My worms are saving me money (Just Green Can-O-Worms Wormery)

Member Name: SusanLesley

Product:	Just Green Can-O-Worms Wormery
Date:	01/12/03 (2617 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clean, sweet smelling compost, Good fun, Recycling

Disadvantages: Initial outlay

As most of you probably know I can't bear to throw anything away that might prove useful to someone else and it is to this end that I recycle as much as I can - glass, cardboard, papers etc.

At our new home here in Llandudno we have a courtyard garden with raised flower beds so there isn't a suitable place for a compost heap, so I bought a cheap dustbin and threw the kitchen waste in that to make some compost. Yes, I know now!!!!

The result was a vile smelling, revolting, soggy wet mess. I did put it in the bottom of the planters that I used for my runner beans and it did them a power of good but, even though I wore thick gardening gloves, my hands smelled horrible for days afterwards, no matter how often I washed them!

I needed a better way of composting - enter the wormery!

I had heard of wormeries, but had never actually used one or even seen one in operation, but I first saw one in the RSPB gift book. It was called a Can O Worms and looked interesting to say the least, but it was also very expensive.

My next move was to investigate on the Internet where I found the site called www.wigglywigglers.co.uk and they would provide the Can O Worms for £80 with free 48-hour delivery. Sadly that was the cheapest price I could find, but hey, I only need to buy it once don't I? Then I get free compost forever!

I will just point out that the current price is now £89.

The wormery itself when fully constructed stands 73cm high and is 50cm in diameter. It is round in shape and stands on three legs.

It is made up of the base unit, into which you slot the legs, which catches any excess liquid that comes from the wormery and has a tap on the side so that it can be drained into a watering can. It can then be mixed one part liquid to 10 parts water for feeding your plants.

The next three levels are all flat round trays, each about 5" deep, where the worms work. The final piece is the li
d complete with air holes for ventilation.

The wormery comes supplied with all the parts as described above, a moisture mat, a coir block and the worms. If you don't want the live worms to be sent with the wormery you can opt to have a voucher and collect them from the supplier yourself. We had our worms delivered with the wormery. They arrive securely packed in a special bag, so don't have visions of rounding them up as they try to escape!

Our first step was to get a bucket of tepid water and soak the coir block. This made it expand to form the bedding into which we would put our worms to get them acclimatised to their new home.

Meanwhile Dave put the legs onto the bottom unit for me making sure they were secure so that the wormery wouldn't topple over.

Once the base unit was constructed the first level was then placed on top. I put the bulked up coir into the tray and added the worms. It is advisable to leave the lid off for a little while as the worms will move away from the light and so will burrow down into their bedding. We stayed around whilst this was happening as we have a lot of gulls here, being by the sea, and they may have thought we were providing them with a light snack!

I then put the moisture mat on top and put the lid on.

We had to leave them for a couple of days to get used to the new surroundings and then we could begin to add kitchen waste for them to eat.

Once that level was full, I added the next level, moved the moisture mat to the top and began to fill level two. Then finally added level three in the same way. It took about three months to get to this stage, as the amount of kitchen waste to the amount of compost is roughly 8:1. So eight buckets of kitchen waste would turn into one bucket of compost.

I have had my wormery since about August and it is now November and I have only just taken out my first tray of lovely, environmentally friendly compost.
<
br>The basic idea of the wormery when it is fully operational is that the bottom layer will be almost ready to put onto the garden, the middle layer will be half eaten and the top layer will be new waste being added all the time. When the bottom layer is ready, it is removed; the compost used to either top dress or dig into the garden and is then replaced, empty, on the top of the wormery for the next lot of kitchen waste.

The worms work in the bottom layer until they have eaten everything, then they migrate up into the next layer through the holes in the bottom of the tray above. They eat the kitchen waste and compost comes out of the other end, not wishing to be too blunt about it!

The compost that the worms produce is a beautiful rich, dark brown colour and looks as good as any compost that you could buy at the local garden centre. Of course it isn't as good - it's much better!

The other BIG advantage is that it doesn't smell! You could even keep a wormery in the house if you had a suitable corner for it.

The worms that are supplied by Wiggly Wigglers are 'dendras' (Dendrabaena veneta) and 'reds' (Eisenia andreii). These are best sort for composting and will happily work their way through kitchen and garden waste.

The food supply for the worms can be virtually anything that has lived and died, except for meat, and they don't like onions or citrus fruits as it makes the mixture too acidic for them to work properly. So really that means any kitchen waste - peelings, tea bags, egg shells (which also help to keep down the acidity level), coffee grounds etc, and some garden waste although you mustn't put in anything too woody and obviously don't over fill the wormery!

The other thing to remember is to put 40% of the volume of the kitchen waste in as paper or cardboard otherwise the mixture will be too wet and will encourage fruit flies to breed. These don't cause any

harm but
can be a bit of a nuisance when you open the top of the wormery for feeding and they fly out.

The package from Wiggly Wigglers comes complete with a bag of worm treat to encourage then feed and a bag of lime mix to prevent the mixture becoming too acidic. It is advisable to put a handful of each mix in every 10 days or so.

The wormery must be kept out of the frost and sheltered from heavy rain or the mixture will get too wet, so I left mine outside until about October and have now got it in a corner of the garden shed.

The worms won't die if they get too cold but they will slow down and that would never do! LOL!

The worms don't sleep so they work 24 hours a day and they reproduce to provide the optimum number of worms to work in the amount of food available - clever eh?

Well you can see that I am well pleased with my wormery and am rather enthusiastic about it - so I do apologise if I have gone on a bit in this opinion!

It certainly makes for a good talking point when we have guests and I say I'm off to feed the worms!

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