Wormery is no more

[Lord Paul of Sheffield]

Last year I started a wormery and managed to keep a decent supply of worms for my fishing - feeding carrot and potato peelings but in the cold weather the soil in the plastic tub froze and now I'm wormless

Got to start again soon as worms aren't cheap

 

[geggsnick]

oh no gutted, i'm starting a wormery in the next few weeks, guess i'll have to keep it covered up in the cold weather, i heard eggshells are good for them!!

 

[Poshpaul (Angling Trust and PaSC)]

Are you sure m'lud?

I have a compost bin/ wormery...and they seem to disappear only to reappear at the first sign of warmth.

 

[Lord Paul of Sheffield]

Egg shells are good and cabbage leaves

Poshers I hope so - I'll check again

 

[BarryC]

Been told to be carefull with eggshells, easy to get them rammed up under your nails when taking worms out. (Not on a date)

 

[stikflote]

when using egg shells put the shells in a plastic bag
put them in micro wave so they are dry,then whilst still in bag crush them up very small

 

[bullet]

I tend to avoid them altogether in a wormery as they never seem to rot down and I just end up picking them out of the compost when I empty it.

 

[stikflote]

im told you put eggshell in to wormery to provide calcium,ive just emptied the compost onto garden seems to be good stuff round my veg

 

[sagalout]

So have you lot built your own wormery or have you bought one? If you made it how and if you bought which one.

 

[Lord Paul of Sheffield]

I've made my own wormery

I used an old 5 litre plastic bucket with a lid

I filled it with compost and garden soil to about 6 inches from the top.
Then put the worms in with potato and carrot peelings.

Drilled plenty of small holes in the lid.

Maybe the soil wasn't deep enough in the exceptionally cold winter we had.

 

[geggsnick]

think you beed to drill holes all around and layer the bin up a bit, get some air moving about, i was going to have a rectangular box with three seperate compartments in holed and layered... can't wait, just hope my cat doesn't get in to it, it likes worms for some reason

 

[waggy]

There's your problem. 5 litres would get frozen through in no time. My 80 litre version with top lid and bottom sliding door was free from the local council.
As well as all household food waste I use alternate thin layers of garden waste too, but nothing woody. I have to beat them back with a big stick when I open the lid.
I harvest from either the top or the bottom since, depending on the weather or , I reckon, whether they're feeling frisky, they can be at the bin top or the bottom.
Often, they can be just adhering to the underside of the lid and can be just scraped or knocked off. I can harvest about 100 in a few minutes.
They keep well in a bait box in a small fridge for a few days providing they stay moist under a couple of inches of sphagnum moss from the lawn. Moss doesn't go sticky or rot like grass. If you don't get round to using them and they get a bit flaccid and limp just pop them back into the composter to perk them up again.
I always put back any I haven't used after a trip.

 

[nick dv]

So if I wanted to make a wormery, I go for a large capacity plastic bin, air holes in lid and upper sides for air flow, lots of compost/soil, and introduce a number of worms - is it that simple?
What type of worm should I put in and what quantity should I use?

This would save me lining the pockets of others

Cheers, Nick

 

[Scott Whatmore]

Nick, if you scroll down to the botton of this page there is a box with 5/6 threads about wormeries.

 

[nick dv]

Nick, if you scroll down to the botton of this page there is a box with 5/6 threads about wormeries.

Doh!!! Couldn't see for looking - must be an age thing!! Thanks Scott.

Cheers, Nick

 

[Scott Whatmore]

you're welcome.

Truth is, I only just spotted myself :wh

 

[waggy]

So if I wanted to make a wormery, I go for a large capacity plastic bin, air holes in lid and upper sides for air flow, lots of compost/soil, and introduce a number of worms - is it that simple?
What type of worm should I put in and what quantity should I use?

This would save me lining the pockets of others

Cheers, Nick

My bought version doesn't have airholes at all and the lid seals pretty well.
The sliding door at the bottom has a 5mm gap along one side though. But I think the idea is to trap as much moisture as possible inside the bin without it actually getting wet through and rotting vegetation seems to do this ideally.
When the worms are under the lid they are moving about on a film of water.
I think it's probably more important to have the bottom completely open, as mine is, to allow for proper drainage of excess moisture.

 

[bleak]

I have 2 worm farms on the go now, both are ordinary plastic dustbins,I put an old car tyre inside the top of each and protect them from the extreme temperatures that we have with a couple of pieces of discarded airtex(roofing insulation).I started them of with some worms from a friends compost heap and now I have thousands of very lively worms.Only problem is I can't seem to catch much with them!!!

 

[nicky]

bleak i caught alot of tench roach and skimmers on mine last year whilst others were struggling even using the same worms i found that if you werent catching much on larger sections the trick was to cut them up very small as small as a maggot maybe smaller and fishing tiny pieces on a size 18 then every so often use a larger piece, feed small balls every so often size of golf balls using the finely chopped worm and the actual compost or moil hill soil as a carrier to throw the bait in by hand fish right over the top.

 

[bleak]

Worm coffee

I'll give that a go on Sunday , thanks, I have just read in a French fishing magazine that if you add coffee grinds and moss to the bucket that you transport your worms in the skin will be tougher and the worms stay awake longer!