Worms and Wormeries (Merged Discussion Thread)

Butterfliesarepretty

I have just received my wormery, followed instructions and have to sprinkle worm food over bedding for two weeks until all bedding used up by the worms then I can start putting small cut up vegetables and paper slowly till they get used to it.:beer:

alanobrien

mark13 wrote: »

If there are too many worms in the wormery can some be released into the garden ?

You should never have to many they self regulate their population.

mark13

checked the worm pee, and yes there was a lot collected already, only 9 months since i started worming and have worm juice !! impressive !! I have diluted it and spread it on some plants, lets see if the flourish .

jiblets1

Hi, I bought a wormery which arrived at the end of last week, and half of the worms seem to have died. The ones at the bottom are still ok, but there are loads of dead ones at the top. I put some food (maybe a bit too much) on the top, as my instructions told me to introduce food bit by bit - is it that that's killed them? I'll be really gutted if they all die - I don't know if I'll have the heart to try again.

Any tips on what I might have done wrong so I can try to save the rest?

ethansmum

Okay first things first. What type of wormery do you have? Did you use a coir bedding block? Are you sure they are dead?

I would say that they would not have died within a week if you had overfed them. What condition where they in when you got them?

maria340

Are you sure they weren't dead when you put them in? I've bought worms before and had quite a few dead ones. Hard to tell for a couple of days.
Or maybe too much acidic food in, doubtful, as its new you probably are careful of what you put in.
I used to have a 'can'o'worms' wormery. The first year, It was left out in the rain and I lost a lot of worms to drowning. I felt absolutely awful about it.

Pricy147

So is the general consensus - the more worms in the garden the better? How much are wormery's, and where can you get them from?

maria340

Pricy147 wrote: »

So is the general consensus - the more worms in the garden the better? How much are wormery's, and where can you get them from?

I got mine from wiggly wigglers on line. About £100 for whole package.
However you don't need all the stuff that comes with it, Just the housing (£60)and the worms. Check freeads etc for 2nd hand one.
The worms should be composting worms not eathworms as they just burrow down.
I've just freecycled mine and put the worms on my compost as it was proving to be a waste of time with a compost heap as well. The only advantage was having a constant supply of liquid fertiliser or 'worm wee' as we call it which I put on my lawn and plants.

This may be useful to find out more about how to care for them.
http://www.reln.com.au/pdfs/Can-O-Worms_Booklet.pdf

jiblets1

Ok, so I bought a full pack half price from wigglywigglers, so it came with the bedding that you soak and break up, which I gave a good squeeze before I put it in.
I guess lots of them could have been dead as I put them in, as the live wiggling ones would have been enough for me not to notice the still ones in the middle.
They shouldn't have drowned, as it's all nice and soft, but not wet.

I guess I'm hoping now that they were dead when I got them, so it's not my fault! I'm assuming I need to pick out as many dead ones as I can to stop it smelling. Also, as the dead ones all seem to be at the top, so they would be where I left them when I poured them in.

Pricey, mine cost £45 ish on wigglywigglers, they said it was a slight second, but there was hardly a mark on it when it arrived.

ethansmum

I got 500g of worms off Wiggly wrigglers myself on monday and I must be honest and say that they were in fantastic condition. I got a wormcity off ebay which was supposed to have 250g of worms but there were atleast 4x the amount in the WW worms. I have no dead ones at all.

Did you set the wormery up and open the packaging asap? I just can't understand whats gone wrong.

I'm really surprised that they have died, but I have heard alot of positive feedback about the customer services at WW, so why don't you give them a ring?