Homemade compost is so exciting! (MERGED)

sara_501

ethansmum wrote: »

Get yourself a wormery- free compost and worm wee tea! (Its the best liquid feed ever!)

thanks for the post ethansmum,

does a wormery work exactly the same as a composter with the addition of worms ie. can i compost everything that a composter would?

do you use it yourself?

would you recommend any in particular?

any problems with pests?

thanks in advance

lynseydee

I came across this website to give me some more information when I was looking into possibly getting a wormery.

http://www.envocare.co.uk/wormeries.htm

ethansmum

I have had a wormery for the last 3 months and just this week I set up our second one.

You can add most things in it - except meat and citrus. I guess you couldn't add meat to an outdoors composter either so they are similar in that respect. They also need alot of paper and cardboard. All peelings, leftover veggies and fruit etc go in there.

It doesn't smell bad- its more of an earthy smell- mine is kept indoors (just because the kids love them and refuse to put them outside). As for other creatures in the wormery ie fruitflies, (I have not had this problem) there are ways to get rid of them without harming the worms ie lime and more newspaper.

sara_501

ethansmum wrote: »

I have had a wormery for the last 3 months and just this week I set up our second one.

You can add most things in it - except meat and citrus. I guess you couldn't add meat to an outdoors composter either so they are similar in that respect. They also need alot of paper and cardboard. All peelings, leftover veggies and fruit etc go in there.

It doesn't smell bad- its more of an earthy smell- mine is kept indoors (just because the kids love them and refuse to put them outside). As for other creatures in the wormery ie fruitflies, (I have not had this problem) there are ways to get rid of them without harming the worms ie lime and more newspaper.

where did you get yours from?

can any MSE's recommend a cheap way to set this up?

ethansmum

You can sometimes get them off the council at a reduced cost of £66 (from recyclenow website), or you can get wormeries from ebay for about £35 (I have a wormcity- not as aesthetically pleasing as the can o worms but does the same job.)

Another thing to look at is the Bokashi system, which has been mentioned. I tried those for 6 months too. Basically you can add every food scrap to that one including bones and meat. Everytime you add waste you add a handful of the bran. The bran helps to breakdown the waste by fermentation. When the bucket is full you leave it for 2 weeks, afterwhich you either dump it in your compost bin or (as I do) dig a hole in the garden throw it in and cover it up. Personally i don't mind the smell, other hate it. I was put off digging the stuff into the garden- especially in winter when the soil is rock solid. I only once had a bucket of putrid mess when it did not ferment correctly. I put too much bread into it- that was awful!! Oh, with this system you also get bokashi juice which is similar to worm wee, except that you can use it as a drain cleaner (yuk- not me!).

Got to the wriggly wrigglers site - they have everything there, but with more detail and explainations.

Hope this helps.
Tracy

ethansmum

PS I got my can o'worms from Tesco - it was 1/2 price- £45, which is a bargain- no body else knew what it was LOL!

PS Wormes love banana skins!!

Malski

Banaana skins have alot of potassium and are good for plants, I was told by the fater-in-law that you should put banana skins around the roots of plants early autumn, unless you have a compost bin.

Also I would not recommend a compost bin indoors as it could get full of fruit flies, plus worms need to get into the bin and the air that they leave by burrowing helps break down the composting process.

sara_501

Malski wrote: »

Banaana skins have alot of potassium and are good for plants, I was told by the fater-in-law that you should put banana skins around the roots of plants early autumn, unless you have a compost bin.

Also I would not recommend a compost bin indoors as it could get full of fruit flies, plus worms need to get into the bin and the air that they leave by burrowing helps break down the composting process.

So basically it's a wormery if I decide on indoors or a compost bin if we take it outside?

If you do use a wormery do you have to bury the materials into the soil or place them in another composter as with the bukashi (sp) bins?

also how do you prevent your worms escaping from the bin every time you empty it? could be costly to replace them every time?

thanks

Sara

Malski

I tend to throw worms into our compost bin when I find them elsewhere in the garden. the compost bin has no bottom so the worms can get up into the compost, along with the other mini beasts that help the process, there is some daft ratio of so many worms to a square foot of earth so I wouldn't worry about worms escaping as others would just take their place.

MookieSnuffles

Hi ya,
you should'nt have problems with rats or anything like that unless you put meat or dairy into your bin, things like hedgehogs and mice sometimes try and make a home in your bin because its nice and warm, but this happens only very occasionaly if you fish around on the internet there's only a few cases where this has been mentioned.

Um, I set up a website on my gardening experiences early on this year and Ive got a big section on compost bins and composting if you'd like to take a look and see if there's any hints that would help you? There's a few links and stuff if you get bored of my drivel and wants some more indepth facts.

Link is: http://www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!/madamgreenfingers/compost.htm

(!!!!!!!!!!!!! then /)

Hope Ive helped,

Mel x