TAKING CARE OF THE WORMS
Worms are easy to care for and don't demand a lot. A damp dark environment, the right temperature, and some food. Get these right and you'll have more worms that what you know what to do with.
Environment
The worm farm should not be too wet. If you can pick up a handful of worm castings (without worms :-) ) and squeeze water out of it then its too wet. If the news papers that are laid on the top of the worm farm are dry then chances are your worm farm is drying out and needs the newspapers re soaked and a couple of liters (1/2 Gallon) of water gently poured over worms.
If your worm farm is too wet first identify why. Correct any drainage issues if present and then add dry shredded paper to the farm to soak up any excess water. It may be that your farm cover is allowing too much rain water in. In this case move farm to more sheltered area or change the cover.
Temperature
Worms do not like it too hot. With the recycled tires that we use the black rubber can heat up on the outside edges. We have found that our tires are big enough that the center of the farm does not overheat and the worms move there. The manure sitting near the sidewalls of the tire does not get broken down and we need to move that into the middle for the worms to work on it. In summer we keep a closer eye on the moisture levels.
Food
Our farms are manure farms. We age the manure for a couple of weeks before applying on top. We use pig, cow and Horse manure.
If we didn't have pigs all our non meat non dairy food scraps would go to the worms. Worms like broken down food so the smaller it's chopped the sooner the worms can utilise it, speeding up the compost process.
Avoid putting a lot of water containing scraps on at once or if doing so add some shredded paper to it to mop up any excess moisture so that they don't start to smell.
Worms love bread... We don't eat bread in our house so our worms seldom get this treat. Sometimes neighbours and friends give us there old stale bread and then our worms have a feast!
There are list of foods to avoid giving your worms on the internet the main ones being meat and dairy. I can't really comment on what foods worms do or don't like as we have not experimented with this. Happy worm farming.
Environment
The worm farm should not be too wet. If you can pick up a handful of worm castings (without worms :-) ) and squeeze water out of it then its too wet. If the news papers that are laid on the top of the worm farm are dry then chances are your worm farm is drying out and needs the newspapers re soaked and a couple of liters (1/2 Gallon) of water gently poured over worms.
If your worm farm is too wet first identify why. Correct any drainage issues if present and then add dry shredded paper to the farm to soak up any excess water. It may be that your farm cover is allowing too much rain water in. In this case move farm to more sheltered area or change the cover.
Temperature
Worms do not like it too hot. With the recycled tires that we use the black rubber can heat up on the outside edges. We have found that our tires are big enough that the center of the farm does not overheat and the worms move there. The manure sitting near the sidewalls of the tire does not get broken down and we need to move that into the middle for the worms to work on it. In summer we keep a closer eye on the moisture levels.
Food
Our farms are manure farms. We age the manure for a couple of weeks before applying on top. We use pig, cow and Horse manure.
If we didn't have pigs all our non meat non dairy food scraps would go to the worms. Worms like broken down food so the smaller it's chopped the sooner the worms can utilise it, speeding up the compost process.
Avoid putting a lot of water containing scraps on at once or if doing so add some shredded paper to it to mop up any excess moisture so that they don't start to smell.
Worms love bread... We don't eat bread in our house so our worms seldom get this treat. Sometimes neighbours and friends give us there old stale bread and then our worms have a feast!
There are list of foods to avoid giving your worms on the internet the main ones being meat and dairy. I can't really comment on what foods worms do or don't like as we have not experimented with this. Happy worm farming.
