My Attempt At A Worm Farm

Since we're getting to the end of our Permaculture course with Geoff Lawton, we're going to start implementing some things around our house.  Technically speaking, the smaller the space is in permaculture, the more productive per square foot the space is.  First things first.  We're finishing up the design which we'll send to Geoff once we're finished.  That design will be graded and I'll receive a certificate if he approves.  In the meantime we're starting our soil and fertilizer production.  We've made our compost pin using recycled pallets from our work (I'll post the design for that later), and now we need a worm farm.  Worm farms are a great way not only to get rid of kitchen scraps, but to make grade A fertilizer.  So below is the manufacturing of said worm farm.

My neighbor was kind enough to throw out this perfectly good chair which I promptly grabbed a few weeks ago.  Sometimes being a pack-rat/scavenger turns out in my favor (sometimes).

Remove the cushion - which my youngest cat loves to lay on so I got a worm farm stand and a cat bed!

Worms need air, so I drilled holes all the way around the tub.

We also plan on using the "worm juice" that the worms create to make a nice liquid fertilizer, so I drilled a few holes in the bottom.  This tube has a lower rim which I'm hoping will help everything stay moist, and then any excess liquid will be collected for the fertilizer (basically so any water or moister added doesn't just shoot right through and everything dries out).

Alright, on to the filler.  For the bedding we'll be using shredded news paper, manure, and most of our kitchen scraps.  I used our home paper shredder to eat shred the news paper.  Make sure there isn't already a jam in your shredder before you start.

Also, the newspaper shouldn't have any glossy paper or use toxic ink.  Luckily we have a local FREE newspaper that was just the right amount after shredding the whole thing.

We purchased our worms (red wigglers) form unclejimswormfarm.com.  Seems pretty reasonable and most of the internet said to just buy them rather than try to collect them.  This seemed odd, but whatdya gonna do.

Once the worms come in we'll water the tub, fill it with scraps and manure, and set it in place.  We're using a used up laundry soap bottle and a funnel to collect the worm juice.  This should make a nice container for spreading the juice later.

Well that's it so far.  I'll either update another post or update this one once our worms come in and it's in place.  Wish us luck!

Update 09-03-13
Our worms finally made it in to us yesterday.  The box was pretty beat up, but the worms seem to have survived.  We watered the paper, then the pete moss the worms came in.  Then threw in some kitchen scraps just for good measure on top.

We tied some bungee cords around the tub to make sure it didn't slide off in the storms and placed it next to the fence.  

Checking on it late evening I found two worms trying to escape!  They can actually crawl up the side of the tub.  Luckily from the holes I drilled, the plastic was slightly pushed inwards which I think kept them in.  

We checked on them today and found a few dead looking worms on top.  I'm not sure if they were dead, or just not really moving.  One thing I was not expecting was the amount of flies inside the tub when I opened the lid.  I didn't find any maggots at the time, but they may pop up later.  

Black soldier fly maggots are really good composters.  however, they eat way more than the worms can and a lot faster.  Although they would be good for creating soil, they may starve out the worms, so we'll have to keep an eye out for those.  Also, these looked to be regular house flies which usually only seek out rotting meats and other animal byproducts that we don't put in our kitchen scraps.  Any recommendations are greatly appreciated.

What's your experience with worm farming?  Comment below.  Subscribe to keep up with the progress too.