Worm Farms

Central Wormworx in Cromwell (03) 445 0263 will sell you a kilo of tiger worms, which is what you’ll need to set up a worm farm. They also sell wooden frames which you can bed your worms down in.

QLDC rate-payers get a cheap worm farm (four wooden frames and a kilo of worms) from Central Wormworx, thanks to QLDC. Go the council!!

Most hardware stores sell plastic worm beds or you can make your own worm bed out of recycled resources like an old bath or old tyres.

Worms like a mixture of any of the following in their bedding:

• Damp shredded cardboard or paper
• Compost
• Aged manure
• Rotting straw

Worms like to be kept damp, and to live in the dark. After a while, you can see when they’re not happy, they’ll be limp and inactive. Often it seems to be because they are too dry – even if the bed still looks damp, try sprinkling the bed with some water (preferably rain water).

Worms don’t like their bed to get too hot in the summer, or too cold in the winter. They can deal with the frosts we get in Wanaka if they have some protection like old carpet over the bed, and they’re in a sunny spot.

Advantages:

• Ideal for kitchen scraps (except they don’t like too much citrus and onions).
• Vermicast is a great product for your garden, it can be used directly on the garden or diluted as a tea for your plants. Potted plants (eg tomatoes) love a 50/50 mixture of compost and vermicast to grow in.
• The worms have a presence in your household, and you’ll find yourself going to check on them even when they don’t need any attention. Kids love them, and you can get lots of interesting worm/recycling conversations going.

Disadvantages:

• They need semi-regular care, even if it’s just a quick check to make sure they are damp enough. You do need to change the worm bed occasionally, but not more than twice a year.
• You need a lot of worms to deal with all the food scraps that a household produces.
• If you go away for more than three weeks, you should get someone to feed them. Alternatively, you can cook a large, whole pumpkin and put it in the worm-bed with some holes in the skin so they can get into it. That will keep them going for a while.

For more info on worm farms, go to: http://www.qldc.govt.nz/portal.asp?categoryid=1932#