Maintaining Your Wormery

One of the greatest things about a wormery is that it requires little work on your part. The one thing you do have to provide regularly, however, is food.

Feeding the worms

The worms in your wormery can’t eat just anything. While most people use a wormery as an alternative or as a complement to a compost pile, there are certain foods that do well and certain foods that can harm the worms. In most cases, you can simply keep a bucket in your kitchen to collect all the food scraps to take to the worms either daily or on a more reasonable schedule for your lifestyle.

Wormery Tip:
Although you can feed your worms a little extra to get them through a few weeks if you’re going away on vacation, it’s a good idea to plan for someone to come feed them if you’ll be gone longer than 15 days.

Things to feed the worms include:

• Vegetables and peels
• Potato peels (in moderation)
• Citrus fruits (in moderation)
• Non-citrus fruits
• Coffee grounds
• Tea bags
• Egg shells
• Bread/bread products
• Rice
• Pasta
• Flowers
• Cereal
• Sugar
• Human hair (in moderation)
• Leaves
• Grass clippings (in moderation)
• Paper products

Wormery Tip:
Grinding your kitchen waste is time-consuming (and often a little gross), but it will speed up the decomposition process.

Foods to avoid include:

• Meat products
• Dairy products
• Pet litter
• Anything with bones
• Garlic
• Spicy foods
• Anything with insecticides or pesticides
• Salt
• Oil
• Soap or other cosmetics
• Weeds

Although small bits of dairy products (like cheese) won’t hurt the worms, it tends to produce a much stronger smell and may attract unwanted rodents into the wormery. Not only will that create competition for the worms’ food, but the rodents could also destroy the wormery. Also, if you use tea bags or paper waste from junk mail, be sure to remove non-organic structures like staples and the plastic windows from envelopes. They don’t break down, and it will be time-consuming to pick them out of the vermicompost later.

Wormery Tip:
Don’t be surprised if your worms have favorite foods. While they won’t avoid the newest food products in the wormery, they tend to prefer the wastes that have had a few days to be broken down by the natural bacteria and fungi in the system.

How you add the food to the wormery depends on your system. Some of the ready-made wormeries have complex systems in which you can bury the kitchen waste in up to twenty different locations, which can help keep smells down and make it easier for you to care for the wormery. One of the most important things to remember, though, is that you can’t put in more food waste than the worms can handle. If you pack the waste materials in there too tightly, there won’t be enough oxygen for the worms, and you could cause the entire system to come to a halt.

Wormery Tip:
If you find that your system has too much waste, simply let it rest for a few days. As long as your worms are still healthy, they should be able to catch up.

Keeping Your Worms Happy

Worms make very self-sufficient pets. Unlike your resident dog or cat, they don’t want to be handled or even watched very often. They prefer to be left alone in their dark, moist little containers, doing the work they do best.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you can assume all is well. After all, it’s your job to monitor their environment to make sure they have the right temperature, moisture level, and acidity to thrive. Most people find that a quick check during feeding time is all that’s needed to keep things running smoothly.

Wormery Tip:
If you’ll be observing the worms for longer than a few minutes per day (for children or for scientific observation), it’s best to use a red light similar to those in dark rooms. You can place a piece of red plastic over a flashlight for quick and easy use.

With all this eating, digesting, and breeding taking place, it’s only natural that some of your worms will die, as well. The good news is that you rarely have to worry about dead worms. Because they are made of so much water, they decompose quickly and might even add to the richness of the vermicompost.

Did You Know?
The worms used in wormeries can live for as long as four years, though most of them never reach their first birthday.

If you are actually able to see worm carcasses, chances are there are too many dying too quickly. This could mean a problem with temperature, moisture, salt, or acidity in the wormery. Changing the bedding and monitoring levels should help to keep worm deaths low.

If you see mold, fungus, or other growths in your wormery, try not to worry. These things are a natural part of the decomposition process. However, maggots and flies can be damaging (and disgusting!). If you have a buildup of these types of insects, you may need to replace or clean the lid and find a more ventilated outdoor space to store it.

>> PLEASE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE GARDEN WORMEY EBOOK <<