Caring for your Worm Farm

Feed the worms small amounts regularly – fruit and veges are full of water - so by feeding these to the worms you will keep their home nice and moist. Favourite foods are banana skins, apple cores and other fruits but be careful that orange peel only goes in occasionally (it can make the farm go sour). Also go easy with bread – it tends to be too dry for the worms to eat straight away so they wait for it to go mouldy (doesn’t smell very nice).

Remember NO MEAT, so no pies, sausages or ham please.

 

The worm farm covers may need extra attention. If they dry out the worms won’t come up to the food.

Use the bucket to soak any covers that are drying out.

A wet sack on top of the wet newspaper makes a big difference.

 

Worms love moisture but if the worm farm gets drenched that could mean not enough air so it will start to smell.

Solve the problem by tearing up several sheets of dry newspaper into strips. Add these dry strips to the worm farm to absorb the moisture. You may have to feed the worms a little less for a while as the eat the new newspaper:

Note Can-O-Worms: After it rains remember to drain the liquid and rescue any stray worms – otherwise you will have some dead, smelly worms.

 

These will make the worm farm smell sour. If this happens then, with your gloves on, remove any peel / bread from the top and sprinkle a little wood ash or lime or dolomite onto the farm to sweeten it up.

To avoid harming the worms, expose the worm farm to light for a minute or so before you sprinkle (the worms will head down).

 

If you have lots of thin white worms (not really a big problem but you might not like the look of them) you can bait them by putting in slices of bread and then removing the slices when they are coated with the white worms.

Tea bags and coffee grounds are good to add regularly to the worm farm as they help keep these white worms away.

If the worm farm is getting too smelly you may be giving it too much food for the amount of worms. The smell is because the extra food is going mouldy.

Wait till they’ve eaten most of the food they already have before you give them any more.

Meanwhile, perhaps it’s time to make another worm farm or compost to deal with the excess foodscraps.