Gardening Compost, Start a Wormery

The wormery is a bin (usually plastic) with a lid, and layers or chambers through which the worms move as they eat up the waste.

There is a collector tray at the bottom which holds the liquid that is produced, with a tap to run it off. The lowest chamber has a layer of bedding where the worms live to start with.

As you add small amounts of waste, the worms wriggle up the chambers to eat it — they can eat at least half their own weight in a day — and their casts (droppings) sink down.

Once almost full, take out of the bin the “Black Gold” in the bottom chamber and start again. If you provide the right conditions and regularly siphon off the liquid, the worms will go on eating and breeding for years on end.

Nearly 40 per cent of our domestic refuse is organic material — things like vegetable and fruit peelings, tea bags and food scraps — which can and should be recycled. If they’re sent to landfill sites, they produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming, and a liquid called leachate, which can contaminate water supplies.

An excellent way of being environmentally responsible and recycling your own organic waste is to feed it to a colony of worms in a wormery. These obliging wrigglers devour the waste (each worm eats up to half its bodyweight every day) in a dark bin and produce two natural byproducts: a top quality compost that gardeners sometimes call “Black Gold”, which you can use to condition the soil in your garden and in containers; and a liquid that you can dilute to make a superb tonic for your plants.

You can make your own wormery, using stackable storage boxes, wire mesh, a drain cock and synthetic carpet for a lid, but the simplest way to get started is to buy a readymade kit, complete with a supply of the same kind of worms that normally live in well-rotted manure or compost heaps.

Indoors or outdoors?

Wormery bins are often described as “odour free”, but many people find that when they lift the lid off to add more scraps, a strong earthy smell wafts out. So, it may be a better idea to keep your wormery in a utility room or outside the back door, rather than in the kitchen. Even if you rather like the earthy smell, you may find that the liquid that you need to siphon off too pungent. When draining off this liquid, use rubber gloves and store the concentrated plant food in a jar with a tight lid until you need to use it. Then dilute it 1:10 with water and watch your plants perk up within days.

Another reason for keeping the bin outside is that fruit flies are often attracted to the waste in summer and lay their eggs in it. They’re harmless, but a nuisance in the kitchen.

What composting worms like

A mixture of dry and wet waste, such as vegetable scraps, fruit peelings and cores, egg shells, coffee grains, tea bags, cardboard from eggboxes and toilet roll centres, shredded paper, dust from the vacuum cleaner.

• Dark, moist (but not wet) living conditions, at a fairly constant temperature. Keep them out of scorching heat in summer, and protected from frost during winter (for example, with an insulation jacket).
• Good air circulation.
• Regular amounts of waste, chopped up small or shredded.

What composting worms don’t like

• Too thick a layer of waste above them, which cuts off their air supply and makes their living conditions sour and airless.
• Too many foods that make the conditions acid, such as onions and lemons.
• Waterlogged living conditions — the liquid at the bottom needs to be drained off frequently and dry waste, especially cardboard, needs to be added regularly.

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