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I’m slowly working towards some simplicity within the home, but hey! It’s a lot of hard work!

I love having a go at growing my own veges and always use herbs fresh from my garden. I try to plant from seed whenever I can and have learnt to save and share my own seed for the following year. I make Award Winning preserves and pickles; and my husband brews Award Winning boutique beers as well. I love to stockpile and try to limit quick trips to the shops. I dabble in bread making and enjoy making my own stocks too.

I enjoy feeding my family good hearty meals, nothing like those tiny restaurant stacks you have to look for on the plate. My husband maintains our vehicles and machinery and we both enjoy fabricating on a small scale mostly relying on metal & timber recyclers for any materials needed.


While I don’t always have time to reply to comments, I love reading them. I hope you enjoy your stay and I hope you learn something new because I love sharing what I learn, and I'm always looking for another new skill myself.

Cheers!

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

EASY CHEAP WORM FARM

While completing the compost/recycling workshop...I learn't many things as you would know from my last post.
We also learn't how to build the cheapest worm farm I have ever seen...So with some worms from the course, thanks to Brook who won and shared her prize....I set off home to find a nice cool spot for my worms and to source the items needed to make them a home.

Now all you need is 2 foam broccoli boxes...4 kebab sticks....and worms,.....some compost and maybe some mulch.    and food scraps......How easy could it be?  This easy....watch this............


The top box gets holes punched in it.

The bottom box gets 4 skewers stabbed into it like this.....

The top box is now connected to the bottom box.

Add some shredded newspaper on the bottom of the top box.

Wet it down...

Add some compost for your worms to rummage in...
.if you don't have compost and are just starting out, you can use plain peat.

Feed your worms some food scraps.
Not too many, as you may only have a small amount of worms...
.the ratio of food you give them has to be small enough for them to cope,
otherwise the scraps may rot and you may be able to smell it.
Where to get your worms, you ask?  Ask a neighbour or a friend who you know already has a working worm farm....a handful of worms are not going to be missed from a fully established worm farm....or put a request out on freecycle even.
DRAINAGE & HARVESTING THE CASTINGS.....
When I want to collect the "worm tea" (worm wee)...I will just remove the top box, pour the tea into another container and re-assemble the boxes....
To harvest the castings...When the top box is almost full....I will scoop all the worms over to one end of the box...and put some food down on the lower empty side....this will in turn make the worms migrate to the food, leaving me to gather the lovely goodness that they have created.....add some compost to the box....allow them to sort it out...and feed them if needed....back to work for the worms.

5 comments:

  1. A great idea, I am just trying to work out how I can put a tap in the bottom to make draining easier. This might be my new project :0)

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  2. Hey Debbie, thanks....yes, If I can work out a tap system that will be great...but this will do for now....

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  3. I like this idea.. not 100% clear in my head about getting the castings out.. but to the draining.I think you could use a wine/oil bottle cork, if you made a really tidy hole you could probably fit a cork into it. You would have to be gentle pulling the cork out so it didn't pull off bits of polystyrene making the hole to big.

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  4. Thanks Wendy, a cork is a good idea, but when you cut polystyrene in tends to crumble away easily....but I will try a cork too...later on. Thanks for the idea.

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  5. I use the stopper/pouring spout from an old olive oil pouring bottle. I cut the the hole a little smaller than the stopper and worked it in. The spout has a small plastic cover that stops leakage. Just uncap it and let gravity handle the rest.

    ReplyDelete

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