Worm farms are an integral part of many permaculture gardens. The castings they provide us with are unique in their structure and qualities. The worms gut is an amazing, unique place. Solid castings are added directly to the soil when planting out seedlings and liquid worm castings are used as a foliar spray to build plant health and vitality.
What type of worms to use?
The earthworms that appear naturally in your garden beds are not the ones you want in your worm farm. Earthworms are ‘agricultural’ worms a mix of native and introduced species – they mature slowly, they don’t like to be too crowded, they are slow to reproduce and only have one baby per capsule.
The worms in this worm farm are ‘commercial’ worms – reds, blues, tigers and African Night Crawlers, purchased from a reputable worm breeder. These worms eat a lot, they reproduce quickly and often and have 6-8 babies per capsule. These are the ones you want working for you, these will pump out castings by the bucket full.
Care of your worm farm
Worm farms need to be well shaded and protected from strong winds, they need to be kept cool in summer, they need to be well drained (keep the tap open if you have a plastic cell farm at home), they must be predator proof or you will lose all your valuable livestock, they also need regular maintenance. Worm farms must be kept moist, but not wet, well-fed, well-drained and well-stocked. They also need to be somewhere quiet and peaceful so they won’t be disturbed as they make valuable fertiliser for your garden.
Worm food
What do worms eat?
Worms eat microbes – they move soil (with microbes in it) through their gut as they move around the soil. When you feed your worm farm you need to…
a) cut the worm food up very small to increase the surface area so more microbes can get started on decomposing the food
b) ‘bacterialise’ the food by pouring over liquid worm castings, diluted molasses, diluted kelp or a herb tea to activate the microbial activity on the food and get your worms digestive juices flowing. You can put pretty much anything from the garden or from your kitchen scrap bucket in the worm farm – although they don’t like garlic, onions or citrus too much. Be careful with manures – worms love them, but if the manure is from an animal that has been recently wormed, you could wipe out your whole farm overnight.
