| #7 |
My wormery has been residing with my parents for the last 16 months and my mother makes a slightly worried "hmm" noise every time I ask if it's okay. I think she's let it get a bit wet and fruit-fly infested...
However, I'm looking forward to getting it back (even though it's going to have to live somewhere much chillier than my little worms are used to!) as I found it really good for kitchen waste. I couldn't have a compost bin before because I was renting (so most of my garden waste went in a green bin or was used as mulch for my containers) so I liked that my worms could munch through my kitchen scraps. Now I can have proper compost bins, I think there are still some advantages to having a wormery:
1) You can put kitchen scraps in a wormery that might attract rats and mice if put in a compost bin.
2) If anything sprouts in a wormery, the worms will eat the sprouts, so it can be a good option for things like tomatoes or potato peelings where you don't want lots of volunteer plants. (Of course, not everything will sprout and the vermicompost doesn't get hot so won't kill off any seeds that don't sprout before the compost is used.)
3) If you have a suitable space for them, the worms can live indoors which is much more convenient for your scraps on days when it's freezing or rainy outside.
4) The worms are very cute and I love the soft sound of a huge colony of worms moving around in the bin.
5) Worms love to eat paper/cardboard (and I highly recommend giving them plenty as it stops the bin getting wet/keeps them going if you need to go away for a few weeks) so a wormery is a great solution for any confidential paper waste. Good luck to anyone trying to recreate my credit card number from the mush inside Worm #2373's guts.
6) Most of the major problems with wormeries (pest infestations, smell, wet conditions) can be dealt with easily by burying food scraps deep and including plenty of torn up paper/card on top.
7) If you put loads of paper into your compost bin, it can form a bit of a solid modged-together layer once it gets wet. It'll do the same in a wormery, but then the worms just chomp right through it and you're good.
8) A wormery is a good talking point. Non-gardening people are much more interested in hearing about a wormery than they would be hearing about a regular compost bin.
9) They are appealing to children.
10) If you have good conditions, a few starter worms can rapidly increase in number until they can manage a really good volume of food waste.
11) The worms can process foods that you wouldn't want to put on your compost heap, like cooked foods, rice, pasta, bread etc.
12) If you wanted, you could use the worms for purposes in addition to the compost like Vinny's fishing worms or food for chickens.
However, I'm looking forward to getting it back (even though it's going to have to live somewhere much chillier than my little worms are used to!) as I found it really good for kitchen waste. I couldn't have a compost bin before because I was renting (so most of my garden waste went in a green bin or was used as mulch for my containers) so I liked that my worms could munch through my kitchen scraps. Now I can have proper compost bins, I think there are still some advantages to having a wormery:
1) You can put kitchen scraps in a wormery that might attract rats and mice if put in a compost bin.
2) If anything sprouts in a wormery, the worms will eat the sprouts, so it can be a good option for things like tomatoes or potato peelings where you don't want lots of volunteer plants. (Of course, not everything will sprout and the vermicompost doesn't get hot so won't kill off any seeds that don't sprout before the compost is used.)
3) If you have a suitable space for them, the worms can live indoors which is much more convenient for your scraps on days when it's freezing or rainy outside.
4) The worms are very cute and I love the soft sound of a huge colony of worms moving around in the bin.
5) Worms love to eat paper/cardboard (and I highly recommend giving them plenty as it stops the bin getting wet/keeps them going if you need to go away for a few weeks) so a wormery is a great solution for any confidential paper waste. Good luck to anyone trying to recreate my credit card number from the mush inside Worm #2373's guts.
6) Most of the major problems with wormeries (pest infestations, smell, wet conditions) can be dealt with easily by burying food scraps deep and including plenty of torn up paper/card on top.
7) If you put loads of paper into your compost bin, it can form a bit of a solid modged-together layer once it gets wet. It'll do the same in a wormery, but then the worms just chomp right through it and you're good.
8) A wormery is a good talking point. Non-gardening people are much more interested in hearing about a wormery than they would be hearing about a regular compost bin.
9) They are appealing to children.
10) If you have good conditions, a few starter worms can rapidly increase in number until they can manage a really good volume of food waste.
11) The worms can process foods that you wouldn't want to put on your compost heap, like cooked foods, rice, pasta, bread etc.
12) If you wanted, you could use the worms for purposes in addition to the compost like Vinny's fishing worms or food for chickens.
Formerly self-contained, but expanding my gardening horizons beyond pots!
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