
Should I regularly rake through the compost in my wormery?