![Building a Worm Farm
Only feed a little bit at this stage because they are getting settled into the bedding material. Use lettuce, old bits of banana, anything that you’ve got that’s wasteful in the kitchen sink. Then add just enough newspaper or hessian over the top to keep them moist. Always make sure that the newspaper, or hessian, is kept moist. They will start to feed and after about two weeks, add the next layer on top and that’s the time to start feeding all organic waste and the worms will travel up through the perforations.
[via Gardening Australia - Fact Sheet]
This morning I trowled through the worm farm that got soaked in the floods a few months back, which I’d consequently given up for dead. Happiness then was finding many health worms and a very rich layer of freshly turned soil inside. It saved me the effort of finding another nursery or gardener who could sell/trade some of the red worms needed for worm farming [a different species to the earth worms you can attract to your garden with mulch], and the built up worm tea has already revived my little flood damanged lemon myrtle tree seedlings.
This is the benefit of doing everything organic and diy, especially if you’re lazy and have a really changable routine like me. It takes a bit more planning to set up a garden that’s largely self-sustaining for fertilizer and seed [but less cost and chemicals]. Once you’ve got it set up though, things adapts through set backs much better than a high maintenance, commercial fertilizer dependent garden full of exotics does.
Even my tomato plants, rosemary and coriander self seeded and came back in a bed I’d also thought too soil damaged to plant in yet. Woot permaculture!](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l2pvylpwCJ1qzx3pho1_250.jpg)
Building a Worm Farm
Only feed a little bit at this stage because they are getting settled into the bedding material. Use lettuce, old bits of banana, anything that you’ve got that’s wasteful in the kitchen sink. Then add just enough newspaper or hessian over the top to keep them moist. Always make sure that the newspaper, or hessian, is kept moist. They will start to feed and after about two weeks, add the next layer on top and that’s the time to start feeding all organic waste and the worms will travel up through the perforations.
This morning I trowled through the worm farm that got soaked in the floods a few months back, which I’d consequently given up for dead. Happiness then was finding many health worms and a very rich layer of freshly turned soil inside. It saved me the effort of finding another nursery or gardener who could sell/trade some of the red worms needed for worm farming [a different species to the earth worms you can attract to your garden with mulch], and the built up worm tea has already revived my little flood damanged lemon myrtle tree seedlings.
This is the benefit of doing everything organic and diy, especially if you’re lazy and have a really changable routine like me. It takes a bit more planning to set up a garden that’s largely self-sustaining for fertilizer and seed [but less cost and chemicals]. Once you’ve got it set up though, things adapts through set backs much better than a high maintenance, commercial fertilizer dependent garden full of exotics does.
Even my tomato plants, rosemary and coriander self seeded and came back in a bed I’d also thought too soil damaged to plant in yet. Woot permaculture!
