I had started my worm farm (wormery) in a similar bucket a few months before I retired and moved. I have a smallish car which was fully loaded and topped with that bucket as we sold our house and traveled a few months, well over 3000 km. visiting family and friends before looking for our final retirement home. I now keep 5 ‘colonies’ in larger bins (about the size of your clear bin). I used a good potting mix for about half filling the bottom of the container, then a bunch of the veggies scraps and paper towels and assorted paper. I topped the pile with flattened takeout containers, cardboard & lined with thin plastic. The worms eat the cardboard and the plastic retains too much moisture but easily cleaned out. Seems the worms are tolerant of a little anoxia. I don’t have holes in my bins but I regularly move things around when I feed them. We produce lots of organic worm food. Living in a desert climate, I have to regularly spray water on the flattened cardboard containers to keep them slightly moist. Worms like to hang out there, but also in the food scraps and a few even down in the potting mix, which is moist but not saturated. I use this to fertilize and revive all my wicking beds and plants in the ground. The worms multiply quickly as food is available. I use some of the worms to feed my fish part of my aquaponic system. The worm bins also have doddle bugs (aka roly-poly, pillbug, wood lice, …) which hang out between the cardboards. The fish like them too. Seems like my red wigglers are pervasive throughout my greenhouse and garden. I don’t think they have spread too far into the desert though.
Biggest I’ve used is a 5 Gallon one. But whichever size as you say I’ve found they are tolerant of anaerobic conditions as that’s where I tended to find loads of them, practically swimming😂
Our compost heap is absolutely teeming with red wrigglers. We put quite a lot of cardboard in our compost and they use it to nest and breed. I keep thinking about setting up a wor meet but I figure my homemade compost has a lot of goodness in from them anyway
A small pumpkin cut in half and placed on top of the vermicompost will trap them all in just a few hours. Also a great way to feed them if you're away from them for an extended period. 🪱❤
I love my worm tower. I have had it for about 12 years. I save my kitchen scrapes in a large jar with a lid for a few days so some of them are starting to rot. Then add them to the top bin of my worm tower. I add shredded cardboard/paper on top, which is where they nest. I think the coffee grounds are good grit for them, but I also add a sprinkle of rock phosphate about once a month. My castings tend to be quite wet, which isn’t ideal, but I just mix it into my potting mix like you were mixing it with the coir. It has done wonders for my garden.
Great to see some worms survived. The population will take off from here if you give them great food. I give mine a big handful of mixed scraps a couple of times a week. Sometimes a teaspoon of lime to keep things sweet. Keep us posted on this. Worms are magicians
Love this video. I've had a Can o' Worms in the shed by the back door for 15 years. I love listening to the worms! Avocados are their favourite food (and mine). I leave a watering can under the open tap. The liquor makes a great plant food. It's no work to run. I wouldn't bee without it. Larger stuff goes on my compost bins. Greetings from north Wales, UK.
I’ll need to start mine from scratch. But like yours I used to have it raised up and the tap left open. Not great if it rained so I should have thought that but through😅
Worms have gizzards so they need a form of grit to help them digest the food scraps, so I add ground eggshells in mine. This will also help your worm population. Also a way to dry out preharvest is to add some toilet roll tubes. They absorb the mositure and are easy to take out, plus the worms tend to migrate into them. Add bedding every time you feed to control the moisture. Happy vermicomposting!
Ahh yes I forgot to mention this. How do you grind your egg shell? I couldn’t never get the pieces small enough. I started to use sand in the end which I hear works well too.
@@homegrowngarden For some reason my comment on here suggesting to use a coffee grinder for egg shells and watching the TH-cam channel “vermicompost learn by doing” on here was deleted.....twice 😕
Well ripe banana is a great bait, they love it. My worms appreciate a bit of grit…. I give them finely crushed egg shells. I love the tap at the bottom of your worm bucket….pure gold.
Thanks for showing us the right way to do it. I’ve tried a few home made ones over the years and always found worms were a law unto themselves!😅I used to to find them by the dozen in the wettest, most horrible, anaerobic level of whichever contraption I had devised😅. I had a little piece of rubber tubing attached to the tap and a container to catch drips. I had the wormery raised on a couple of bricks outdoors. My recent one, like yours, has been sadly neglected but I felt good making it from a bucket that had been fly-tipped in a hedgerow. I might start mine up again for the summer now that I’ve seen yours👍Where to find branding worms again…? I have a video of my production process somewhere 😊
Can’t say I’m going to follow your lead, but I do know it’s a fantastic way to improve your garden. Very interesting, hats off to you and all you do. Thanks for sharing with us. 👍❤️😊
Hiya Katrina Thankyou for sharing I have heard of the Wormary, however never watched a detailed video of how they work appreciate your break down for us newbies. Take care blessings Luv Ontario Canada 🇨🇦🐝
Apart from inspiring me to start a wormery, you gave me the idea to mix coir to the contents of one of my compost bins which was wet and lumpy. A few weeks later it is drier, the lumps have gone and it’s ready to put on my garden 🙌. Thanks Katrina!
Never seen a wormery before, you made it look so interesting, it certainly did look like sludge at the bottom but of course it is so full of nutrients, looking forward to seeing more updates on the worms 🪱🪱
I've also been neglecting my poor worms. My setup is a large storage container, the type you might keep holiday decorations in in the garage. I drilled many holes around the top and thats about it. I've had it for one year now and I really like how easy it is to use.
Hello Katrina, I am so excited about this I have been very curious and interested so why not do it yet? IDK I am going to research supplies and start something this year! Still looking forward to a very special 2023 garden! bye for now be safe
amazing video! you put so much effort in to this, thanks for showing us your set up ☺️ i have 2 wormeries, one tower and one massive tub. we are also in a flat and i definitely wouldn’t recommend these methods for flat dwellers - worms love exploring and frequently they escape 😭 which often means they die if i don’t see it happening
Your composting worms should NOT be “exploring” 😂 This only happens when they are not “happy” with their home (too waterlogged/dry/ anerobic/hot etc). Definitely check your conditions in your worm bin. Check out “Vermicompost learn by doing” on TH-cam, he’s really good! My bins and wormies are thriving thanks to him, I have at least 20kg/40lbs of worm castings waiting for me to harvest and I’ve only been doing it for 8 months😅 (ps I’m an apartment dweller too)
I have mine in a bathtub. When its time to move them, i dig the on the lower part and put lots of melon. In one or two days they are all in the "melon palace" munching and i can take the worm castings of the bathtub(not all go away but it saves lots of work taking them out). Use eggshells, they love to make their nest inside the shells. Deo Gratias
If you have an area in your plot you know has worms it's really easy to collect a ton. All you need to do is set newspaper or cardboard down and water it in. Never let the cardboard or newspaper dry out. You can set a piece of black plastic on top. In a couple of days you can lift and you should be able to gather as many as you need.
Thank you for showing the process...watching this video while having my meal ..stirfry noodles😂haha..didn't feel yucky,guess a sign for me to defo start making vermicompost from scratch😊
Who else could get so excited about poop? Gardeners! I just harvested a bunch of composted leaf mold. It’s so amazing and rich. Getting a worm box is on my list.
I dig down about a foot (12”) or more and put all my table scraps,grass clippings,pine cone’s,sticks,ashes from the fire pit-fireplace all in my garden. I always have an abundance of worms whenever I go fishing. And my soil is so rich and black.
I have had a wormery for years and when it came to replace it because the wood had rotten - it resembled a bee hive and I and the worms loved it - I was tempted to buy a Subpod which is a below ground level wormery with no ability to harvest the liquid. it also attracted slugs and woodlice and was a complete disaster! I know exactly where I shall go now to replace it!
This was so interesting Katrina! I would love to have a go at making a wormery - could I just take some of the red wrigglers from my compost bin to start it off?
Smart. Here in New Jersey, worms are actually considered invasive non natives. They eat our forest floor’s leaf litter to the detriment of salamanders. I have tons of worms bc I just leave the fallen leaves.
The bait box would have attracted more if not all if there hadn’t been fresh bedding also in the rest of the bucket. But you got through it anyway. Ps a banana peel or pumpkin will indeed attract them all
One time I let the worm bedding get too dry where they worked their way out to die on the concrete. It stank so much! The worms actually do like it damp.
Mine were originally started from a clump of mature horse manure. The manure was the bedding and the worms were already in it. I’m sure you can also buy them online just make sure they’re the tiger worms aka red wrigglers.
Vermicompost is jot just about the nutrients but also the hormones and vitamins and amino acids, live beneficial bacteria of the worms. Drying it means losing lots of that.
Greetings from the Free State of Florida, and hellow to ya'all on the other side of the Pond. I enjoy your videos very much, their just full of useful information. But occassionally you use some words that i just do not understand. The problem with this video was the term "fortnight", I most likely misspelled it, but what does a "fortnight" mean in American English? Or Southern English that is.
I had started my worm farm (wormery) in a similar bucket a few months before I retired and moved. I have a smallish car which was fully loaded and topped with that bucket as we sold our house and traveled a few months, well over 3000 km. visiting family and friends before looking for our final retirement home.
I now keep 5 ‘colonies’ in larger bins (about the size of your clear bin). I used a good potting mix for about half filling the bottom of the container, then a bunch of the veggies scraps and paper towels and assorted paper. I topped the pile with flattened takeout containers, cardboard & lined with thin plastic. The worms eat the cardboard and the plastic retains too much moisture but easily cleaned out. Seems the worms are tolerant of a little anoxia. I don’t have holes in my bins but I regularly move things around when I feed them. We produce lots of organic worm food. Living in a desert climate, I have to regularly spray water on the flattened cardboard containers to keep them slightly moist. Worms like to hang out there, but also in the food scraps and a few even down in the potting mix, which is moist but not saturated. I use this to fertilize and revive all my wicking beds and plants in the ground. The worms multiply quickly as food is available. I use some of the worms to feed my fish part of my aquaponic system. The worm bins also have doddle bugs (aka roly-poly, pillbug, wood lice, …) which hang out between the cardboards. The fish like them too. Seems like my red wigglers are pervasive throughout my greenhouse and garden. I don’t think they have spread too far into the desert though.
Biggest I’ve used is a 5 Gallon one. But whichever size as you say I’ve found they are tolerant of anaerobic conditions as that’s where I tended to find loads of them, practically swimming😂
Our compost heap is absolutely teeming with red wrigglers. We put quite a lot of cardboard in our compost and they use it to nest and breed. I keep thinking about setting up a wor meet but I figure my homemade compost has a lot of goodness in from them anyway
A small pumpkin cut in half and placed on top of the vermicompost will trap them all in just a few hours. Also a great way to feed them if you're away from them for an extended period. 🪱❤
I love my worm tower. I have had it for about 12 years. I save my kitchen scrapes in a large jar with a lid for a few days so some of them are starting to rot. Then add them to the top bin of my worm tower. I add shredded cardboard/paper on top, which is where they nest. I think the coffee grounds are good grit for them, but I also add a sprinkle of rock phosphate about once a month. My castings tend to be quite wet, which isn’t ideal, but I just mix it into my potting mix like you were mixing it with the coir. It has done wonders for my garden.
This was so interesting. I didn’t even realise worms needed “bedding”! How cute ❤🪱
Best post ever! I now feel I wouldn't screw up a wormery if I gave it a go.
Great to see some worms survived. The population will take off from here if you give them great food. I give mine a big handful of mixed scraps a couple of times a week. Sometimes a teaspoon of lime to keep things sweet. Keep us posted on this. Worms are magicians
Keep you veggie & other food scraps in the freezer. It raptures cell walls of veggies and makes it much easier for worms to consume it.
Love this video. I've had a Can o' Worms in the shed by the back door for 15 years. I love listening to the worms! Avocados are their favourite food (and mine). I leave a watering can under the open tap. The liquor makes a great plant food. It's no work to run. I wouldn't bee without it. Larger stuff goes on my compost bins.
Greetings from north Wales, UK.
I’ll need to start mine from scratch. But like yours I used to have it raised up and the tap left open. Not great if it rained so I should have thought that but through😅
Love my worm farm, easy to work with & the casting is pure black gold for the garden. A regular source of free liquid fertilizer too.🐛
Perfect timing. I was just outside all night and came in popped on TH-cam and I get a wormery lesson. I'm thinking about making one.
Your garden is like an garden of eden💪
Worms have gizzards so they need a form of grit to help them digest the food scraps, so I add ground eggshells in mine. This will also help your worm population. Also a way to dry out preharvest is to add some toilet roll tubes. They absorb the mositure and are easy to take out, plus the worms tend to migrate into them. Add bedding every time you feed to control the moisture. Happy vermicomposting!
Ahh yes I forgot to mention this. How do you grind your egg shell? I couldn’t never get the pieces small enough. I started to use sand in the end which I hear works well too.
@@homegrowngarden I use a pestle and mortar
@@homegrowngarden For some reason my comment on here suggesting to use a coffee grinder for egg shells and watching the TH-cam channel “vermicompost learn by doing” on here was deleted.....twice 😕
@@homegrowngarden I use an old coffee grinder. You can grind it as fine as a powder this way
Well ripe banana is a great bait, they love it. My worms appreciate a bit of grit…. I give them finely crushed egg shells.
I love the tap at the bottom of your worm bucket….pure gold.
Thanks for showing us the right way to do it. I’ve tried a few home made ones over the years and always found worms were a law unto themselves!😅I used to to find them by the dozen in the wettest, most horrible, anaerobic level of whichever contraption I had devised😅. I had a little piece of rubber tubing attached to the tap and a container to catch drips. I had the wormery raised on a couple of bricks outdoors. My recent one, like yours, has been sadly neglected but I felt good making it from a bucket that had been fly-tipped in a hedgerow. I might start mine up again for the summer now that I’ve seen yours👍Where to find branding worms again…? I have a video of my production process somewhere 😊
Thank you! Your wormer is so cute! Here in the states I’ve only seen the big bins the men make.😆 I would totally buy one of these!
Can’t say I’m going to follow your lead, but I do know it’s a fantastic way to improve your garden. Very interesting, hats off to you and all you do. Thanks for sharing with us. 👍❤️😊
Thank You for sharing this with us it’s totally fascinating 🍃🌸🍃
Hiya Katrina Thankyou for sharing I have heard of the Wormary, however never watched a detailed video of how they work appreciate your break down for us newbies. Take care blessings Luv Ontario Canada 🇨🇦🐝
Thanks
Thanks!
The Beetroot earrings made me smile!
Apart from inspiring me to start a wormery, you gave me the idea to mix coir to the contents of one of my compost bins which was wet and lumpy. A few weeks later it is drier, the lumps have gone and it’s ready to put on my garden 🙌. Thanks Katrina!
Wonderful! 🪱
Thanks for the motivating video. Wanted to do worms last year but didn't get round to it. Have a great year..!
Never seen a wormery before, you made it look so interesting, it certainly did look like sludge at the bottom but of course it is so full of nutrients, looking forward to seeing more updates on the worms 🪱🪱
Such a great video, Katrina ❤
I've also been neglecting my poor worms. My setup is a large storage container, the type you might keep holiday decorations in in the garage. I drilled many holes around the top and thats about it. I've had it for one year now and I really like how easy it is to use.
I think it’s worth a try if you have a spare container of any sort. Nice to experiment.
Hello Katrina, I am so excited about this I have been very curious and interested so why not do it yet? IDK I am going to research supplies and start something this year!
Still looking forward to a very special 2023 garden! bye for now be safe
That's a lot of work, but worth it. Iyouve given me the courage to try it.
cool video. been a while since i watched one from you. have a great week
enjoyable video katrina
Fun video. My outside worms get mostly weeds this time of year…winter
Thanks Katrina, i think we are going to give this a go. Thank you X
I do the three bucket system and love it. I am hoping to refresh this year. My farm will be two. 😊
Lovely informative video. Thank you
amazing video! you put so much effort in to this, thanks for showing us your set up ☺️ i have 2 wormeries, one tower and one massive tub. we are also in a flat and i definitely wouldn’t recommend these methods for flat dwellers - worms love exploring and frequently they escape 😭 which often means they die if i don’t see it happening
Your composting worms should NOT be “exploring” 😂 This only happens when they are not “happy” with their home (too waterlogged/dry/ anerobic/hot etc). Definitely check your conditions in your worm bin. Check out “Vermicompost learn by doing” on TH-cam, he’s really good! My bins and wormies are thriving thanks to him, I have at least 20kg/40lbs of worm castings waiting for me to harvest and I’ve only been doing it for 8 months😅 (ps I’m an apartment dweller too)
I have mine in a bathtub. When its time to move them, i dig the on the lower part and put lots of melon.
In one or two days they are all in the "melon palace" munching and i can take the worm castings of the bathtub(not all go away but it saves lots of work taking them out).
Use eggshells, they love to make their nest inside the shells.
Deo Gratias
If you have an area in your plot you know has worms it's really easy to collect a ton. All you need to do is set newspaper or cardboard down and water it in. Never let the cardboard or newspaper dry out. You can set a piece of black plastic on top. In a couple of days you can lift and you should be able to gather as many as you need.
I discovered that they like to congregate in between grass roots of my lawn so that's where I look for them
Thank you for showing the process...watching this video while having my meal ..stirfry noodles😂haha..didn't feel yucky,guess a sign for me to defo start making vermicompost from scratch😊
What an easy way to start a worm compost bin. I’ll give her a search.
Who else could get so excited about poop? Gardeners! I just harvested a bunch of composted leaf mold. It’s so amazing and rich. Getting a worm box is on my list.
I dig down about a foot (12”) or more and put all my table scraps,grass clippings,pine cone’s,sticks,ashes from the fire pit-fireplace all in my garden. I always have an abundance of worms whenever I go fishing. And my soil is so rich and black.
I have had a wormery for years and when it came to replace it because the wood had rotten - it resembled a bee hive and I and the worms loved it - I was tempted to buy a Subpod which is a below ground level wormery with no ability to harvest the liquid. it also attracted slugs and woodlice and was a complete disaster! I know exactly where I shall go now to replace it!
This was so interesting Katrina! I would love to have a go at making a wormery - could I just take some of the red wrigglers from my compost bin to start it off?
Absolutely!
I'm trying to set up a wormery farm!! I've got egg shells and tea bags in mine!! I'm not sure if that's the right way though!!
Hi were do you get the worms from at the start 😊
I miss your old rubberboots❤❤❤
Great video. Will you be posting one when you plant your dahlias? Really interested to see when and how you do it.
Possibly, but there’s a video already on that subject as part of my Dahlia play list - th-cam.com/video/rCkyR884dgE/w-d-xo.html
@@homegrowngarden Yes, seen this one too, didn't know if your doing it again or anything different..Thanks
What great video thanks
Thanks for watching!
You inspired me to check mine after a couple years. I Hope some lived!
Ohhh! Good luck. Report back with your findings 🪱 🤞
@@homegrowngarden Nope, nary a one. I cleaned it out and called a local supplier and will start up again tomorrow I hope. Thanks for the inspiration.
Smart. Here in New Jersey, worms are actually considered invasive non natives. They eat our forest floor’s leaf litter to the detriment of salamanders. I have tons of worms bc I just leave the fallen leaves.
The bait box would have attracted more if not all if there hadn’t been fresh bedding also in the rest of the bucket. But you got through it anyway. Ps a banana peel or pumpkin will indeed attract them all
I would wet the coir a little more. It still looks a little to dry
Thanks, I did go back and wet it further. I’m too use to making compost with it not worm bedding 🙈
One time I let the worm bedding get too dry where they worked their way out to die on the concrete. It stank so much! The worms actually do like it damp.
حديقتك جميلة مثل عيونك ❤
Black gold🎉
Worms don’t like red vegetables like tomatoes. Nice video
love
Where can you get worms from?
Mine were originally started from a clump of mature horse manure. The manure was the bedding and the worms were already in it. I’m sure you can also buy them online just make sure they’re the tiger worms aka red wrigglers.
I wrote this comment elsewhere but I discovered there are a lot of them in between the grass roots in the shaded area of my lawn. I would check there
Like video nice
Vermicompost is jot just about the nutrients but also the hormones and vitamins and amino acids, live beneficial bacteria of the worms. Drying it means losing lots of that.
I can see the universe
Greetings from the Free State of Florida, and hellow to ya'all on the other side of the Pond. I enjoy your videos very much, their just full of useful information. But occassionally you use some words that i just do not understand. The problem with this video was the term "fortnight", I most likely misspelled it, but what does a "fortnight" mean in American English? Or Southern English that is.
It's 2 weeks. A contraction of "fourteen nights".
The americans use fortnight also, though it’s considered educated english. Has Florida seceded already ? I’m not current on american politics
🌼👍
Who would have thought?!
They like sweet fruit banana scin, apple.
💯♥️🥰💯🙏🙏🙏😊
I have 18 chickens my chicken poop pile is rammed with red worms
I was watching this and thinking, "why not just tip it out and pick out the worms?". Women! 😉
it was soaking wet which make it awfully time consuming compared to the bait method. This way I didn’t miss any 😉
@@homegrowngarden hehe! Only joking Katrina.🙂
tulismanore
click bait 🪤