The Can of Worms experiment continues....

The Tumbleweed Can of Worms has now been set up for a few days and i think that the worms have settled in nicely. A routine check on Friday night did alarm me slighty as lots of worms appeared to be recreating a scene from the Great Escape but apparently this is normal. Worms are a bit like barometers as they're sensitive to changes in atmospheric pressure and humidity. When it's raining, or looks iikely to rain, worms will often come up to the surface to move around freely, looking for food or even a mate so it's not unexpected and it's not a cause for concern! Thankfully, some nicer (dryer) weather on Saturday seemed to calm the little guys down so I set about making their first ever meal.The instruction booklet thst I received stated that they would eat pretty much any organic waste from the kitchen except meat and dairy and cooked food. Thats not to say that the worms won't eat it - but that they'll leave it until theres nothing nicer to eat and that can cause nasty smells and even encourage flies to lay eggs etc. Having listened to some vermicomposting experts, I decided to whizz my worm food up in a blender. The idea being that the more the food is chopped up, the greater the surface area. The greater the surface area, the more microbial activity. The more microbial activity, the quicker the conversion from food waste to vermicompost! Sounds great on paper....




So, a whistle stop tour of the kitchen caddy revealed a couple of raw but slightly soft new potatoes and some dried up carrot batons. The dew bin in the fridge had a half used bag of mixed lettuce leaves and shredded beetroot that had just begun to go a bit soggy so it all got thrown into the food processor and was blitzed until it looked like this.









The other food waste products that are often mentioned are egg shells, cardboard tubes and tea bags. Egg shells provide worms with essential grit which they use in the same way as birds to break their food down in their gizzard. Egg shells can be thrown in to the worm farm intact but, as with all other food waste, the smaller the pieces - the quicker they can be used by the worms 

So, again following advice from other wormy websites, I baked the egg shells in a hot oven for 10 mins and then let them cool down before crushing them in a pestle and mortar. 











The result is a fine powdery substance which can be added to the worm farm with their food.

I then added both the food......  











...and the crushed eggshell to the worm farm to give my new worms their first ever meal!!!!








As this is their first meal, i'm not expecting the food to get eaten overnight. They're probably still settling in to their new surroundings and both the coir bedding and the cardboard packaging are edible meaning that the worms already have a good supply of nutritious food to eat. Still, i'll keep my eye on them and report back in a few days!


Happy worm farming everyone!

x

The day the worms moved in...

So, as the weather was, unexpectedly, sunny for July I decided to crack on with setting up the worm farm. The instructions say that I should let them settle in for a few days before feeding them for the first time so I reckon that if I move them in today (Wednesday) then they should be pretty hungry come Saturday!

The assembly instructions were all written on the underside of the cardboard packaging and we're extremely straightforward.




First things first....slot the 5 legs into place. There are no screws, no nuts or bolts, just 5 study plastic legs that slot firmly into the bottom of the collecting tray. Simples...










Then screw in the non-drip tap. You can see the worm refuge mound inside the collection tray. If the worms should happen to fall through the bottom of one of the working trays then, in theory, they should be able to wiggle out of the liquid (leachate) that has collected and up the refuge mound allowing them to get back to the working tray!







Then fold the cardboard packaging and place it in the bottom of the first working tray. The can of worms is a 2 working tray system but until your worms having been at work for several months you don't need the second working tray so i've stored it safely in the garage. It's a bit tricky as the packaging is just a little bit too big to fit in easily but it's nice to know that all the packaging is biodegradable and, what's more, it's also tasty worm food (apparently)








So, now the worm farm is built and good to go, it's time to add the worm bedding block. It's basically compressed coconut fibre (coir) and once it's rehydrated in water it creates a nice dark, damp environment for the worms to live in.





Being a naturally inquisitive (nosy) person, I couldn't resist opening the wrapper to see what the bedding block actually looks like.












The instructions seemed fairly easy to understand; fill a clean bucket with 6-7 litres of cold water (I split the difference and went for 6.5 litres), put the bedding block in as it is and then sit back and wait....

A good 5 minutes into the suggested 15 minutes time that the coir should take to fully expand and rehydrate and nothing much had happened. The coir block was still bobbing around in the water and the only sign of anything happening was the paper wrapping beginning to soak off.








But, patience (and a bit of mixing) soon paid off and the bedding block began to absorb the water and expand.










I ended up letting the bedding block soak for almost half an hour and even after that time it was still pretty wet. I think that the 6-7 litres suggested is perhaps a bit too much and if I was going to repeat the process, i think i'd maybe start with 5 litres of water and add more if necessary.

Its at this stage that I realised why layering the cardboard packaging at the bottom of the working tray is such a sensible idea. The bedding stayed on top whilst all the excess liquid dripped thorough to the collection tray beneath.

I spread the bedding out across the full surface of the first working tray and thats the set up complete. 40 minutes work from start to finish. And it could have been less if i'd assembled the worm farm itself whilst i was soaking the bedding. I did one after the other as I wanted to watch what happened to the bedding. For some reason, I assumed that it would expand into a single coir bedding mat rather than crumbly, soily matter.







So, on to the star attraction - the WORMS!!!! The worms that I got with my worm farm are all Dendrobena Veneta also called Eisenia Hortensis, a popular variety of compositing worm. I've got 500g for my worm farm and if what they say is true and these guys do eat half of their body weight in food each day, then by my calculations they should be able to get through over 1.5 kg a week!!!!

I spread the worms (and a little bit of the lovely rich worm cast that they were  sent in) over the top of the worm farm and left them to settle in.










 At this stage, the instruction booklet recommends using a hessian mat or damp cardboard to cover the worms to help replicate their natural environment, however - with my worm farm bundle, I got a Tumbleweed worm blanket which is made from jute.

Again, the instructions were clear and simple; make sure the worm blanket is thoroughly moistened and then....

Cover the worms up! Their natural habitat is just underneath the surface of the soil under a cover of leaf litter so the worm blanket can mirror those conditions in your worm farm









The worms were clearly impressed because they soon burrowed down into their bedding block.










 The worm farm was then put in place, in a fairly shaded and protected corner of the garden (somewhere out of direct sun and wind but with relatively easy access to the house so that feeding the worms never becomes a chore) and left to settle for a few days.








Out of curiosity, i turned the tap on to drain the excess liquid off (to see how much hadn't been absorbed by the bedding block) and i drained almost a litre off so I would definitely recommend starting with 5 litres of water and adding more if necessary.








That's that then - the worm farm is good to go, I'm going to give the worms 3 days to settle in and they'll get their first proper meal on Saturday.

Opening a new Can of Worms....

So, after weeks (literally) of excited anticipation, this week will see the set up and launch of my brand new, all singing, all dancing Tumbleweed Can of Worms worm farm! To say that i'm excited is probably a little bit of an understatement! I had a choice of 3 worms farms to pick from - all manufactured by Tumbleweed who are an Australian company but have now launched into the UK so the worm farms are pretty readily available.


The 3 units on offer were:

 The Worm Factory: Their cheapest model - a 2 working tray rectangular system that comes complete with a coir bedding block. It has fly proof lid inserts to stop flies getting in to lay eggs and has a tap attached to the collector tray to enable easy drainage of excess liquid.

 The Can of Worms: A circular 2 working tray mid-range system that also comes complete with a coir bedding block. It has 5 legs and looks pretty sturdy. The lid is fly proof and the collector tray includes a non-drip tap and a "worm refuge mound". This should enable any worms that fall into the collector tray to climb back up into the working tray.

The Worm Cafe: A very smart looking, top of the range, rectangular 3 working tray sysyem that again comes with a coir bedding block. The cafe also features ant proof legs (so ants can't climb up into the farm) and a fully ventilated system to keep the oxygen flowing. As with the can of worms, the collector tray in the worm cafe comes complete with a worm refuge mound.

Obviously, the prices increase throughout the range and costs could vary from vendor to vendor. I've noticed that some stockists are offering a start up bundle to include everything needed to get the farm up and running.


After considering the options, i decided to go with the mid-range Can of Worms option and managed to get a start up bundle to include 500g of composting worms and a worm blanket. Anyway - enough chit chat! The moment has arrived!! It's time to get this can of worms open!!!!