I'm looking to buy one for disposing of kitchen waste etc and turning it into organic plant food instead of chucking it in the bin

anybody here using one and do you have any recommendations of which one i should go for ?

i've already done a google and there are quite a few to choose from and yes i know we have a worm faq but i'm crap at diy and would prefer to buy summat that will last and perform for a good few years


Peace
Joolz

I bought a ready-made wormery-in-a-bin off the internet to dispose of food waste and it was a birrova disaster. The main product of this set up is a 'liquid plant food' I called worm wee. For a couple of months, my bin produced pints of this stuff from a tap at the bottom. I gave it to friends who are keen gardeners, who told me it was highly acidic. I added ripped up newspaper to try and balance the ph, but my wormery became increasingly swampy and started fermenting and the worms all died. Oh deary, deary me...

I told this to a friend who rolled his eyes and told me that I evidently didn't know the first thing about worms, how they live and what they like, which is true. He said is was all about casts, not leachate and casts mean bedding. Because you've got to give the worms space to work in, apparently. He recommended that I acquire a copy of Worms Eat My Garbage by Mary Appelhof and read it before trying again.

I did get a copy of this book, which is published by the Flower Press of Kalamazoo, MI. and your post has prompted me to reach it down from the shelf. There's a 12 point checklist on the title page, at the top of which is, 'Read Worms Eat My Garbage. It then goes on to (2) weigh your kitchen waste for a couple of weeks to work out the average produced by your household; (3) determine the quantity of worms you need and order them; (4) purchase bin and assemble materials; (5) sort out your bedding; (6) build or asemble bin; (7) prepare bedding before the worms arrive; (8) add worms; (9) bury garbage; (10) check moisture levels periodically looking for cocoons and young worms; (11) harvest worms and peprare new bedding; (12) use vermicompost or worm castings on house plants.

So, I'm still at stage (1) having gone straight to (4), and not really understanding about (5) and (7) or, indeed (9): I just dumped peelings, etc, in there and they started to rot, so I never got past (10). I suspect the bin I bought is too small even for my flat and I can't just dump pulp from the juicer into a wormery anyway. So, I guess I've got a lot to learn.

i got hte basic "the original wormery" jobby .. think you need to be on the draining it of thing .. i just put it down the drain cos yes it is highly acidic ... i also put loads of cardboard in there as well as newspaper .. do you add calcified seaweed ? .. this was supplied with my bin and the advice was a handfull every month to "keep the wormery sweet" ... they do need a bit of TLC to operate properly but its fun so long as you find worms cute ..

I got an Original Wormery too and it was a total disaster. I'm normally pretty good with gardening stuff but no matter what I tried it just turned into a swampy execution ground

A few months ago i bought a 'Can-O-Worms', sure you've seen em?

Anyway, you can get them cheap in some councils.

You have to build it up slowly, so you can't just start dumping loads of stuff into it and hope it'll be hunky dorey. Things are going quite well, i'm onto the second tray and the worms seem to be pretty fat and happy. Everyone now and then i put some of their worm treat into the mix. Things that were green and yellow and red are all sort of going brown ish, so it's working! There are a few flies and bugs and things, but that's all good for the process. I drained off some of the worm poo and poured it onto my bamboo, i'm probably dreaming but it seems a lot greener since.

You can't put everything into it, i made the mistake of putting potato peel into it, and i'm still picking out the shoots now! It keeps growing from the eyes.

I'm happy that we're using it and putting stuff into it regularly and months on i'm stillusing it and not bored.. You do have to look after it and monitor it like a regular farm almost. If the worms aren't happy, you need to know!

Keye.

Well did you get a worm bin Joolz? Howd it go?

so, can we not just add the worms to the soil medium? or am i missing the point?

Someone asked this before, I dont think theres any point in adding worms to the grow medium. I think the reason given was that they would not help in our timeframe of growing. Much better to add worm casts to the compost mix as this is an immediate source of nutrients for the plants.

I have a large black compost bin from the local council.

if you put a compost bin on soil with sun and shade, the worms will come naturally.

Mr mj has just been feeding the hoard in the pond with brandlings

and at the bottom end of the bin gorgeous black nutrient filled organic compost

Also put teabags in it, cardboard from egg trays, and egg shells

I just made a wormery last week out of washing up bowls, gaffer tape and cardboard, cost me £4 and works fine. will post drawings if anybodies interested. iTs only a little un and i nicked the worms out of a pile of twigs and leaves i was clearing off the patio.

Knocked one up at my last flat out of kitty litter trays and it worked for ages until the fuckin binmen took it away!

I have the original wormery and it seems to be going great!

I did have an "oh no where have all my worms gone" moment when I added some compost from my last grows, but it appears they have been working their way from the bottom to the top and they are big and fat.

I have used the worm wee, if you dilute it 10 part of water to 1 part worm wee and bubble it, the plants love it.

I sometimes have to leave the tap constantly on if there is a lot of liquidy fruit like apples so it drips into a tray... i found the bloody cat drinking it!!! FFS... shes ok tho