Setting up a worm farm is an interesting and a very easy project to do. With the right materials and a detailed instruction guide, you can begin harvesting compost in a couple of days. A worm farm is ideal for people who pretty much would like to recycle food scraps but have no time or space to set up and maintain a big compost bin. This is why worm farming is perfect for people who live in apartments or relatively small houses who loves plants.
Despite the simple task involve in setting up your farm, there might be several problems or stumbling blocks that people have to face. In general, however, problems involving your farm are not as huge as some might thing. Simple solutions are often more than enough to cope with situations like presence of flies or an unusually bad smell from the worms.
Let’s begin with the worm themselves. Worms will produce compost but sometimes a bad smell comes out from the farm. The farms should only smell when there’s too much uneaten food residue in the area. To remove the smell, stop feeding the worms for a while. Place some more garden lime on the top level of the stray. Stir the layer as well to allow air into the mixture which also helps the worms move around better. In time the smell will be gone which signals you to start feeding your worm friends again.
And speaking of food, you should feed your worms just enough. Mature worms can eat about half their own body weight which is about 250 grams worth of mashed or blended food. Avoid feeding your worms onions, citrus, garlic, garden waste, dairy products, manures and meat. Meat and acidic food will also bring out a nasty smell from your farm which is another reason why you should not feed it to the worms. Do not worry about the population of your worms. Your worms will regulate themselves.
One of the other things that you might encounter are ants or flies invading your worm farm. Ants will usually enter the farm when the area has become really dry and quite acidic. One way to get rid of them is to add water into your container to increase the moisture level. It would be a good thing also to elevate the container.
You can place garden lime where the ants are at or place the container on legs on a basin of water. That should do the trick. For flies, small ones are usually not that too much of a problem. For large flies, however, one way to reduce their number would be to reduce the amount and frequency of feeding your worms. When cockroaches start to invade, place a lid over the container.
Another possible problem would be maggots. But maggots only appear when you introduce meat into the farm. So the solution obviously would be not to feed them meat. However, when for some reason maggots still do appear, it would be best to remove them by allowing them to cling into bread soaked in milk.
Other added tips for your worm farm include making the farm damp. However, do not make it too wet since the worms can drown from the water. If you find your worms not reproducing, it would be best to place the farm under a shade. A cooler place will help keep the soil moist which is ideal for worm reproduction.
“Eeeeeek! Worms!” You can hear the children screaming now. You can imagine some girls squirming in disgust and or fear as a couple of bad boys nudge worms in their faces. This practice can really scare a kid and might even develop phobia when they grow older. But what about the worms? How do you like it when giant human faces keep looking and screaming at you? Imagine the shock those poor worms might have had. This could be a familiar scene in your own worm farm as an elementary class conducts a field trip in your farm.
Okay, that scene may be a little bit out there. Especially, if your objective really is not a large, commercial farming project to begin with. Starting small is not a problem with worm farming. You can create a farm even if you’re living in a small apartment or a small house. It is an ideal project for anybody who loves gardening.
The process of worm farming is simply letting the worms convert scraps of vegetables and fruits into ideal potting soil. It’s like creating your own compost with the help of worms and minus a large space. As mentioned earlier, you only need a fraction of space to create your own farm unlike composting where you need a backyard space to throw in your food scraps and allow the pile to become compost.
To being your worm farming experience, a good container which measures 7 inches deep would be needed. Also, it would be ideal if you could get a 7-inch deep container that is around 9 inches wide and 14 inches long. There’s really no standard with this kind of thing but in my experience that size is a good one to start a worm farm. Just make sure you select a non-transparent container since worms tend to like it more dark places.
The worms you will be using are not the standard variety of earthworms. Earthworms are actually not suitable for farming. The best ones would be compost worms, tiger worms or red wrigglers. Once you have your worms, you create a bedding material on your container from moistened newspapers. You then add garden soil on the bedding and if you like some crushed egg shells. The container should be kept damped. Avoid adding too much water or else the worms will drown. Also, keep the lid of the container partly open to let the air in. Place the container away from sunlight since the temperature inside the container can heat up pretty bad especially when left under sunlight.
What you can feed the works include vegetable scraps and fruit peelings. The worms seem enjoy servings of food that are really starchy so bread, oatmeal, and pasta would be great as well. Just avoid feeding the worms’ highly acidic food like citrus and onions. Tea bags and coffee grounds can be added to the worms’ diet. Never feed them meat or poultry. Salty foods like junk foods are also a no-no in the worms’ diet. Placing these kinds of foods in the container can create odors which might attract insects in the tray. Worms consume half their body weight each day.
Once you have your worm farm set up and have your worms munching away on their food, you can wait until the worms create castings. The castings or vermicompost is a soil-like substance that you will be using as fertilizer for your plants. This will be great for potting your plants and if you have a vegetable garden put some in there as well.
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