Consider for a moment the environmental footprint of a family of 5, with 3 of them under 5 years. On a good day it’s about the size of one from the abominable snowman! So, to assuage our conscience - and attempt to get our bins to close, DSO and I have invested in a worm farm.
The strange thing is that I am in equal parts drawn to, and repulsed by our little living compost factory. I love peeling the veggies and thinking - “Nope that’s not for the bin, the worms will get a great meal out of this! ” I also love the idea of our table waste fertilizing the garden.
However, I find the actual contents of the black box quite repulsive. I have to hold my nose when I feed them and brace myself to collect the liquid fertilizer that gathers in the bottom tray. I also fret about their diet - have they had too much banana peel today?
I often read about worm farms on the internet. This is not helpful as the material often focuses on problems…
To be honest, if our wormy friends become over run by slaters or vermin I think I’ll have to opt out. I’ll leave them on a street corner with a sign attached - “worm farm free to a good home”.
I can handle 3 children, 1 DSO, 1 dog and 1,000 worms but the vermin - they would just push me over the edge!
environment, family, recycling, worm farm
November 4th, 2007 at 7:21 am
Praps I should steer clear of online diagnostic attempts, but anyway… if your worm farm stinks,you may be overfeeding: an easy thing to do when your 1000 worms are young and farm-fattened. Could be worth giving them a break until you can’t identify any of the vegetable corpses, then slowly adding food at a rate that is consumed in a couple of days. As they get bigger they’ll eat more quickly. A couple of other tricks I have learnt in my short time as a worm-wrangler:
-freeze the vegie scraps (also helps me to slow down my feeding rate) and then blitz them in the microwave before adding them so they are nice and squishy (if you had time (with a new baby- ha!) and a blender you were happy to use you could also mush it all up a bit in there). This helps the wormies to eat a bit faster
-put a ~15cm layer of dry grass clippings into the farm and put all your food scraps under this. Seems to reduce odour and discourage the flies and stuff a bit
If you’re just repulsed by the worms themselves, then other than hypnotherapy, no helpful suggestions!
November 4th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
I think I am overfeeding - just got a little bit excited at the start! Might take your advice and give them a break for a few days…
December 14th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Curious to know how the mum-worm relations are going? Are they less repulsive?
December 17th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Yes - thanks for the tips Vtg. I do think of you whenever I’m brave enough to lift the lid on our wormy friends - and I must say things have improved! The cut grass improved aesthetics enormously and since I’ve slowed down the scraps they seem to have migrated up from the mezzanine!
I have also adopted some of your terminology - often asking DSO if he can identify any vegetable corpses - and that’s just in our fridge - just joking!
Having said that I haven’t ruled out hypnotherapy because I still find that “worm jus” gut wrenchingly revolting!
December 18th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Good thing I don’t know you in person, or else I might take offence at you saying every time you see a worm you think of me!
Glad it’s going better, though a part of me was hoping I could drive by and score a free worm farm from your kerb!