What follows here is a personal account from Kirsten Ainsworth on her experience setting up a commercially bought worm farm:

Shaking with excitement and anticipation at the thought of starting my very first worm farm I took myself off to the local hardware store and re-emerged with a big box and a small box and $100 less in my purse. That afternoon, I assembled the black plastic trays onto the legs provided and settled my new farm into a shady corner, letting loose the 1,000 red and black ringed worms of all sizes to feast on some coconut husk for the first two weeks (all part of the kit).

I have heard horror stories of worms drowning, suffering from heatstroke and being raided in the night by possums seeking a midnight feast, so I was nervous about how to proceed in week 3 – when it’s time to add real food scraps and test out my worms. The top tips I have garnered include chopping food down into 2cm pieces (worms have little mouths), don’t add citrus or onions (they don’t like it), and don’t add meat or diary (if you want to keep the vermin away).

I have to confess, in my eco-thrifty way, I normally just pop into the local eco store daily, getting only what I need – but now it makes me feel a little guilty with the responsibility of 1,000 worms weighing on my conscience!

However, my worms and I have now settled into a nice little routine. All week I collect all my veggie and fruit scraps, tea bags and coffee grinds into a container on my kitchen bench and on Saturday mornings whilst my coffee brews and before settling in the with the paper, I feed my worms.

Chopping up the container full of scraps takes two minutes, the walk to the worm farm takes 10 seconds, lift up the lid and worm blanket and scatter the scraps over the farm, add a handful of soil in the bag kept next to the worm farm and replace the lid, another 30 seconds – and all done! Every two weeks I pour five litres of water over the worm farm (they think it’s raining) and the bucket under the worm farm tap is filled with a tea coloured liquid which makes my little garden squeal with joy and grow like wild.

A worm population explosion meant that in just three months I was faced the challenge of changing the trays. It sounded complicated in the manual but all that was required was to add a new tray on top of the old one. Then make the worms hungry by adding a new layer of fresh food on the new tray, and they slide on up into the top tray. Then simply remove the lower tray and spread all its garden gold onto your plants.

Adding a worm farm to your home is fun, it makes your garden and pot plants grow and your garbage disappear. Now I am wondering what the weekly garbage collectors think when they roll our medium size garbage bin from the curb every Monday morning and flip the lid to find only one little biodegradable bag sitting deep in the bottom of an otherwise empty bin, waiting for its fate. Imagine if we all had worm farms…

For loads more information on Worms, Worm Farms and What to Feed your Worms see our round up of the best worms facts: Worm Farm Facts

Image Credit: Jacob Levine via Flickr Creative Commons

To connect with businesses that can help with your worm farm see the Garden section of our directory.