Better Than Fairies At the Bottom Of Your Garden.

Some of you can probably boast you have hundreds of friends on your Face book. We can boast we have thousands of friends at the bottom of our garden. They work away quietly without disturbing the sanctuary around us and provide nourishment for our plants all year round.

These friends are the worms that live peacefully in their home under a large Camellia bush.

In every garden we have made we have had a working worm farm. During the 1980’s we set up our first and we still have some of their descendants I suppose. I find it hard to tell one from another although the family similarities must be there.

Worm farms seem to give some folk problems so I thought I would write a short article on their care.

I have a friend who worried she was overfeeding her worms and fussed about their diet like a flustered mum. She had a point, it is possible to over feed them when you first begin, but once the numbers multiply you will find that the scraps from an average size home will never be too much.

Without earth worms our Australian soil would be even poorer than it is and we need to do everything we can to encourage these little fellows, such as mulching, composting using organic fertilisers and not using pesticides which will get into the food chain in our family gardens and into the surrounding area through birds, lizards, frogs and insects which visit our gardens.

Earth worms differ from worm farm worms.

Your worm farm needs worms that work in compost not soil. They can be purchased from most good hardware stores and on-line.

You may also purchase your worm farm container from any hardware store.

If however you want to make one for yourself, Grass Roots Magazine has featured various home constructed designs over the years and the internet gardening sites are full of great inventive ideas for recycling old box freezers, baths and all types of receptacles which will make great worm farms.

For me the main thing is that they are capable of being drained well and that they can be kept cool and moist and access to the processed worm castings is easy.

I originally purchased a box of a specially selected mix of various worms which will be active during different times of the year making the farm more efficient at gobbling up our waste.

It amazes me at times when I go down to visit them with a full container of scraps to  find they have been munching away so greedily since my last visit that the level has suddenly dropped because the weather has really suited some of the different breeds.

I feed them kitchen scraps, shredded paper; I don’t think you should put glossy or heavily coloured paper in with them. It is more suitable in compost bins or trenching into your garden -I love shredding advertising and political letter drops that are so wasteful. We also add raked up garden material and anything I think that will be able to be broken down. Sometimes a light sprinkle of lime is needed but if you crush your eggshells it may not be, they will keep the pH level even and stop the bedding becoming acidic.

I am aware that many people suggest leaving onions, garlic and citrus peel out but I find that they cope with small amounts of these foods quite well. I don’t ever put meat into them. They are vegetarians and could be most offended. It would also encourage flies and make the farm smell.

If we have a large amount of waste for any reason we put it into a different composting bin area where it is broken down.

I always imagine they have a party after I add some extra cow manure or chicken manure but then I may just be a little too imaginative sometimes.

The dog droppings go into a special compost bin and when the contents of that bin are ready, it is spread around the flower and ornamental gardens.

The ‘juice’ to use a polite word for the worm pee I put into one of those containers which can be attached to the hose and I water it onto the plants that way, sometimes combining it with fish emulsion. If you decide to do this, DO wash your plants before eating them!

Crush your eggshells and if you get a few vinegar flies put shredded paper or some grass clippings over them.

We have a sort of corkscrew/ bottle opener shaped metal pole my husband made for stirring the farm up when it seems a little solid or uneven.

Keep them moist but not wet. If they begin to come up to the lid of the farm it is usually because the weather or the conditions are too wet.

This year our snap dragons are over a meter tall and the spring garden has been the best since we returned to the North East of Victoria three years ago. When we came the garden was stunted, dry, hungry and in need of a big transfusion of liquid food.

During summer when the winds are dry and the temperatures are high we always keep the worms’ damp and put a shade cloth cover over the lid which is long enough to cover the sides. I also put a brick on top because it is usually this type of weather that brings wind with it. Ours are in the shade most of the time but wind can be very drying.

The ‘Under The Worm Farm Lid’ cartoons came about because I have a habit of chatting to the worms whenever I visit them. They aren’t great conversationalists but appear to be good listeners.

Because I’m a freelance writer of humorous articles and a big fan of the zany English comedies such as the Goon Show, Monty Python and other goofy English comedy I began to imagine some of the conversations which may well take place under our worm farm’s lid. So was born the cartoon series.’ Under The Worm Farm Lid.’ By ‘The Scrappers.’