How to Create a Worm Farm
While you spend most of your gardening time getting rid of pests, there is one living creature you will want to add. Worms help your garden soil by eating debris in it and aerating the soil as they burrow through it. To get your garden off to a great start, you should begin by raising worms in your own worm farm. The bonus you get from this enterprise is a supply of free fishing bait. Does this Spark an idea?
Things You'll Need
- Opaque (non-transparent), waterproof box with a lid
- Ice pick or screwdriver
- Red wrigglers worms
- Small kitchen scale
- Black and white shredded newspaper, dampened to fill the container
- 3 cups gardening soil (not potting soil)
- 1/4 cup crushed egg shells from cooked eggs
- Food (such as shells from boiled eggs, rice, oatmeal, vegetable scraps, or other unsalted food scraps)
Instructions
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Poke several holes in the lid of the container. Worms need air to breathe, the same as all living creatures. Do not poke holes in the container itself.
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Add the dampened, shredded newspaper to the inside of the box. The paper needs to be moist, but not soggy.
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Sprinkle the garden soil and the crushed eggs over the newspaper, but do not pack it. The worms will need room to wriggle.
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Place the worms on the kitchen scale and determine their total weight. This number is important in determining how much to feed them.
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Take the weight of the worms and divide it in half. This is the weight of the food scraps per day you will need to add to the worm farm.
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Add the worms to the newspaper and soil.
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Weigh out the proper amount of food scraps by using the kitchen scale to determine how much will be half the weight of the worms.
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Place the food scraps inside the container with the worms, buried in the newspaper. Keep an eye on the amount, as the worms grow and reproduce, they will need more food.
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Replace the newspaper and soil after it becomes processed by the worms so that it is unrecognizable. When you replace the newspaper and soil, save the old and add it to your garden as a fertilizer. Remove the worms, put the used soil and newspaper into your garden and follow the steps above to create a new worm farm. You will have to replace the newspaper and soil about once every 4 to 6 weeks.
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Tips & Warnings
Keep the worm farm in a cool, dark place, away from vibrations such as those from a refrigerator or water heater. Make sure that the egg shells were removed from boiled eggs, this means that the shells will be cooked as well. The calcium will benefit the worms, but they cannot eat uncooked egg shells.
Do not feed acidic foods, salty foods, or meat to your worms.
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Comments
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CAUTION IN BUYING THESE WORMS, Eisenia foetida, or"European Night crawlers."are non native worms, Note We sell a Florida Red Worm that is native to Florida. Eisenia foetida, or"European Night crawlers."are non native worms, This is why we. with any non-native species, it is important not to allow them to reach the wild. Their voracious appetites and reproductive rates (especially among the red wigglers) have been known to upset the delicate balance of the hardwood forests by consuming the leaf litter too quickly. This event leaves too little leaf letter to slowly incubate the hard shelled nuts and leads to excessive erosion as well as negatively affecting the pH of the soil. So, do your best to keep them confined! Florida Red worms, Florida Red Worm Farms, Red worms for sale Florida. Eisenia foetida From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Eisenia fetida, known under various common names, including redworms, brandling worms, tiger worms and red wiggler worms, are a species of earthworm adapted to decaying organic material. They thrive in rotting vegetation, compost, and manure; they are epigeal. They are rarely found in soil, instead like Lumbricus rubellus they prefer conditions where other worms cannot survive. They are used for vermicomposting. They are native to Europe, but have been introduced (both intentionally and unintentionally) to every other continent except Antarctica, occasionally threatening native species.
